Aalto University

Video: How to cool down a quantum bit?

Challenge

How to tell the general public about a major step forward in quantum physics in less than two minutes?

Solution

Quantum physicists around the world are competing to develop the first quantum computer. A research group lead by Mikko Möttönen at Aalto University has been the first to discover how to tame a quantum bit in order to produce reliable calculations.

A research article on the breakthrough was published in the respected scientific journal Nature. But the team also wanted the general public and the media to know about their striking study. Since quantum physics is one of the least comprehensible scientific fields, we decided to set out to achieve the impossible and condense the study’s key discovery into a less than two-minute-long video.

And so we began making it understandable to the layperson. We wrote a video script in tight cooperation with Möttönen and the research group. In the end, the video shot on Lake Kuusijärvi’s ice on a frosty winter’s day ended up demonstrating the major quantum physics finding using a sled, snowballs and researchers diving into a hole in the ice.

We contacted the media and created content for social media channels in order to distribute the video. The video has now been watched over 18,000 times and it has been called, among other things, the best video on quantum physics ever made.

Watch the video