From medieval manuscripts to quantum computing – on Saturday, May 4, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW) opened its doors to give the public an insight into a wide range of scientific disciplines and research projects. Munich Quantum Valley (MQV), of which the BAdW is a founding member, was also represented with a booth and provided information about quantum technologies in an entertaining and illustrative way.
Half an hour before the official start at 11 a.m., the first guests streamed into the Munich Residence, marveling at the experiments, some of which were still being set up, and asking their first questions. The stream of visitors continued until the end of the event at 6 p.m., and the MQV booth was very busy throughout. From visitors who were confronted with the concept of quantum for the first time to guests who already knew the basics and wanted to know about the current state of quantum computing and the international competition, from preschool children learning what an atom is to retired mathematics professors – the range of visitors and therefore the range of questions was wide.
As research institutions of the BAdW, the Leibniz Supercomputing Center (LRZ) and the Walther Meißner Institute (WMI), both MQV member institutes, were of course also represented with booths in the Munich Residence and provided insights into the interaction of high-performance computers and quantum computers and research into superconducting circuits. Stefan Filipp, MQV member and professor at the WMI, gave a talk entitled "Why can quantum computing solve unsolvable problems?".
The sunny weather did not prevent the interested audience from spending a lot of time in the BAdW building and closely inspecting the many information boards and stands with their exhibits and experiments. At the MQV booth, visitors could make their own button with a suitable motif as a souvenir of what they had just learned: After a long conversation with one of the MQV employees, one visitor chooses the image of the Bloch sphere for his badge without hesitation and says with satisfaction: "I just learned what a qubit is."