Quantum Carousel 2025
There are perks to being born in the millennium: you can always locate your age, Robbie Williams wrote a song for you, and, in my case, I turned 25 in the year of Carousel 2025. I'm no neuroscientist, but I've heard the rumours - your mid-twenties are when the final pieces of your brain click into place. Apparently, the first thing my newly completed brain decided to do was bring back Carousel—and make it bigger than ever!
The most crucial addition to Carousel planning was fellow Quantum PhD student, Hugh Barrett. His sharp decision-making, understanding of the vision, and engineering bravery (he did need to climb a few ladders to toggle with the projector) shaped an incredible event.
Quantum Carousel 2025 saw ten fantastic speakers take to the stage in Bristol’s Armada House for a marvellous night of science communication. The talent amongst the performers was once again phenomenal across the board.
Science Communicator Chris Stewart kicked off the night with a motivating singalong number on the acoustic guitar. Felix Flicker introduced us to the world of quantum kung-fu with a demonstration on audience volunteer Tony Short. Michael Berry spun the cogs in our brains with his talk on how quantum has democratised music. Antonia Seymour (CEO IOP Publishing) and Matin Durrani (Editor-in-Chief, Physics World) opened our Eat a Pitta dinner interval, during which hundreds of falafels found their forever homes. Everyone grabbed their seats - cabaret style, this is a show, people! - to watch Eesa Ali and Sebastien Bisdee welcome volunteers to the stage to see who could align a laser the fastest. The room was in stitches! The incredible Maria Violaris returned to Carousel to teach us the fundamentals of quantum error correction using LEGO. Mike Shubrook’s stand-up routine on the quantum thermodynamics of beer brought the house down - we can all say we knew him before his inevitable appearance on Live At the Apollo! John Rarity and his glamourous assistant Hugh Barrett capped off the night with a hilarious entanglement magic show, before Josh Silverstone (Founder, CEO of Hartley Ultrafast) kickstarted the networking drinks session.
Kindly sponsored by the EPSRC-funded Quantum Engineering Centre for Doctoral Training, IOP Publishing, and Hartley Ultrafast, the evening was a hit! Thank you to our incredible performers and to the audience for coming along for an evening of fun!
