Time and Date:
Abingdon, Thursday 21 October, 2021 from 19:00 for 19:30
Abingdon United Football Club (Northcourt Rd, OX14 1PL, Abingdon)

This event will probably be delivered in person. Please check closer to the time. Anyone who was an active member of the society prior to the pandemic halting our in person talks, or who have joined this year, will have their membership honoured until January next year (2022). This means that for any members, this event is free! For guests, our original costs will be reinstated at £3 per person, free for under 18s. No booking required. See home page for COVID restrictions.

Title: Quantum Weirdness

At the smallest scale the world behaves very differently to our every-day expectations; a particle may be at two different places at the same time or Schrödinger’s cat may be dead and alive. This behaviour is described by quantum mechanics, which was developed in the 1920s, but that puzzles even the experts 100 years later.

This talk will be a beginner’s guide to the quantum world. We will explore how even the act of looking at something changes that very system. We will explore how this behaviour on very small scales contradicts our every-day experience. But without this quantum weirdness, many of today’s technologies would not be possible. Reality at the smallest scales may force us to re-evaluate how we see the world around us.

Speaker: Marius Weber

Marius Weber studied the Natural Science Tripos at Churchill College, Cambridge concentrating on Physics. He is now a PhD student at the University of Oxford at the Quantum Computing group of Professor Lucas. He is working on trapping single ions and manipulating them with lasers and microwaves to make a better (more reliable) quantum computer. He is also a non-stipendiary lecturer at Oriel College, Oxford.