Playing with a Quantum Toy – Jul 7

Rather than just blow stuff up, lasers can be used to cool gases down to temperatures near absolute zero. Stanford physicist Benjamin Lev uses lasers and these ultracold gases to create a quantum version of the classic Newton's Cradle toy. Playing with this quantum toy has led to insights into the emergence of what is called "quantum chaos." Controlling such chaos may lead to new quantum devices for solving challenging practical problems.

Dr. Ben Lev is Associate Professor in Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University. Among his other honors, Prof. Lev has earned both a Presidential Early Career Award and an NSF Career Award for his research into the realm of the very small (and/or very cold): quantum microscopy, quantum gases, and quantum neural networks, in particular.