Abstract:
The Industrial Revolution meets the quantum-technology revolution! A steampunk adventure guide to how mind-blowing quantum physics is transforming our understanding of information and energy.
Victorian era steam engines and particle physics may seem worlds (as well as centuries) apart, yet a new branch of science, quantum thermodynamics, reenvisions the scientific underpinnings of the Industrial Revolution through the lens of today's roaring quantum information revolution. Classical thermodynamics, understood as the study of engines, energy, and efficiency, needs reimagining to take advantage of quantum mechanics, the basic framework that explores the nature of reality by peering at minute matters, down to the momentum of a single particle.
In her exciting new book, intrepid Harvard-trained physicist Dr. Nicole Yunger Halpern introduces these concepts to the uninitiated with what she calls "quantum steampunk," after the fantastical genre that pairs futuristic technologies with Victorian sensibilities. While readers follow the adventures of a rag-tag steampunk crew on trains, dirigibles, and automobiles, they explore questions such as, "Can quantum physics revolutionize engines?" and "What deeper secrets can quantum information reveal about the trajectory of time?"
Yunger Halpern also describes her own adventures in the quantum universe and provides an insider's look at the work of the scientists obsessed with its technological promise. Moving from fundamental physics to cutting-edge experimental applications, Quantum Steampunk explores the field's aesthetic, shares its whimsy, and gazes into the potential of a quantum future. The result is a blast for fans of science, science fiction, and fantasy.
Bio:
Nicole Yunger Halpern is a Fellow of the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, and an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Maryland. Nicole completed her PhD at Caltech, winning the international Ilya Prigogine Prize for a thermodynamics thesis. While an ITAMP Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, she won the International Quantum Technology Emerging Researcher Award. Other scientific accolades include the US ASPIRE Prize, the Mary Somerville Medal, the Hermann Weyl Prize, the Katharine B. Gebbie Young Scientist Award, and inclusion in the Science News “Ten to Watch” list of early- and mid-career scientists. Nicole re-envisions 19th-century thermodynamics for the 21st century, using quantum information theory. She has dubbed this research “quantum steampunk,” after the steampunk genre of art and literature that juxtaposes Victorian settings with futuristic technologies. She described this field in a book for the general public, Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday’s Tomorrow, which won the PROSE Award for Popular Science and Mathematics. Nicole also co-leads the Maryland Quantum-Thermodynamics Hub.