The Quantum Music project combined a piano with these quantum sounds to produce strange but beautiful music unlike anything I’d heard before. The quantum properties of the atoms, such as how they interact with one another, determine the frequencies of sound waves that can propagate in the BEC. These same types of vibrations in the air produce the sounds we hear. One aspect that can be studied with a BEC is quantum acoustics – the behaviour of oscillations and vibrations in the cloud. Studying BECs is a way of examining the consequences of quantum mechanics on a larger scale than is typically possible. At this low temperature, the microscopic quantum properties of the individual particles can all be treated collectively as a single, macroscopic quantum entity. This is a cloud of atoms that have been cooled down to just above absolute zero. They developed a device that attaches to each key of a piano so that, when the pianist plays, the information is piped to a computer and synthesiser, which plays ‘quantum’ tones in addition to the familiar reverberations in the piano.Īmong the tones used are those that represent a very quantum object: a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). In the Quantum Music project, physicists and musicians worked together to unite ‘the mysterious worlds of quantum physics and music for the first time’. But coming from Klaus Mølmer it was intriguing. If I hadn’t first heard of Quantum Music from a well-respected physicist, I would have scoffed the same way I did at the other ridiculous uses of the word. It’s used to describe homeopathy, dishwasher detergents and deodorant. As a quantum physicist, I’ve developed a reflexive eyeroll upon hearing the word applied to anything outside of physics. For this reason, the word ‘quantum’ has become shorthand for anything powerful or mystical, whether or not it has anything whatsoever to do with quantum mechanics. Quantum physics is weird and counterintuitive.
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