Quantum for Everyone

Fall 2025 Review in Tweets

Happy first day of school! This semester, I'm teaching:

1. #PHY131 Quantum Physics and Technology for Everyone #QuantumForEveryone, a new 2-credit general education course

2. #PHY201 General Physics for the Life Sciences 1 #GenPhys1

3. #PHY531 #QuantumMechanics

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) August 19, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: "Quantum" in ubiquitous in popular culture, but it just means the smallest amount of something. Quantum science explores these quanta and their properties, and established quantum technologies leverage them for huge economic impact. pic.twitter.com/fNc5Qwk3ja

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) August 19, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Quantum information science promises advanced quantum sensors, computers, and networks. Most important applications are likely undiscovered. National quantum initiatives spur R&D on these critical and emerging technologies. Image: @qureca. pic.twitter.com/S24CSCVnVp

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) August 21, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: 2025 is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology #QuantumYear. Many jobs in quantum do not require quantum expertise. Scientists felt that the laws of physics were largely settled, but investigations into light upended that. pic.twitter.com/BVNMrXSzE7

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) August 28, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Students conducted the two-slit interference experiment, demonstrating the wave nature of light. Then, we covered blackbody radiation and Planck's solution by quantizing energy. This was the birth of quantum science. pic.twitter.com/7tKMQCX6R2

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) September 2, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Planck's constant now defines the kilogram. Einstein explained the photoelectric effect by interpreting Planck's quanta as particles of light, or photons. Blackbody radiation and the photoelectric effect underpin two forms of night vision.

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) September 4, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: We built spectroscopes and observed the spectra of various atoms. Bohr's model of the atom explains the spectra, where electrons orbit in quantized shells and jump up or down shells by absorbing or emitting photons. pic.twitter.com/ZnOkDn6Pz0

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) September 9, 2025

We also had story time and read from The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip (Rutherford's nuclear model of the atom), Optical Physics for Babies by @csferrie (dispersion), and Quantum Physics for Babies by @csferrie (Bohr model).

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) September 9, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: The quantized spectra of atoms has many applications, including neon signs, fireworks, and spectroscopy (identifying elements in the sun's atmosphere, rotation of the sun and expansion of the universe with Doppler shift). pic.twitter.com/0VacoimRP1

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) September 11, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: The quantized energy levels of atoms can be used to create lasers (PhET simulation pictured) and atomic clocks, the latter of which are used to define the second and meter. pic.twitter.com/UypGTghhLr

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) September 16, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Atomic clocks are used for timing and synchronization in the internet, computer security, stock market, oil and gas exploration, power grid, and for imaging black holes. Furthermore, atomic clocks make GPS possible.

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) September 19, 2025

Today in #PHY131: We started Unit 4 on Quantization of Energy in Condensed Matter. We did a fluorescence experiment with different colors of light, and we learned about conductors, insulators, and semiconductors and their band structure. pic.twitter.com/74Bt8fzg0T

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) September 23, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: (1) Light can excite an electron in a semiconductor, making it mobile and decreasing resistance. This is a photoresistor (pictured), which detects light. (2) The conductivity of a semiconductor can be modified by doping, or adding impurities. pic.twitter.com/UEJ7t63DhE

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) September 25, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Applications of p-n junctions. Solar panels, diodes (including rectifying AC to DC), light emitting diodes (LEDs), photodiodes (including counting items on a conveyor belt, and photoelectric smoke detectors), and digital cameras. pic.twitter.com/QL4dbckCw3

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) October 1, 2025

We also read Computer Engineering for Babies by @crobertsbmw. https://t.co/VuGxVjscN4

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) October 3, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: The double slit experiment with electrons shows that matter has a wave nature, too. Video from https://t.co/MECDPU5LHA. An electron microscope uses electrons, which have shorter wavelengths than light, to view small objects, even atoms! pic.twitter.com/ZpHFDus5xL

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) October 10, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: In atoms, electrons' waves takes shapes called orbitals, which are responsible for chemistry. A quantum particle can tunnel through a barrier, yielding in scanning tunneling microscopes, flash memory, and this year's Nobel Prize in Physics.

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) October 21, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Quantum particles can have intrinsic angular momentum, called spin, and act like little bar magnets. This yields fine and hyperfine energy levels for atomic clocks and astronomy, and also yields magnetic sensors and MRI machines.

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) October 23, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Review of Part 1 of the course, which consists of seven units focusing on established quantum technologies. An exam on this is next!

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) October 28, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Thaumatropes show superimposed images (video). Similarly, waves are superpositions of distinct waves, like guitar string waves and light waves / polarization. Quantum objects are waves with superpositions with probabilistic outcomes. pic.twitter.com/GsZewzmbaT

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) November 4, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: A quantum bit, or qubit, can be 0, 1, or a superposition of both. It can be represented by a point on a Bloch sphere, measured with respect to opposite points on the sphere, and used to generate random numbers and establish a secret key. pic.twitter.com/THRhuAi5tI

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) November 7, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Quantum waves move in ways consistent with their probabilistic nature, called unitary evolution. For a qubit, it's a rotation on the Bloch sphere. We played Qubit Touchdown and a new game, Qubit Flip, I adapted from @dajmeyer's penny game. pic.twitter.com/VupQEXTy6V

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) November 12, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Students got to use real quantum computers by @IBMQuantum to generate random numbers. The Money or Tiger game is a variation of Deutsch's algorithm, and a quantum approach can solve it with certainty.

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) November 13, 2025

Y'day in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: No-cloning makes quantum money resist counterfeiting. Quantum computers solve some problems faster than classical; DiVincenco gave criteria for building them. Entanglement is a quantum correlation. Bell tests show no local hidden variables.

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) November 19, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Entanglement can't be used to transmit information faster than light. Quantum error correction spreads information across many entangled qubits so no one qubit carries much information. Entanglement can be used to teleport a qubit's state.

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) November 21, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: Quantum repeaters use entanglement swapping to establish long-range entanglement, and then quantum teleportation can be used. Quantum networks can enable distributed quantum computing and sensing. We also played Entanglion by @IBMResearch. pic.twitter.com/M53srzkHng

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) November 25, 2025

Today in #PHY131 #QuantumForEveryone: The uncertainty principle says there's a tradeoff in the precision of some quantities, like position and momentum. @LIGO "squeezes" the uncertainty of one quantity, at the expense of increasing another's, to detect gravitational waves better.

— Tom Wong (@thomasgwong) December 2, 2025