SIO430: Real or Bullshit: Quantum Products Edition!

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:15 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 430. I'm your host Thomas Smith and I've got a fun one for you today. Ann is back and we're gonna play a little game show.

Had this idea and I thought it was a fantastic one which is she often comes across bullshit quantum products or products that use quantum in their advertising or you know whatever and she thought it would be fun if she took some of those and she took some real products and we a little game that real or bullshit quantum edition, me tell you, it's harder than you might think, a lot of quantum stuff out there and some of it is real and some it isn't, let's see if you can tell the difference, we get to that, I just want to say we've got that patron hangout, monthly hangout.

It's been so fun each and every month. More people are coming every time. That's probably today as you're hearing this. That's Tuesday the 27th at 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 p.m. Eastern. Hang out with Lydia and I. Play some games. Chit chat. It's fun. It's nice little little group and we'd love to have you. For the top two tiers of patrons of either show, or WTDub.

And, of course, if you'd also like to avoid the ad break you're about to hear, you can go to patreon.com/seriouspod. There you go, two birds. You so much to all who do pledge the show. You're amazing. You make the show happen and let's that said, let's get on over to real or bullshit quantum product edition. Here we go.

0:01:45 Thomas: We are joined by Quantum, and it has been a while since you have become entangled with the show. How are you doing, government?

0:01:54 Anne: You know, trying not to take life too seriously.

0:01:57 Thomas: Stooge stuff, just typical, typical. Top secret men in black government steege quantum. I don't know, yeah, any You had a fantastic idea for an episode. I am very excited about it. I think we're going to hear about some quantum products.

0:01:59 Anne: Yeah, yeah. Way it goes. Yeah?

0:02:14 Anne: I thought we could play a game, which is, is it quantum?

0:02:18 Thomas: Mean, in the sense that everything is or in a specific quantum sense. How are we defining this? It's a game. I got to know the rules.

0:02:26 Anne: There's a spectrum here. I I have a list here of of things that you can, mostly that you can buy, and they may or may not be something that's based on quantum mechanics. They might be sort of quantum mechanicy. Might have just nothing to do with it, or they might just be a scam.

0:02:47 Thomas: Can't wait. I'm really excited. I think, hey, play along at home, everyone. Get your score sheet.

0:02:52 Anne: Let's see. Was going to start with an easy one for you, is depending how much detail you want to get into. Might be quantum.

0:02:58 Thomas: Hammer Oh, Yeah, It's been a minute since you've been on the show. You have expertise in this, and I'm sur you see a lot of uh stuff that's kind of silly and junk from time to time, and you've made sort of a bit of a collection here.

0:03:15 Anne: I've also destroyed my Google algorithm by buying a lot of quantum stuff and Google can't tell the difference.

0:03:21 Thomas: Oh, Yeah, That's Right, because you buy real, oh, that's okay, it's coming back to me, I remember, this is crazy, in case anyone didn't hear past episodes, you're you're doing real like quantum quantum sciencey stuff, but then you're like on Amazon trying to order quantum crystals or something. And make, it's your lab work, which sounds fake, but is real.

0:03:38 Anne: Yeah, like, um, thinks I'm super into crystal healing.

0:03:41 Thomas: Because quantum crystals are actually real. That's actually a thing that's used in real life. Oh,

0:03:41 Anne: Um, I might have a couple examples for you to guess which one's Real? Okay.

0:03:49 Thomas: I can't wait. All right.

0:03:51 Anne: Gonna start with an easy one, well, with what I hope is uh, easy one.

0:03:56 Thomas: Yeah. Appreciate you not qualify it like that until after I get it wrong. Then

0:04:01 Anne: First one is Quantum Dots for sale, uh,

0:04:04 Thomas: Quantum dots. Do I give any context? Is it like dipping dots or is it, do I get to know, is it edible or?

0:04:11 Anne: To the website site, they say it's out of lead sulfide, so maybe you don't want to eat it.

0:04:17 Thomas: No, it doesn't sound great.

0:04:19 Anne: Also lists them under artificial atoms and nanocrystals.

0:04:20 Thomas: Quantum dots, atoms. What would you make? Okay. This is going to blow my mind. Like, what would you take? What would I take? I don't know. I don't know. What would an artificial atom out of? Like, what like normally you use some leaves and and make natural atoms, but I mean, does it just mean you when you bonded some things that weren't? That sounds crazy to me. Dot. Don't know why that phrase quantum dot sounds like something, but I t, the artificial atoms, man, I'm going to go not, what am I guessing? Fake? Not real? What is, what are the actual, what should the guesses be?

0:04:51 Anne: Yeah, can go with fake or real or sorta. All right, these are from Sigma Aldrich, and you can buy 10 milliliters of quantum dots for $721. And this is real.

0:04:55 Thomas: Or real or sorta? Okay. I'm gonna go fake.

0:05:11 Thomas: That a good deal? So It's

0:05:12 Anne: Have no idea. Have collaborators who fabricate them for us. So I have never had to buy a quantum dot.

0:05:19 Thomas: Real? This is a real thing you use? In The quantum lab? It's You use quantum dots and you have a guy, you have guy, a quantum dot guy?

0:05:20 Anne: Is real. Oh, yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, we got we got some quantum dot guys and, they, make them for, the, the wavelengths we care about and the brightness that we care About, know, it kind of looks like that.

0:05:35 Thomas: Do you have quantum dot matrix printer? Hands

0:05:40 Anne: We just have a grad student who scans the dots and scans them, looks for a good dot. Yeah.

0:05:45 Thomas: Them. Okay. What, what are we doing with these? What are these dots? What's an artificial atom?

0:05:52 Anne: An artificial beneficial atom is where you have a bulk system that has energy levels that work the same way an atom does. With a quantum dot, I can excite, you know, I Can pump in some light and get you dot excited to a higher energy level, and then it relaxes down and emits a photon that that I care about.

0:06:16 Thomas: So you're not literally, they're not really taking some, some tweezers and like building an artificial atom somehow. Like we've got to, I don't even know what that would be. It's actually just the energy levels that, you would need to like kind of simulate an interaction of some kind. Is that what it is?

0:06:30 Anne: Just a really simple energy level scheme where when you have the bulk of this material, and they're still small, they're nanometer, but that's significantly bigger than an atom. But the bulk properties of it behave in that simple way where we can think of it in terms of an electron being pumped up into a higher orbital or falling down into a lower orbital, or whichever way you want to think about the semantics of which way is positive and which way's negative.

0:06:51 Thomas: Hmm.

0:07:01 Anne: You some sort of nanofab facility. Think what our collaborators use, yeah, they use, I think it's epitaxial growth, um, kind of akin to how you do like chemical vapor deposition. The the the properties of these quantum dots depend on how they're fabricated, you know, how sticky they stick to the the substrate, um. Looks like these for sale and in

0:07:06 Thomas: Fab. One of those had to get it removed. Yeah. What?

0:07:25 Thomas: I, I don't know. You know, is the ultimate bit here going to be that like a year from now, you're going to finally confess that you're fake? Cause this is all, I'll never know. It's perfectly, man. Man, I got to kind of not blame people for not knowing what's real and what's not quantum -wise. Because everything you say sounds made up, but I trust you.

0:07:44 Thomas: What are you using these bad boys for? What is this for? What do you do with them?

0:07:44 Anne: You know that that's Well, you know, like just quickly, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to do something like this, because I wanted to make people not feel bad when you hear something quantum and you don't know what it is, and it sounds real and maybe it was fake. Don't feel bad, because it all sounds fake.

0:07:54 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's a good message. I mean, not even the Amazon algorithm has any idea. And that wants to make money. So, you know, it's doing its best.

0:08:11 Anne: So I the biggest commercial application for quantum dots right now is TVs because you hit them with energy and they emit a very, very specific color of light out. So you get those really sharp images. Also why we like them, but we of have issues where the color isn't close enough to each other.

0:08:23 Thomas: Oh, for what purpose?

0:08:35 Anne: We want to untangle two dots.

0:08:36 Thomas: Oh, you can entangle the dots.

0:08:39 Anne: A dot in my lab lab and somebody else has a dot in their lab and we might want to take those like photons from each of our dots and entangle them with each other but in order to do that they need to be indistinguishable which means the source has to be really really good and

0:08:51 Thomas: Wow. This is all right. Well, I know we have more products because I don't understand any of that. And that's really interesting. I mean, I, we've done quantum entanglement and everyone should, listen to that episode, but the color coding of that, that's a, ah, okay. That sounds weird, but yeah.

0:09:05 Anne: You could say the wavelength length you same thing this color yeah

0:09:12 Thomas: Okay. That makes more sense, I guess. Somehow the more technical term. I was like, oh, wavelength. Yeah, that makes sense. Color? What is color?

0:09:18 Anne: Yeah I was gonna say I thought I was being nice here ah

0:09:24 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I just never thought of like, oh, they need to match in color. Otherwise they can't be entangled. For some reason that isn't sitting well in my, that doesn't sound like science. I don't, I don'T know. I DON'T know what to tell you. It sounds made up, but I, and again, I'll trust you. Okay. So O for one, I think this will be harder than the bar exam personally.

0:09:43 Anne: Okay um I think you'll do better than ChatGPT on this one at least

0:09:47 Thomas: God, I DON't know. We'll see.

0:09:49 Anne: Okay I maybe this one will be easier I

0:09:52 Thomas: Don'T need, you know, I Don't need, IDon'T need your color on it. Just, you know, we'll see how it goes.

0:09:55 Anne: Right I have a quantum multi-mode travel stroller so you're

0:10:05 Thomas: As a father of several quantums myself, several qubits, I don't know. What are you using in that stroller? Like what quantum children are you? Yeah, okay. If a stroller is utilizing quantum mechanics in any way other than the normal way everything does, then I will eat my hat. That sounds crazy.

0:10:25 Anne: Going with not quantum you

0:10:27 Thomas: I'm going with not quantum. Yeah, I'm gonna decidedly not quantum on this. Oh, thank god I

0:10:31 Anne: Correct it is not quantum but this does look like an awesome stroller um

0:10:36 Thomas: Bet. Yeah, you said it was Diono, didn't you? I don't know if you said that here if you said that to the one this is the one you told me about

0:10:39 Anne: Yeah it's the ono in it um I think I said that before I I got this from Google. Google was trying to sell me this stroller and I was like, I'd buy this stroller. It turns into a bassinet. It's great. Um

0:10:44 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah that's probably why it's quantum it's it's It's Schrodinger's bassinet. You don't know if it's in rugged outdoors mode or bassinet mode. Yeah, okay. Must be what they're going for.

0:11:02 Anne: Maybe that's it it's a super Superposition.

0:11:05 Thomas: Yeah, it is.

0:11:05 Anne: There we go.

0:11:06 Thomas: It's superposition of every possible way of carrying a baby or a small child. And okay, I might have to revise my answer. No, we're not counting that as superposition. I'll quit the game.

0:11:16 Anne: Okay. One that's maybe, you don't want my commentary. So I, I will let you decide if a microcache and quantum light pollution sensor. Answer.

0:11:28 Thomas: Quantum light pollution sensor. Answer, all right, quantum light pollution. What, come, no, they can't be. I'm saying no, I'm, I've said, I don't know. I'm not saying this is not, I mean, I don't know if there will be some sort of quantum thing going on, but that's what, that's bullshit. I don't know how, how granular we want to get, but will refuse to accept that quantum light pollution is a thing. Like, normal light pollution, that's fine. Everyday, you light pollution that's fine, Newtonion light a -okay but quantum light pollution you gotta get a detector for that, it's hell on the skin. Yeah, okay, I'm going, I'm gonna fucking, fucking bullshit, I don't know, okay.

0:12:08 Anne: Right, I'm gonna give it to you, um, it is not quantum light, or at least, it is non-quantum light, the way that anyone who works with quantum light would call it quantum light. It

0:12:12 Thomas: Okay. There is such a thing as quantum light? What the hell is this? Oh.

0:12:21 Anne: Just when we talk about single photons, like from quantum dots.

0:12:24 Thomas: Okay. Well, it's just a photon then. What are we adding the quantum to it?

0:12:24 Anne: Yeah. Yeah. Light down into the regime where you can count it, or quantify it, now it's quantum light.

0:12:30 Thomas: Oh. Okay. You know, that makes kind of some sense, all right, I'll give you that, but that also sounds interesting because then you, I, that, like you gotten into that point, so it's not like you can just detect it normally, you can't just see it, so maybe a quantum light detector actually might, might make sense. Oh.

0:12:49 Anne: Quantum light detector.

0:12:50 Thomas: Thank god, okay, so I accidentally got it right, uh.

0:12:53 Anne: Instrument, though, looks like it's used for plants, but the quantum in the name has nothing to do with quantum light, I think it's just a really nice light sensor, um, it's not detecting single photons, um.

0:13:05 Thomas: Gotcha, so it's the kind of thing where someone saw that quantum and, from time to time, needs to use a quantum light detector to do some quantum fun, and they're like, yeah, we have that, it'll make your plants grow, it's what plants crave, and it's just a misapplication of something that maybe is real-ish. Oh.

0:13:23 Anne: Sensor, um, I think the reason why they went with quantum in the name is that they're getting into what you would call like the quantum noise limit, maybe.

0:13:34 Thomas: What's the quantum noise, noise limit?

0:13:36 Anne: Just reached the edge of your detectability, so you can measure light, you know, down to a certain, certain threshold, and you're going to have a certain amount that's just from like random noise, and when you get into that regime, okay, hit the quantum noise limit, concept.

0:13:48 Thomas: Like the background, like that, you're getting that low and you're like, I can't tell what's going on anymore. It's too... Okay.

0:13:58 Anne: I don't think they're quite down to that precision, but no, it looks like an okay light sensor, I mean, it's 650, it should be

0:14:04 Thomas: No, I just mean the real application of this that you're talking about.

0:14:08 Anne: Oh yeah, when we get into counting single photons, so like if I want to entangle, you, photon from my lab, and one photon for my friend's lab, and we want to measure that, now we need single photon detectors, detectors.

0:14:10 Thomas: Right.

0:14:20 Thomas: You would call that a quantum quantum light detector? It's an actual term. All

0:14:23 Anne: Call it a single photon detector.

0:14:24 Thomas: Well, okay. I, guess I'm, I'm trying to tease is that name quantum light protector bullshit? Or is it like kind of what you would say? Maybe here,

0:14:30 Anne: Oh, it, didn't catch on as a name in the field for some reason. It

0:14:39 Thomas: I know a good way to evaluate this, this question. Let's pretend now I know your lab or whatever probably doesn't do every single quantum thing in the world, but let's pretend that you basically do like, well, let's pretend your lab could do pretty much any legitimate quantum experiment. Your friend Bob walks in. He's like, hey, check out what I just found on the bargain rack at Target. A new quantum light detector. No, not really. But he's like I got a new quantum life detector for, you know, experiment X that we're doing. Are you like what are you talking about, you asshole? Or are you like, oh, OK, I know what that is.

0:14:47 Anne: Okay. I have probably someone who didn't work in our lab, but maybe someone who worked next door would probably totally say that. And we would know what they were talking about.

0:15:17 Thomas: OK. OK, so I'm going to say I barely got this right, but only because you told me it's what plants crave, like only because it's being used incorrectly. I would almost say I got this wrong, actually. I don't think I had the information necessary to get this right. So, I'm going to give it an L for me. So I'm one for three. The stroller was the only one I was sure on so far.

0:15:41 Anne: All I was going to give it to you. Right. But okay. All right. Move to Amazon.

0:15:47 Thomas: Okay. I already know you actually do buy real quantum stuff on Amazon, so it could be either way. Okay,

0:15:51 Anne: Right. So this is a quantum energy square.

0:15:55 Thomas: Energy squared. Do I get to know anything else about it, or just that? That.

0:16:00 Anne: The more context I give you, the easier this is gonna get.

0:16:03 Thomas: Uh, quantum energy square, well, I'll tell you, based on how this has gone so far, I mean, I would kind of believe that such a thing could be a thing, so I think I need more information make any sort of guess that's anything. Yeah.

0:16:15 Anne: Gonna give me the price. 1796.

0:16:15 Thomas: One dollar none as In 17.96 that makes me think it's oh man that could go either way that's an interesting thought process now that I think Think about it, because I feel like legit science stuff often like that might not actually be as expensive or it could be super expensive. You know what I mean? It could be like, yeah, if I try to buy a quantum computer on Amazon, it's good. That's going to be just say I'm going to get free shipping on it. That's all it's going to be a lot. Quantum energy square, quantum energy square. But this also could be a bullshit that someone sticks on their arm or something. To be like, yeah, I have so much more energy now that I put on my quantum energy, like a copper bracelet. It's like the latest version of that. I'm going to go with more that direction. I guess it's more related to that. So it's More Bullshitty.

0:16:22 Anne: Yep.

0:17:09 Anne: Are correct. It is a a quantum energy square, energy bar with caffeine and 10 grams of protein and It's delicious, healthy snack on the go and It Is vegan, yeah.

0:17:10 Thomas: Yes. Okay. Yeah. For quantum scientists everywhere. Oh, wow. Know why? Because animals are not quantum. That's why they

0:17:30 Anne: There is even somebody doing like a one-handed handstand on the salt flats, so You Know It is Good, yeah, that is all I Need in my Life and

0:17:34 Thomas: Well, that's how you know. Yeah. All right. I'll say I'm two and a half out of four, maybe.

0:17:43 Anne: I have not bought that one on Amazon because I don't put things from Amazon in My mouth It

0:17:47 Thomas: Wait, wait. Something very important. Are you telling me a single energy bar is $17 and whatever cents? Or is that like a pack of them?

0:17:54 Anne: A pack of eight.

0:17:55 Thomas: Okay. That's reasonable. Okay. That'd be funny, though, if it was super overpriced garbage because of the quantum branding.

0:18:01 Anne: Mean, I do want to remind you the quantum dots were $700.

0:18:05 Thomas: Those were real, weren't they?

0:18:06 Anne: They were real.

0:18:07 Thomas: Yeah. So I'm saying like the quantum brand. Ending of trying to sell an energy bar and being like, well, here we mix the quantum into it. And you know, that's, you inputs there. So we got to charge $100 for one of these bars. That would be funny. But no, okay. That's okay. With the price of food these days, I feel that that seems pretty normal to me, honestly. Protein bar for like two bucks.

0:18:10 Anne: Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, it doesn't seem that bad. All

0:18:26 Thomas: Yeah. All right. But But it's not real quantum. Okay. Two and a half out of four.

0:18:30 Anne: Amazon because I've got some books now. Three books. Our first book. It is called Quantum Supremacy, colon, How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything.

0:18:32 Thomas: Okay.

0:18:43 Thomas: Hmm. I feel like I've heard of this, but I haven't read it. What am I guessing here? Is this written by somebody who knows what they're talking about or somebody who doesn't? Or what? What's the guess?

0:18:53 Anne: Think it's going to be real quantum, like written by a real quantum physicist person, scam, or fake quantum, or you can also go with sorta. Yeah,

0:19:02 Thomas: Yeah, because I could see it being written by like, I don't know, a journalist who's reporting on the state of quantum computing or something and have it still be like legit, right? What would we, how would we classify that?

0:19:11 Anne: Yeah, I would call that legit. I would called that fine.

0:19:11 Thomas: Okay. Okay. So I will say this is hard to know from the title that not giving me a lot of info. Info, one more time on the title so I can make a decision here. Quantum supremacy?

0:19:20 Anne: Quantum Suprimacy, Colon, How The Quantum Computer Revolution Will Changed Everything.

0:19:26 Thomas: Think, look, we've covered quantum computing. I think you have brought up some really interesting kind of criticisms that I didn't know. But I don't think believing in quantum computing and it being a possible amazing thing in the future would necessarily mean you're full of shit or anything. I think there's got to be like legit people who believe that. So I have no other information other than that. But I also, also hold on, I do have some other information, which is in a random sampling of all quantum computers books, there's got to be more bullshit than not. So that's an ooh, that's another like prior, you know, Bayesian prior. But there's also, you're selecting it, so it's not randomly selected. Hmm, okay, I'm really going like Vassini now, you, you know, like, 'cause I cannot drink the quantum in front of me, but I also know a man is trying to trick me. So no, I would say, I'm going to say real.

0:20:17 Anne: Okay, gonna actually let you be the judge on whether you are right or not, because I'm gonna tell you who the author is.

0:20:22 Thomas: Hmm. Oh, it's not. Okay.

0:20:24 Anne: Michio Kaku, that's

0:20:26 Thomas: Oh that, that guy, I don't know anything about this guy other than what I've seen his face plastered on for different things. I literally know nothing but that. And And just from that alone, I feel like he's 73% bullshit, 27% real scientist. That's, like, just my impression from literally never hearing him talk.

0:20:47 Anne: Probably fair, I Said, I go with, um, I, more, more like half and half. I don't Know, he does String theory, it's not really my thing, um, I know he's a bit nuts.

0:20:48 Thomas: Nice. Okay, that's fair. He's on, he's just plastered on all that crap, you know. It's always, oh, Michio Kaku has got the, and I don't even know that it's always like his fault, you know, because oftentimes once you get someone with that branding, you know, he gets plastered everywhere. Where memes that are really dumb that are like seem deep you know that probably he didn't say you know, that kind of stuff. So, oh man, well I still don't know based on the author. You're gonna have to tell me. I don't, I don't know if he's legit or not. I, more

0:20:56 Anne: Um, Yeah, I Would Call Him real, more real than Not real I Mean,

0:21:21 Thomas: Real than not. Okay, all right. We'll give it to me then I guess.

0:21:24 Anne: I'll give it to you, I'm not saying he's believing I think he might believe in aliens I'm just, I don't know I'm going to put words in his mouth Okay true, that is a big difference

0:21:30 Thomas: That's a big difference between believing in aliens and believing there's some alien conspiracy. That's the, that' the key difference there. All Right, well then what am I at? 5.5 out of 7? I don't remember now. I think think I'm doing pretty well or Out of eight, Six,

0:21:41 Anne: I have you I'm at 4 to 1

0:21:42 Thomas: Okay, Oh, you're giving me that credit, that's right, no, Well, I may need it, so we'll say I'm, I'm four and one, which seems really good, that seems way too good, okay, okay.

0:21:46 Anne: I grader than you are on right, next book, Body, colon, The New Science of Living a Longer, Healthier, More Vital Life.

0:21:59 Thomas: If this is real, then again I'm going to hang up. That's got to be fake. I don't, I mean, come on.

0:22:08 Anne: Right. If let you judge again. Here's the author, Deepak Chopra.

0:22:11 Thomas: Gwyneth Paltrow. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's a win, everybody. That is the free bingo square of fake quantum stuff. Deepak Chopra is.

0:22:19 Anne: We're giving that one to you, definitely. Lost my tally of your score. Here we'll get it back, get in.

0:22:29 Thomas: We had it one question ago, but now it's impossible to tell. Though.

0:22:29 Anne: Okay. Measurement has collapsed the wave function. And there is no way to recover it. Okay, here's our last book. You had one fake and you had one real, yeah. What's It gonna be This one is called Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Mechanics.

0:22:35 Thomas: Exactly. Tiebreaker of sorts. All right. Well, just on that name, I mean, I have to say real and then I don't know because this is a trick. How could I know?

0:22:57 Anne: That one was, uh, that one was real. And I just wanted to plug this book by Griffiths. Um, a good book. It,

0:23:01 Thomas: Oh, oh, OK. Oh, nice. It a like a textbook or is it more like anyone can pick it up and kind of a hold of it?

0:23:09 Anne: It, it is a textbook, but I think, um, much it is something you can pick up and, and get through, like, the first half of it and be fine.

0:23:17 Thomas: Is there an audio book? The key. There's an audio audiobook, I'm in. If not, I just can't read. So, okay. So it's more like a textbook.

0:23:23 Anne: Yeah, probably not, because there is a lot of math. Yeah. It's definitely a textbook. It is, um. In in classes. There be somebody on YouTube who's done the first three chapters of all the problems of Griffiths and used to put them on Twitter.

0:23:27 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Is it someone? Oh, okay, you've never plugged that before, but

0:23:43 Anne: Have not updated this YouTube channel for like, I since kids were born.

0:23:47 Thomas: If oh, that's fair. That's a lot of people out there, and actually a lot people listening. You have not, I'm sure they relate to that. Have not updated X, and by that I mean just, like, variable, variable anything, uh, kids were born is a is a constant. Yeah, I get it. Um, I don't know if this is like top secret, or if I can check it out sometime, this channel, but let me know, let me know offline if you want, or if you wanna plug it, feel free. All

0:24:09 Anne: Not much to plug. I just occasionally get like a handful of new subscribers of people who need to cheat on their homework. It's fine. They're not cheating, they're just looking up information, as long as they learn something. But yeah, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by David J. Griffiths, I cannot recommend that you pay 75 for this book on Amazon, but it might be really easy to Google and get free copies. Not that I know anything about that. Um

0:24:27 Thomas: Right, nice. Back. When I was buying textbooks in college, that would have been like would have thought it was a fake, that, like, 75 dollars is not a the cheapest textbook was like 250 fucking dollars when I was in college, and it was probably a lot less good than this one. So you count yourselves lucky if you're getting a hold of a textbook for $75.

0:24:52 Anne: Good book, recommend it. Have I two paper copies of this book? Is owned by me, one is owned my work. Okay, let's go to a Udemy course. Course.

0:25:02 Thomas: Oh, so that's the online kind of courses stuff. I know that's a pretty legit website. So who knows?

0:25:06 Anne: Yeah. I have a feeling you're going to get the answer pretty quickly. Once I tell you the title, quantum healing for all.

0:25:13 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Of all the things that are like, oh, no, surprisingly, there is a quantum dot or there's a quantum. I don't know what quantum healing would be. And so I'm going to say fake. Is there a possible real version of quantum healing in our multiverse? Like, could that even what would that be?

0:25:34 Anne: Like, I hate to say some things like absolutely no, but like kind of no.

0:25:38 Thomas: But absolutely no. I can say it.

0:25:40 Anne: I Mean, I, okay. So, so the most is I do have a friend who uses quantum light, um, imaging biological systems. So so that that maybe,

0:25:53 Thomas: It'd be hard to call that a quantum health product. Like you wouldn't be like, I'm going to buy an MRI.

0:25:56 Anne: Yeah. It's it's a stretch. Yeah.

0:26:02 Thomas: That's one of these health products that just for my health, it'd be like kinda, but we already know that just regular, yeah, MRIs, right. Yeah, that was, you covered that. Those use quantum something, right? They have to.

0:26:13 Anne: They Yeah, they use superconductors.

0:26:14 Thomas: Yeah. So no, I am giving this zero credit. I am given quantum healing as a concept, concept, impossible, zero credit. No, can't be real until otherwise demonstrated. That's my personal position. So I'm going to say I nailed this easy one.

0:26:28 Anne: So, I I gotta agree with you and, um, did watch this dude's like intro on YouTube. It was a 10 minute video where he was like, I'm gonna tell you everything about quantum healing and how you can do quantum healing. And I was like, right, let's do it.

0:26:40 Thomas: Done. Yeah, you should make that. That should be your next video on your YouTube channel. And I'll tell you what, you'll have time to make it even with kids. Just do that. Hey, I'm gonna tell you everything there is to know. Oh, man, I need to start my TikTok. I would just do this. I'm would put me and like, Like, I'm a quantum, you know, pretend I'm a quantum physicist and be like, here's everything you need to know to be a professional quantum healer. And then the just video just ends, just cuts out. Just like, that's it. Need to know anything because it's stupid and fake.

0:27:09 Anne: Could have saved me 10 minutes. But I mean, I was also drinking, so it was fine. Yeah, at end of it, he just plugged his Udemy class.

0:27:13 Thomas: Okay. On, Udemy. I'm going to call out Udeme. Like, you got to kind of have real stuff. You know, I get that there's a little bit of leeway, academic freedom and all.

0:27:23 Anne: Was shocked. I was shocked that it was on Udmy. But yeah, I'm not in charge for a reason.

0:27:24 Thomas: Yeah. I mean, they're just trying to make the money where they can.

0:27:31 Anne: Right. You for the next one. This one might be a little hard. Mr. Squid. This this is the name of the product is Mr. Squid. Um, tell you that squid is an acronym. I

0:27:33 Thomas: Sure. Mr. Squid. I don't know. That's not enough information to do anything with. Sorry.

0:27:46 Thomas: Okay. Squid, it's a Mr. squid to you though. It has a gender. Quantum gender.

0:27:51 Anne: Yes, it is clearly very gendered. I'm looking at a picture of it. Yeah. You want to know what the acronym stands for.

0:27:54 Thomas: Yeah. Okay, I mean, I still don't have enough information. Well, I got, I need to, some amount of information to make a non -arbitrary guess. Otherwise it's not really, I don't do games a chance. They're they're boring.

0:28:09 Anne: All Right, this squid is a superconducting quantum interference device.

0:28:19 Thomas: Superconducting quantum interference device.

0:28:24 Anne: We're giving them some leeway on the U for that acronym, but, you know, yeah.

0:28:24 Thomas: Okay. Yeah, yeah. I'll forgive the acronym, especially because Mr. Squid is a delightful name. So, So on one hand, this could be bullshit. On another hand, it could be like, oh no, this is an incredibly common, you workplace utensil. You know, it's just something like, hey, do you give me, grab me a Mr. Squid real quick. I got some quantum spillage over here. I gotta, to, I got to like wipe it up or something. Superconducting, quantum, what's the rest of it? Superconducted, what are you interfering with? Quantum interference device. Because if you're superconducting we've talked about that. We just want stuff to, superconduct. You I You don't think you want interference. What are you interferring with? I'm going to go fake because I I don't know what you're interfering with. I'm not sure, but I'm going to say no.

0:28:52 Anne: Interference device.

0:29:01 Anne: Mm hmm.

0:29:10 Anne: Well, This a funny story. Inspiration for this. Of the professors I work with, they're making a new, like, like minor for, like physics majors, like, you can get like your degree in physics, but you can minor in quantum, or and so they're putting together a lab, and he came across Mr. Squid, and he asked me, is this bullshit or not, and I told him it's totally real, I have used, used one of these, they're delightful, and it, um, well, one, the price is not on the web page, so that's a bad sign, um, you know, it only requires a couple uh peripherals, like a liquid nitrogen and an oscilloscope, and

0:29:25 Thomas: Okay. Gotcha.

0:29:39 Thomas: What? Okay.

0:29:55 Thomas: Easy. Sure.

0:29:56 Anne: Then you're good to go, yeah, everybody has this lying around, um, so what this does is it measures quanta of magnetic field, so you have two superconduct, well, you have like a superconductor that's in a ring, and then it has one little section that has a little insulator, a Josephson junction, and then when a magnetic flux gets trapped in it, it alters the current in the ring, and Danny can read that out

0:30:05 Thomas: Okay. Oh, Oh, yes.

0:30:25 Thomas: This reminds Me of when you were trying, when we were talking about, hey, this lab somewhere in North, in South Korea did a super, room temperature superconductor, and you were, were evaluating that paper, and I, now I'm, I'm remembering one part of that is, oh, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, you're like, oh, you could have shown kind of the the you data, the graphs, the whatever, of like the magnetic field it generated, is that right, and so is this something

0:30:25 Anne: Yeah.

0:30:50 Anne: Well, You could see the response with magnetic field, this This is a little bit different, this is Actually closer to, um, that you use in quantum computers, because you use Josephson junctions in quantum a lot And squids, um, can actually use squids you, so you can them, not this one, but

0:30:54 Thomas: Okay. A Bit different. Okay. Okay. Oh, Right. Yeah. I remember that. Mr. That's Mr. Squid to you, he didn't didn't go to medical school to be called, no, never mind, that doesn't work. Dr.

0:31:15 Anne: A good point, you know, if, if this

0:31:16 Thomas: Squid.

0:31:16 Anne: Is Mr. Squid, then I'm pretty sure the squids we have are Dr. Squids.

0:31:17 Thomas: Oh, Is there a Mrs. Squid? Oh,

0:31:24 Anne: So you can use these as a quantum light detector. Not Mr. Squid. I do not think Mr. Squid is going to cut it, because Mr. Squid is, Mr. Squid's very good. It's a really useful thing. If anyone out there is looking for, you, good experiments to do in a physics lab, yeah, Mr. Squid, it's pretty awesome, you can, you can measure really really small magnetic fields with it, um, easy to use, as as you have some liquid nitrogen lying around, you just dunk it in liquid nitrogen, it's Great.

0:31:28 Thomas: Okay, nice.

0:31:47 Thomas: You know what I knew this was real. I should have guessed real, I'm, I'm 100, I'm failing because I'm realizing, like, it's rare that the people who are trying to sell quantum would have like a sense of humor, like, they're gonna need it to be like, no, no, this is a fucking Quantum Mega, Quantumator 5000. It's got, you know, it's going to be very serious. It's going take itself very seriously. Whereas if it was what I was saying, which I should have gone with, which is like, you Know, this Is a thing you use around the lab. Grab a 10-pack, you Now, at Walmart. That would be named Mr. Quint. That is the kind of thing that would be Named that. I, this, Is, I failed. I feel bad, but that's a fun one.

0:32:29 Anne: Yeah, one to work with, and you can use them as light detectors, and they're very very good light detectors, but they are difficult to use in that context. Let's go into what happens when you type in quantum crystals to buy into Google.

0:32:47 Thomas: You're just going to complain about your life right now.

0:32:49 Anne: Yeah. Have two here, tell and you about the first one. You can tell me if you think this this is real. Or actually, tell I'll you about both of them, and you decide one is real and one is fake.

0:32:59 Thomas: Okay. Okay, yeah, which one's real, which one's not? Yeah, I figured that was what we're doing here.

0:33:05 Anne: So is a BBO crystal.

0:33:09 Thomas: BBO. Better business, or no. Okay, BBO crystal, that's all I have to work with so far?

0:33:15 Anne: Then my other one is a um crystal, let's get some specs on these guys for you.

0:33:15 Thomas: Oh, man. Okay, so RQc seems like it's like real quantum crystal is what that I just, if I use my last heuristic, I'm not committing to a final guess. BBO sounds more real because because it doesn't sound fancy or science -y. RQC sounds fancy and science -ly, so it might be fake. That's my, so far, just, I'm not committing to that. I getting any other information, or should I commit to that?

0:33:37 Anne: Ah. Well.

0:33:47 Anne: Our BBO crystals, um, have a lot in stock in lots of different configurations, and they range in price from about, let's see, $305 to $695. My crystal, I have about a page full of information on what it is and no price.

0:34:00 Thomas: Those seem pricey. Those seem a little pricey, okay.

0:34:14 Thomas: No price. That was the RQCs? All Right, that's fake. Feel like the other one's real. It's in line with my prior, on so I'm committing. RQC, fake. BBO, reel. Yes.

0:34:16 Anne: Yeah, you are correct. Correct. Yeah, so these are BBO crystals. I was looking at Edmund Optics. These particular ones are used for frequency conversion.

0:34:39 Anne: So what you call a, well, you could call it a nonlinear crystal or a spontaneous down converting crystal. I'm pretty sure I mentioned spontaneous downconverting crystals to you earlier. So I thought you'd get that if I said it.

0:34:45 Thomas: Uh, Look, There's so much, um, many faulty premises in what you just said that, uh, I don't know how to evaluate it. You could have told me many things and I could have or could not have remembered them, uh, we'll see, there's no way to know that.

0:35:05 Anne: BBO is, is relatively common way of getting a single photon source, or, um, you want entangled photon sources, yeah.

0:35:15 Thomas: Is so crazy, I know, again, people go back and look at these quantum episodes if you haven't listened. And it is really fascinating that, like, it to be the way you entangle particles is like, well, let's shoot, you know, the crystal, the dark crystal. And that's crazy. Like, how weird. It makes sense when you explain it, but it's just like, how could that be real?

0:35:28 Anne: Yeah. So, and that's exactly it, and I actually had one time, um, one of the finance people like leaned over to me in a meeting and went like, like, they're talking about crystals, is this real? And I had to tell her, yes, yes, it's real. A really common way to get single photons is you, a of, you, you can have BBO, which I think is like barium oxide. And then ones that we use a lot like more lithium niobate, depends on what wavelength you get. And then, you know, the crystal is a few hundred dollars, but then you need a nice pump laser, and that's usually what's going to cost you more. And dann you're going to send in a very specific type of light in. So if I wanted to make like an entangled pair source out of one of these nonlinear crystals, Let's say I pump it with 500 nanometer light. Occasionally, and this is a spontaneous process that we can't control, one of those 500 nanometre photons is going to interact with the crystal, and it's going to produce 2,000 photons.

0:36:13 Thomas: Hmm.

0:36:44 Thomas: Right. And the total wavelengths kind of have to stay conservation of energy, right? And it kind of has to stay. Okay. Yeah. So fascinating, yeah.

0:36:51 Anne: Yep. And depending then on what type of crystal it is, you know, be either the same polarization or they might be opposite polarizations.

0:37:00 Thomas: Like, if it's one that increases your strength versus your dex, you know. So, How is that real? It's crazy, is-

0:37:03 Anne: Yeah, yeah. On the other hand, we have our RQC crystal. And,

0:37:11 Thomas: It's real quantum crystal? Does it stand for real concrete? What is it, this-

0:37:15 Anne: Stands- stands for reprogrammed quartz crystal, yeah.

0:37:19 Thomas: Almost could be real-ish sounding, all right. But it's not. Yeah, interesting.

0:37:22 Anne: And, Is not, but I want to point out, if, like, all the stuff that I just said about the real crystal sounds like junk you- lot of the stuff in their write -up really is real. You- they're- know, talking about how quartz has, like- here's a great write- -op. I gotta give it to them. I- a quote: "Even rocks. Rocks have consciousness, and crystals are much more than a rock.

0:37:38 Thomas: For, Fuck's sake, first of all, bigotry. I- I mean, I don't think there's any reason to give a crystal more rights than a rock, especially if- If they're conscious, we do need to give them. Yeah, shit. If they'RE conscious, they do need rights.

0:37:49 Anne: Yeah, and consciousness, yeah. But rocks are conscious too, so not, yeah, yeah that's just discrimination.

0:38:01 Thomas: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's why you can't. This exactly. This is just bigotry. We need to pass a bill about this.

0:38:09 Anne: They say, you know, it has been proven that crystals have their own particular, particular, it, and that these vibrations are more in tune with the vibrations of the human body than the vibrations of any other mineral or precious stone. I'm pretty sure ChatGPT wrote this, by the way. Um, it is true that crystals have vibrations, that, that's how the, that's how the real nonlinear crystals work. You know, they have vibrational modes and that's how your quartz crystal in your digital watch keeps time, you send a voltage across it and the crystal vibrates and it and it keeps the time, yeah.

0:38:29 Thomas: Really? Vibrations? What the hell? What does that mean though?

0:38:42 Thomas: Really? Oh, okay. Yeah. So not like inherently, like it will resonate at a certain frequency in response to something else. Is that kind of what's going on?

0:38:53 Anne: I mean, I suppose I would call it inherent because, like, each, each stone has its own, you know, like each type of stone, like all all quartz or, ah,

0:38:59 Thomas: Well, I only know sound. I only know sound and you, it's sort of like you can blow across the top of the beer bottle and it will have a frequency, a note that it resonates at. You wouldn't say like that beer bottle has vibrations and each vibration is, you'd be like, no, it'S like if you introduce something else to it, it just, maybe I'm, I'm wrong, but that sounds less magic -y to me than like, it has its own inherent vibration frequency that whatever. It's like, I don't know. Maybe I'm splitting hairs.

0:39:11 Anne: I got you, that's fair fair a fair interpretation, um, yeah, like the crystals do have, they do vibrate, and they have different, uh, frequencies, different different crystals have different frequencies and, um, can tune them, and we definitely use them, and they're really, really, um

0:39:36 Thomas: Okay, interesting. Got some tuning crystals in there, like, you take out a ticket, you got a pack of 12 tuning crystals to, like, get your, get your crystal orchestra in tune, it's like harmonicas, yeah, but

0:39:47 Anne: Yeah. Mean there's even a diagram here and I do not know what language which this is in, um.

0:39:58 Thomas: I love it, too, because we just use, humans are so dumb, I'm sorry, but like with things like harmony tuning, whatever, it's, yeah, but what would that mean for us, like, no reason that would do anything like if I resonate at, again going to sound, if, if I somehow had the volume, and I mean physical, like volume determines what the resonating frequency of, like, you know, just random objects or containers or whatever. There's no reason that matters, though. Like, it doesn't, you aren't more in tune with the universe if you, no, it's, that's nothing. It's just random.

0:40:25 Anne: Yeah. And then, and then to you, more into that the resonance, or, their, you know, say you get your crystal to vibrate at a certain frequency, which we do all the time you know, it has to, like, couple to something, yeah.

0:40:38 Thomas: Sure. A to something.

0:40:41 Anne: That, you know, like, how is the vibrating crystal going to affect my blood flow, it it need to transfer for that frequency to my blood somehow, you it gonna get through that yeah.

0:40:48 Thomas: Right, right, right. Right. That wouldn't work. Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:55 Anne: Once you get about halfway down this page, it just turns into homeopathy. The program crystal can help release the toxins and restore the vitality of the body through drinking water, and then it talks about water structure and water memory.

0:41:01 Thomas: And doesn't everything. Okay. Water is good for you. So this must be correct.

0:41:11 Anne: Oh, yeah, there's a whole paragraph about water is good, yeah.

0:41:18 Thomas: Okay. Well, I'm sold. How many are we buying?

0:41:21 Anne: I'm gonna invest in that. So I think we're gonna have our last one here, and

0:41:22 Thomas: Yeah. Final One, double or nothing. I think get still win either way because I got enough right but it's fine. Oh.

0:41:31 Anne: This one I chose based on its URL, because it is quantum.com.

0:41:37 Thomas: Not a good sign. Most legitimate scientists aren't like, oh, I better grab quantum.com I Know.

0:41:45 Anne: Would have bought quantum .com.

0:41:47 Thomas: I'm not saying, I'm not saying it's just, again, it's priors. I'm just saying that means for sure it's bullshit. I'm saying not a sign, not a, not

0:41:53 Anne: Generally speaking, no. They have, oh, they just have like a banner full of stuff to buy.

0:42:00 Thomas: Good sign. Red flags everywhere. Quantum man efficiency.

0:42:06 Anne: The first one. Got Power AI and data science. We got protect your data with 70 times more efficiency.

0:42:15 Thomas: Efficiency. Okay, okay.

0:42:17 Anne: Build massive data stores at lowest cost. I data with advanced AI, give insights end to end. All

0:42:20 Thomas: I mean, quantum cryptography is like kind of real, right? So right, this is, look, this is either bullshit or someone, someone a marketer to make real stuff sound bullshit, like one or the other, like, I get there's some amount of like, all right, quantum computing, quantum cryptography, maybe that's involved. But if you're saying like, we're enrich your data with AI, it's like, there's no quantum involved in that. I'm sorry. There's just not. Like, unless I'm misunderstanding how literally all of that stuff works, that's not quantum.

0:42:52 Anne: Right, yeah, gonna give it to you because I cannot figure out what the fuck they're selling, um, yeah.

0:42:58 Thomas: That's a good sign that it's bullshit.

0:43:00 Anne: I mean, they are not selling quantum cryptology, they are products and services, and there's a lot of stuff that has that little R in the circle, but yeah, it looks like it's all just software that you buy, and it's all about reducing cost and complexity, and I think you have to have an MBA to understand this, whatever they're selling.

0:43:20 Thomas: Yeah. If I know one thing about quantum, it'S really good at reducing complexity. Complexity.

0:43:28 Anne: Yeah, that is a conversation to have about quantum cryptography. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

0:43:34 Thomas: Right. Well, I nailed it. This was a lot of fun. I can't wait. Maybe we'll do this again sometime. Quantum, mania. I guess that's already taken. That one's trademarked. I'm sure that whatever Ant-Man movie. Yeah. More quantumness another time. And that was a delight. Thank you so much. For real. Do you want people to go to your, because people will go to to your YouTube channel if you throw it out there? Or are you saying they shouldn't?

0:43:44 Anne: Yeah. There's, it hasn't been, there is nothing new on there. I think, think maybe in a few months I might have something to actually plug, but I, I don't really have anything right now.

0:43:57 Thomas: Doesn't matter. Question is, do you want to point people to it or not?

0:44:05 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Well then, in the meantime, we will continue to keep you anon and not plug your definitely men in black top secret government job.

0:44:17 Anne: I will send you a link though, you can you can enjoy my um, ramblings.

0:44:19 Thomas: Oh, okay. Sure. Thank you. Appreciate it. I love it. All right. Well, thanks so much. Looking yeah yeah wow I win the quantum crystals I don't know no you need those for stuff yeah doesn't sound like science. I

0:44:24 Anne: That was fun, and you did really well, you, you did not nine to two you win, go We needed more underwear, um, for one of the the kids, because I'm sitting in their room. A superposition of what state that underwear is in and I don't want to know.

0:44:59 Thomas: Oh, gotcha. Quantum underwear? No, Yeah, that's too real.