Photo of Robert Weinbaum and Katie Sautter in a futuristic lab background with a dilution fridge and optical table. A cat is walking behind them.

Education and Training

Quick Quantum: For High Schoolers

Quantum technology is expected to revolutionize the American workforce in the coming decade. And building interest among high school students—a generation essential to the field’s skyrocketing advancement—is part of a national effort to meet that demand. 

Quick Quantum: For High Schoolers is a new educational YouTube series sponsored by Boeing and produced by the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE) with input from leading scientists from the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. This series introduces young people to quantum information science and engineering, which exploits the unusual properties of nature’s tiniest scales to create unhackable communications and other cutting-edge technology. 

New Episode:

"Entanglement"

  1. Energy level: one of the possible amounts of energy an electron can have when it is bound in an atom
  2. Quantum system: An object/device/anything that operates at the quantum level, and as such obeys quantum rules
  3. States: the possible outcomes of measurement in a quantum system
  4. Superposition: the ability of a quantum system to exist in a combination of its possible outcomes (states)
  5. Coherence: when a quantum system stays in superposition
  6. Decoherence: when a quantum system falls out of superposition, to exist in only one of its possible outcomes (states)
  7. Dilution refrigerator: an advanced cooling device that can bring its contents to temperatures as low as 2 milliKelvin; it allows quantum systems to remain completely isolated from air and heat, enabling longer coherence times
  8. Qubit: a quantum system with two possible states, where those states can be used to represent the 0 and 1 of a traditional computer bit
  9. Spin: a property unique to quantum particles that has two possible states: up or down 
  10. Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) Center: a defect in diamond where a carbon atom is replaced by a nitrogen atom, and an adjacent carbon atom is missing 
  11. Decoherence: when a quantum system falls out of superposition, to exist in only one of its possible outcomes (states)
  12. Entanglement: a uniquely quantum phenomenon where multiple quantum systems become one quantum system in superposition

"Entanglement" quiz:

Take the Quiz

"Entanglement" transcript:

View the Transcript

Quick Quantum Bits are short supplementary videos created to provide additional content for concepts described in the full episodes of the video series.

Watch the Quick Quantum Bit– How to Entangle

Additional Episodes

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