Thanks to the introduction. It's great to be back here
Waterloo was my home for many years. I did my undergrad
and Phd here
so it's it's great to be back and see the new center and
so I want to thank the IQC for organizing this and inviting me and
Congratulate the director on six fine years right, no? Oh, I was just counting the six that I was here
15 years yeah, it's been incredible, kind of started when I just arrived here as an undergrad
So it's it's been fun to watch the field grow
and
Maybe bring it all the way back full circle
so
I put some
Academic affiliations on here for just so that my colleagues know I'm still a serious well
Not serious, but I'm still a scientist
I'm now at the the center for quantum software information. That's in Sydney, Australia, and it's a new center that just started
and
We're on Twitter so check us out
and
In addition to to doing you know science at the centre for quantum software information. I also have a Hobby I
like to play Tennis
No, I write. I write children's books. So there's the book it
It's actually had quite a long journey which I'll tell you about so
I wrote it about five years ago and self-published it at the time and
Now it has a publisher, and it's in this nice board book format
So I'll tell you
The story of sort of how how it all came together
so
Measure twice cut once that's sort of the old proverb and it certainly makes sense if you're in the lab
And you only have a certain amount of money
And you have to build the thing but in the academics that I mean
I think take this advice a bit too far
There's there's too much measuring too much overthinking not enough action not enough cutting so I like to cut I cut all the time
You don't want to see the thanks that I tried to fix in my yard
But in many aspects of life it works
And so I think in the end ultimately that's the story of quantum physics for babies
it wasn't something that I saw a market for or saw a need for I just kind of did it and I?
Started going, and it didn't work the first time and that got thrown out never to be seen again and started again
But for better or worse it became kind of popular. It's been translated to several languages
Is it there's a chinese version and the Korean version and will be this one will be translated into several more
Yeah, that there's a picture of me signing books on the street in beijing
so
it's
You know with this sort of popularity I didn't expect
I also didn't expect journalists to take me a task over so they they seem to be very nice to politicians
But to a children's book authors
like why did you do this right and
Really come on it's quantum physics. Is that really important for kids?
so I had to have an answer and so I started to rationalize and
I I think the answer well to the question of is it important for children. I think the answer is yes, and
I'll tell you sort of various levels of rationalization that I've went through
But I'll start in the place. I've served most things
with a joke
So I
Think for my colleagues in the audience
They probably won't be surprised when I say humor plays a very important part in my life
So I joke with my family I joke with my friends I joke with other scientists
Although Einstein. He didn't look very impressed
Yeah, he never really did like quantum physics
But I you know the reason I think humor is important because I think it's deeply connected to happiness right so happiness
I see is the difference in what you're expecting out of life
And what you actually get and humor has this effect that it's often defies your expectations you laugh at the unexpected and so
That's why I see them as as
deeply connected
So I
Knew that when I first wrote the title down that you know I had something right it was there was something to this
you know the juxtaposition of
Quantum physics and for babies is something that people tend to get a laugh out of although
it's not really the humor for the advertised audience, but parents seem to
Enjoy that and so I knew that um
You know at least at least there would sell a few few copies as gag gifts for nerdy friends
But what I didn't expect was
this nerdy friend to get a copy I
So that's a screenshot of my Facebook, so you see I gave him a gave him a little like
thanks Zuck, and
right so it
Having that sort of that sort of publicity is pretty good for business
although again, you can see
My book of the years quantities for babies. You know haha. Just kidding um
So yeah, maybe he didn't do me any favors with that. I'll have to talk to him about it. I
Asked him to that to share the updated version, but he hasn't replied
So you know I?
Joked with some of my friends who are in different professions about maybe writing on a no-contract law for babies or geopolitical policy for babies?
though I think
For the latter there's a really only one person in the world that needs to read that book and he's too busy on Twitter tweeting
insults at people
But quantum physics. I think most agree that that's worth more than than just a joke and
And hopefully I knew something about it. So you know in the end
I put some effort into the book and the goal was kind of clear you have a look at a baby book
There's 20 pages nice clean illustration short words
and I try to make it sort of a coherent description of of quantum physics and there's lots of room for improvement, but I
think that
This space is growing quite rapidly and we're seeing more and more
examples of this kind of thing at a younger and younger age
but
You know the parents really seem to like it, so I hear all the time
We opened the book at a baby shower, and we all laughed it was really good fun
But then we start to read it, and it looks like there's real physics inside
But with the children learning and this is a tricky concept
Right so the only sort of unanimous advice that you hear for new parents is to read and it doesn't really matter
What you read as long as you just read so read
and
But you know let's let's play a little game. You know suppose you have a child and you have a nice rotation going on and
Quantum physics for babies well it doesn't fit into the rotation so it's got to replace a book. What should it replace?
so
I'm not going to touch fiction. I'm not going to you know make anyone mad
And say that it should replace any of the classics, so let's talk about nonfiction so for this age range
They'd zero to three
Nonfiction is limited to reference material and it's sort of what you would expect you know
Shapes, numbers
letters maybe first words right you see something that looks like this on the bookshelf and
What I find a bit peculiar about this is
How many animals there are
And I suppose that
It makes sense from a historical and cultural perspective at least in North America
but you know
Maybe maybe you know we don't need to teach kids exactly what a cow sounds like anymore
So it's hard to say when is when a child is reading this book if they're learning something you know there's there's as many cognitive
Models of early childhood development as there are people who research it
But one thing one thing's for certain
I think you go to any three-year-old in the entire world, and they'll tell you
What sound the cow makes even if they haven't seen one?
Let me give you another example. So this is in that book right there
It might even be the same picture, so if you can get public domain images you're set
so
Does anyone do you know what what these two birds are? They're birds, does anyone know what they are?
Yeah, penguin and puffin have have you ever seen a penguin or puffins. Yeah, he's gonna go good
I guess we're in that in Australia of course they have no clue what a what a puffin is
and these aren't even part of the same species and
My children can tell you the difference between a penguin and a puffin in fact
I don't know why it is but there are as many books. I think about puffins as there are puffins and
and
There's no books about transistors when I see a billion there, and I see a billion there, right?
you
What's in your pocket right now by the standards of only ten years ago is a supercomputer and so children growing up today
you know especially ones in
more and more kids are being born into urban centers of more than
Multiple millions of people and they're going to be closer to a supercomputer
Than they are an animal of comparable size probably for the rest of their life
and so why
Why don't they need to know about what it is and what's what is it made out of in and how it works?
so
What I say that my kids are ready to to get into the lab and do some quantum physics no
But it's interesting to see that they they can say words like hippopotamus and giraffe and puffin and tractor
but they can also say everything in the world was made of atoms and
Atoms are made of protons and neutrons and electrons and electrons exchange energy one quantum at a time, right
you know I would say that that's
better understanding or
Equal understanding than being able to recognize animals and you can repeat the names of them
So I think I think there's there's something to it though
It's certainly a large gap between quantum physics for babies, and then say an undergraduate degree
that was
at UTS we did a little event with the childcare center for the the
Faculty at UTS
it's I just came back from a tour in the US, and there's there's lots of scenes like this and
What I find interesting is there's always one. There's always one little girl
Who is just so amazing and knows so much and just kind of she's usually the star of the show
so you know it's interesting to see where bookstores put the book right and
Oftentimes it's in this sort of new section with these various toys, and it has this new buzzword in the education space
STEM
Right so STEM
Science technology engineering mathematics and sometimes you get some some grumpy people who say it should be STEAM or STREAM
for reading and arts
but the it started as an initiative to
Have more education in these topics because it was thought that with the rise in
technology there will be more demand for
jobs that that were in these disciplines, okay, and
I did some research in the first press mention that I found with that term in it was
2008 and that's when the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation donated 12 million dollars to the Ohio STEM
Learning network. Which is actually surprisingly still going on most of these initiatives fizzle out
But it was like a 10-year plan so ending
Next year, and there's going to be a huge report generated based on whether or not they achieve their outcomes
and
now you see
across the whole world across all levels of government there are these initiatives and
They're all about what they call STEM based learning and if you dig into these a little bit you find that there's a problem
right policy has to be
Dictated by research right and research needs Data and Data takes time to collect so in
the policy and the initiative that's relevant to where my children go to school has a
Report that cites Data that was collected
before the first iphone was
invented right and I
Don't know if it makes you feel young or old
But that was actually only 10 years ago right when I was walking around these halls. I had a little nokia about this big
And now we all all of us have
smartphones, so
Policy is great. It's necessary, but it is having trouble keeping up with today's technology
the most commonly cited report for
education and science
broadly is the report of the chief scientist of Australia which came out a year and a half ago and
It actually cites data
from the period
1965 to 2005
Right so I I worry that it's a little bit too far behind and you can see this actually
In the educational space and in all of the things that are happening in what people cal STEM outside of education
So actually the presidents of the university of where I work
This is sort of a passion of his and there's a huge initiative at that university and his motivation here which starts like this
over the next five to Ten years
40 percent of existing jobs won't exist. You know so he's the president of the university we have 40,000 students at that university and
For him, that's 40,000 people where he feels. He's the last line
You know the last level of responsibility before you send these people off into the world into
what? Right, into something that that that probably won't exist when they start
But he goes a bit further so at UTS
We have a an entire overhaul of the educational system. It's got a fancy name learning futures and
The goal is not to create
graduates with jobs
but
Graduate people who will create jobs right and when I first heard this I thought wow that's nuts. I don't want that problem
But you know thinking about it
It's this is really
This is really what's what's what's driving all of this all of this innovation all this technology is is
people who are
Creating new areas creating new jobs. I mean
if you want to put buzzwords on it innovation disruption right and
and this university has the audacious goal of
creating entrepreneurs
though
I don't think you were really strangers to this here in Waterloo. So you know
You look at a report on education and future technologies and it
May be maybe in Canada lately you might see the word quantum, but probably nowhere else in the world
so
Now that I'm here in
Quantum Valley let me show you what this sort of thing looks like
In the quantum space and at a lower level so at the secondary level maybe even the primary level
so
Somewhere in this building right in this building somewhere in this building
There's students that look just like this high school students. Who are here for a summer school
on Quantum cryptography
There's the quantum exhibit. I haven't seen it yet. Where is it now? On it's way to Halifax. When's it coming to Sydney?
Really, okay cool all right? I'll be there and you know bringing students in and going to schools right now
this is obviously great, but
what happens if you're a parent?
And you don't happen to be the school that has the school incursion where the person
Who is going to teach your kids about technology happens to be there
So this is really part of the problem a lot of these initiatives and pilot studies
Target a school. It's just one school and
And they bring in technology or bring in some some learning program and all of those students benefit from in you know many of these students
Go on into careers
jobs that have the word quantum in the title and that probably wouldn't have happened if they didn't
good the summer school in Quantum cryptography
So just south of the border you can go there because the wall's on the other side is
The IBM quantum experience, so it's an app and you can
Design a quantum algorithm, and it will run via the cloud on
a actual quantum computer sitting in IBM's researches labs
ok and
again, they bring students in you know as young as 10 and
because it's cloud based they can skype with people in South Africa right and
so this is kind of the
What STEM learning is today right it exists entirely outside of the classroom?
especially for
Something as cutting edge as quantum technology
So do I see quantum physics for babies on par with these efforts no
Obviously, not um I don't think I don't think this is for the students or babies
Ultimately, I think it's about the parents so you
know when you talk to parents about this
that sort of fear and anxiety about mathematics starts to creep up right and
it's sort of daunting to think that the
you know it used to be thought that I send my kids to school they get an education and
That will train them for a career, and they will have that career, and they will be set right?
Their employer will pay into their retirement fund and they will have kids and life will go on
But you know the average 20 year old today. They say will have
something like 15 jobs before they're 30 and
How as a parent how do you how do you deal with that uncertainty life used to be so simple, right?
Or maybe it wasn't I think it was always the case that
education was as much the
responsibility of the parents as it was of the school and you know teachers will tell you that probably even more so
But I think I think it's actually true now
today
More and more than it more than it ever has been
and
so
One of the phrases I hear most in this discussion like you know journalists. Who are being a bit cheeky will say
You know this is a bit too much. Why can't we just let kids be kids?
That's actually and a brisk winter day in Sydney not to rub it in
So I I don't know I mean this phrase is used all over the place. You know it's you at hockey games and
Other sporting events and in the classroom, but I think for most people
What the sort of gut feeling that they have is actually born out by the research that
Play is all important for children
But the problem is that the average person thinks that education is actually the opposite of play when you say
What is education as an activity they're thinking about something that?
diametrically opposed to play and
I think this is a huge problem for
me
my point of view is that
Life is education if you watch
Watch a small child
There's little scientists, right they
Put something in their hand they throw it on the ground
Right you put it back in their hand they throw it on the ground. They want to see if it happens again
Right and they're out there exploring the world and at some point
Some point in our education system
We stifle that and then we have this weird conversation where we say at what age should we introduce?
Math to kids at what age should we introduce science to kids and the only reason we use that word introduce
Is because we've taken it away at some point, right?
So
Beyond say the obvious things for a parents, you know
survival and morality and independence
What what is the what is the true mark of a good parent? Now
obviously, it's an immense privilege to sort of entertain such a question and
asking that in maybe an audience with parents and is a bit dangerous, but
I'll risk an answer
I think that the goal of parenting should be to help your children find their passion and
By passion I mean the thing that will drive their curiosity throughout life
So how how am I going with my kids?
I Don't know
it's too early to tell but I think the one thing that I can do that's definitely not going to hurt and
Can do the most
to
Probably succeed is give them variety right if there's something that I avoid then they will avoid it, right?
Nobody's born being afraid of spiders right you're only afraid of spiders because your parents are afraid of spiders, okay?
smiles in the audience
back there yeah, right
so
And this is this is the problem with especially science and mathematics
and
You hear this all the time from people you say you know I study science and they say Oooo
I hated science right, or
Mathematics which is really strange because you know you ask someone hey
What do you love in the world? and they answer you and say I hate that
It's sort of a really weird response, but it's accepted and encouraged
Right and especially for women it's really strange that they're told you know
Maybe you should focus on something else. Maybe maybe math isn't for you, but
It's just not true right it may be that's not something that you have a passion for but you'll never know
because you're being shielded from him and
from people my generation
the
Kids that I grew up with we're told as I was told this by a guidance counselor in high school right don't worry about
Don't worry about the physics you seem to be good at math. Maybe maybe you should go take an accounting degree, right?
Not that there's anything wrong with accounting, but it was clearly a safer choice well, maybe they thought it was back then
So
Nothing really comes to my mind
where I would be afraid if my kids took an interest in it, you know as a
academic or just as a passion and
I think I think that's that's that's going to go a long way just just to be able to offer them that variety
So ultimately I think that's that's my goal for
quantum physics for babies and in the follow-up books right is to start this conversation
try to remove some of that fear and uncertainty and doubt about topics like quantum physics or Mathematics and
Hopefully, you know when the time comes that
the child says hey
I saw that there's this summer school in Canada on Quantum Cryptography the parents will say yeah no worries mate
That's my best Australian accent. I haven't been there long. It'll be better next time so
This shouldn't be seen as an odd request right?
and the the people that come obviously had a
parent that
Encouraged it or a teacher
Maybe that encouraged it or maybe they had a school incursion from a place like IQC and heard about it
But most people haven't heard about it.
It's pretty strange
so
one Curious little
Fact by a survey I can't remember who did it
but it was one in three Americans would rather clean a
Public toilet, then do a single math problem
And they do this
scientific literacy quiz you can take it up you can take it to the actual quiz online and compare your
Well, they're all yes or no questions. So you clicked and it tells you whether you got the answer, right?
and there's some really simple questions like does the earth go around the sun of the sun go around the Earth and
and
You click the obviously correct answer and it says
How many people in the world or in various countries got it correct?
So I was looking at the one that was done in America, and I think that one was like
60% got it correct
the other one was did the universe start with a big explosion and
30% of people got that correct which just boggles my mind. I mean there's a hit TV show
with that in the name like the theme song actually has the answer in it right like
and
You know when you type into a search engine
Quantum physics, what do you think comes up is it going to be quantum physics?
Probably not. It's actually probably going to be Deepak Chopra right, so
when Deepak Chopra comes before Stephen hawking and
When you know the obvious facts for global warming seem equally compelling as maybe some
celebrities theory of a flat earth
then we have a big problem, and I think we have to start the conversation as early as possible and
Well quantities physics for babies was just the beginning
Thank you
sure
So when I when I read it to my daughters second year class
I don't say for babies and so a lot of kids don't like that
That's one of the biggest criticisms
I get for the book was
Do you have to put for babies in it it has to be that obviously it has to be there like it
Just doesn't work without the for babies
Okay
This is a ball
This ball has energy
This is a ball. It's on the ground. It has zero energy
All balls are made of atoms and atoms have three things
They have neutrons
And protons and the ones that have all the fun are there the electrons
an Electron can be here or here and
Even those three-year-olds are amazing at deductive reasoning because I asked them where else could it be and I come up in they point here
But an electron cannot be here
Or here you can see this is going to be on YouTube
all electrons have energy
the one up at the top has the most energy and
One down here close to the protons and neutrons has the least energy
but there are no electrons that just sit around there are no electrons with zero energy and
Here across the hall we have a special name for that. We say that energy is quantized can everyone say that?
quantized
then an electron here it can take energy to jump up and
What's going to happen to it if I can turn the page
it must give energy to
fall down and
That is a very special amount of energy
It is a quantum. Now you are a quantum physicist
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