Physicist Bob Coecke: ‘It’s easier to convince kids than adults about quantum mechanics’

The Belgian physicist and industrial musician on replacing maths with pictures, why he ’s now working in industry – and why we all need to understand subatomic physicsBelgian physicist and musician ProfBob Coecke, 55, wants to teach quantum physics to a mass audience. The paradox-filled theory that describes the microscopic realm has become a staple of science fiction, from Marvel ’sAnt-Man to the multiple Oscar-winningEverything Everywhere Allat Once. It ’s famously bizarre and, in the UK, the subject is mostly reserved for undergraduates specialising in physics because it requires grappling with complicated maths. But Coecke, aformer Oxford professor, has devised a maths-free framework using diagrams for total beginners, outlined inQuantum in Pictures, his book with Dr Stefano Gogioso that was published earlier this year. Over the summer, they ran an education experiment, teaching the pictorial method to UK schoolchildren – who then beat the average exam scores of Oxford University’s postgraduate physics students.Quantum physics is notoriously esoteric. Why should most people even want to study it?Think about AI. Think about how the world is getting f.ed up now. Billion-dollar companies are in charge of a revolution that could control the world and nobody understands what they are doing. I used to be an Oxford professor for 20 years and now I work in industry, with Quantinuum, building quantum computers [machines designed to exploit subatomic physics to one day ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Physics University of Oxford Artificial intelligence (AI) Computing Science Technology Engineering Mathematics Source Type: news