Quantum Carousel 2024
Have you ever been on Wikipedia and scrolled through the bio of your favourite actress, only to end up worming your way through a list of significant historical dates for them, and finding out you share a birthday with one of Taylor Swift’s cats? Someday, we could all end up on 31st July 2024, which marked the first ever Quantum Carousel.
Shall we indulge in a quick origin story? I remember being sat - well, slumped, the PhD has turned me into a prawn - in the Director of my PhD program’s office. He was listening carefully as I mused over creating an event which wasn’t quite a conference, but somehow managed to teleport (ha) some quantum to the masses. I wasn’t sure when to test-run this pilot and I didn’t even have a name. With his encouragement, this pipe dream became a reality. The goal was to create an event with an emphasis on performance. The audience was encouraged to engage with the speakers during the dinner interval, rather than a questions slot at the end of each act.
Quantum Carousel 2024 saw eleven speakers from across Quantum Engineering Technology (QET) Labs, Quantum Information Theory Group, and the University of Oxford take to the stage in Bristol’s Watershed for an amazing night of science communication. The talent amongst the performers was phenomenal across the board.
The event was motivated by freelance Science Communicator Chris Stewart who brilliantly explained the importance of science communication. Maria Violaris followed with a clever and thought-provoking poem titled Alice and Bob: The Scientists that Don’t Exist. The Little Orca That Could captured our hearts through Meagan Hough’s wonderful storytelling. John Rarity and his glamorous assistant Hugh Barrett brought out the belly laughs with their Entanglement and Secrets magic show, sealing the first half of the night. Everyone enjoyed some pizza and fizzy pop - but not me, I prefer orange juice - during the interval, before settling down for Alex Clark’s hilarious Powerpoint Karaoke. He did very well to present slides he had never seen before, some of which were contributed by his students! Ismael Lucas de Paiva gave a particularly visually engaging presentation on interaction-free measurements. Freddie Burns did the unbelievable - he explained the basics of photonics through juggling. Jorge Barreto delivered a very witty presentation on how not to give a presentation. Carrie Weidner, Hannah Seabrook and I ended the night with a rap on our experiences of the past academic year - I’ll never forget it.
Kindly sponsored by the EPSRC-funded Quantum Engineering Centre for Doctoral Training and QET Labs, the evening was a hoot! Thank you to our incredible performers and to the audience for coming along for an evening of fun!
