Quantum Physics for Everyone: Lecture 1 - Quantum information science and the physics of light

0:00 Introduction to the short course Summer 2020
4:45 The U.S. National Quantum Initiative
8:56 Overview of quantum information science (QIS
17:41 the Nine Key Concepts of QIS
18:28 A quantum experiment with light - The discreteness of light detection.
43:40 Intro to Lecture 2: Photon pair generation by nonlinear optics (spontaneous parametric down conversion)
55:32 Crash course on Probability (preview)

DESCRIPTION OF VIDEO SERIES: This video is one of twelve sessions of an informal course presented in Summer 2020 by Michael Raymer, a physics professor at the University of Oregon, for anyone interested in quantum physics as it relates to Quantum Information Science and Quantum Optics (the study of photons). The link to the full set of lectures is:

The course is for those with some familiarity with introductory physics, but not necessarily quantum physics. The math is kept to a bare minimum in order to focus on concepts instead.

The videos are edited to remove segments of less importance, including intervals for those who attended the sessions live to work on problem solving. You may wish to pause the video at those moments to work on the problems yourself. During those problem-solving sessions, I mention Zoom polls, which showed on screen during the live presentations but not in the videos. I used the polls to get real-time feedback from the participants on the questions and answers. All the questions and answers are shown on the slides.

The course was sponsored by the Center for Integrated Quantum Materials at Harvard University* and organized by the center’s Education Director, Tina Brower-Thomas of Howard University. M. Raymer and T. Brower-Thomas are also supported in part by the NSF ERC Center for Quantum Networks.** We thank Melvin Clay for support in video editing.

*NSF grant DMR 1231319
** NSF grant ERC 1941583