"Quantum Foundations, Quantum Technologies & the 'Stuck-In-the-Elevator Talk'" by Professor Klaus Mølmer

Klaus Mølmer will offer a brief, non-technical introduction to the quantum mechanical revolution a century ago and explain why the physics community was and always will be divided over the interpretation of its two unique features: the superposition principle and the measurement postulate. We experience now a second quantum revolution with dreams of technologies that apply exactly these foundational elements and strange properties of quantum mechanics. He will illustrate this with examples from his own research on quantum measurements and sensors that attain quantum advantages in physical measurements. Quantum computing, communication and sensing are wonderful goals for research: they challenge our imagination, they ask completely new questions from theory and they deepen our understanding in many ways. But, Klaus find it scaring to hear decision makers forecast and build policies on near term threats and benefits with little or no support in actual achievements. Hence, he will conclude with my "stuck-in-the-elevator talk" to decision makers on the challenges, the limitations, the easy counter measures to threats and the, ignored and sometimes stronger, non-quantum alternatives.