On 23 October at 7.30 p.m. in the Piazza del Duomo, two popular events are scheduled to illustrate the essential ideas of quantum physics in a rigorous yet accessible manner.
The mathematics of quantum physics will be illustrated through two different art languages: dance, to involve the audience first-hand, and projected images.
The two events are organised as part of the conference ‘Quantum Gases, Fundamental Interactions, and Cosmology’.
The Dance of the Qubits
Piazza del Duomo - 7.30 p.m.
Young dancers from the ‘Elsa Ghezzi’ School of Dance in Pisa will perform ‘The Dance of the Qubits ’, a choreography conceived by an interdisciplinary team, between dance and quantum physics.
Through mainly the movement of the arms, the dance faithfully reproduces a mathematical formalism used to visually represent a quantum state, that of the ‘Bloch sphere’. Each participant in the dance will represent one of the units of information within the computation of a quantum computer, i.e. a qubit.
Superposition, entanglement, operations between the qubits, and quantum measurement are the concepts represented in the dance, reproducing the visualisation that experienced people normally use. The meaning of the movements and the correspondence between these and the physical and mathematical language will be illustrated, in detail and always in an accessible manner, at the end of the choreography and before the audience is invited to join in the dance.
The temporal evolution of the wave function
Piazza del Duomo, Monumental Cemetery, approx.8:15 p.m.
The time evolution of the so-called wave function, i.e. the probability of finding one or more quantum particles in a region of space once a measurement is made, will be projected onto the south wall of the Monumental Cemetery.
This is the mathematical form that represents a property of the quantum particle, in this case its position (where it is). A visual representation of this probability is given through patterns of lights that will light up with an intensity proportional to that probability calculated by a computer using the famous Schroedinger equation. Again, an intuitive and accessible explanation of the projected images will be provided, after which the audience will be able to ask questions about the meaning of the content shown.
Organising bodies. The two events are organised by the Department of Physics and the Pisa section of the INFN, in collaboration with CircleU, the network of universities of which Pisa is a member, and the Institut quantique de Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada (co-organisation). The Elsa Ghezzi School of Dance of Pisa and Lorenzo Garzella's MUMU srl collaborated on the artistic part. The initiative, realised with the technical collaboration of the company Bufalini Francesco, and the financial support of the Association for Frontiers Detectors for Frontiers Physics, has the patronage of the Municipality of Pisa. The organisers would like to thank the Archbishop of Pisa Monsignor Giovanni Paolo Benotto and the Opera Primaziale Pisana, who authorised the event, for their collaboration.
