The book. A welcome coincidence, the same week when the Frenchman Alain Aspect received the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, one of his colleagues, Julien Bobroff, published a book narrating the heart of the work rewarded by the Swedish academy. This is fortunate because the subject, quantum physics, is difficult. And more particularly what Alain Aspect himself baptized “the second quantum revolution”. Happy too because this popularization is made by one of its most brilliant representatives, a professor at the University of Paris-Saclay, who has been digging this ground for several years. Either with his students, who are testing innovative teaching methods, or with future designers, graphic designers, illustrators, or even with the general public in the form of videos or conferences… Happy, finally, because this book follows the first part, in some way kind, which only two years ago presented the first quantum revolution (Quantum otherwiseFlammarion, 2020).
The method is the same. An alert and passionate pen, illuminating images and analogies (polarized photons are dolphins, the processor of a quantum computer is a wave pool…), and simple and clear drawings. Added to this are small details that show that the author has wet his shirt by immersing himself in research articles or that he has discussed with his colleagues who are more specialized than him. The whole is therefore alive to sweep away one of the most difficult subjects in contemporary science.
Applications already there, or almost
To our knowledge, it is even without doubt the most complete book to explain the functioning of these promising machines that are quantum computers, capable of surpassing one day soon the supercomputers of today on specific tasks. A good half of the book is devoted to them.
The rest is also worth seeing because the applications are already there, or almost, without really being seen. It is therefore a question of atomic clocks and their optical successors, connections secured by quantum physics, and quantum simulators, machines not to be confused with quantum computers and which could well help physicists and chemists of matter, and also atom gravimeters which make it possible to very finely measure the variations of gravity on the surface of the Earth and therefore to better understand its structure and dynamics. A chapter is even devoted to diamonds, whose small flaws could improve MRI instruments or perform… quantum calculation.
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