A „Quantum“ Insight

6/19/2024
Reading time 3 min.

From the scanner at the supermarket checkout to high-speed internet surfing through fibre optic cables: developments in quantum physics have long been part of our everyday lives and are widely used. In the new special exhibition ‘Light and Matter’, quantum optical phenomena are now being illuminated and made tangible at the Deutsches Museum. As part of the Cluster of Excellence Munich Centre for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST), the exhibition also offers an insight into current research and an outlook on future applications.

View of the "Light and Matter" exhibition with numerous interactive stations.

“This exhibition is a fantastic example of lively, contemporary science communication,” says Wolfgang M. Heckl, Director General of the Deutsches Museum and Professor of the Oskar-von-Miller Chair of Science Communication at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). “Here, research takes a direct route to society, presents its findings, answers questions and, in the best-case scenario, even generates new ideas.” The fact that the United Nations has just proclaimed the next year 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology shows just how up to date and important the subject is. “Thanks to the collaboration with the MCQST, we can already give people a basic understanding of this with ‘Light and Matter’,” says Director General Heckl.

The Cluster of Excellence ‘Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology’ brings together intensive research on quantum science and technology in Munich and the surrounding area and has been funded by the German Research Foundation since 2019. “MCQST is immensely proud to have the German Museum as a partner, providing us with outstanding outreach opportunities to spread the wonders of quantum science. We are truly privileged to collaborate in this exceptional exhibition, showcasing groundbreaking advancements to a wide audience,” says speaker of the cluster Ignacio Cirac.

Bavaria’s Science Minister Markus Blume is enthusiastic: “Innovative, interactive, informative: with Nobel Prize-winning exhibits and a recreated James Bond scene, the special exhibition ‘Light and Matter’ conveys the basics and possibilities of highly complex quantum physics to laypeople at the speed of light – that’s science communication at its best! Thanks to the cooperation with the ‘Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology’, the Deutsches Museum presents itself on the same wavelength as our excellent scientific institutions in Bavaria and lives its spirit of a world-class research museum: out of the laboratory, into life!”

Insights into the "Light and Matter" exhibition

Opening of the exhibition with Bavaria's Minister of Science Markus Blume

Das Exzellenzcluster “Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology”

At the MCQST, scientists work on interdisciplinary research questions that cover all aspects of quantum science from basic research to application. The aim is to research and utilise quantum effects such as entanglement. In this way, new quantum technologies can be developed, such as
highly sensitive sensors, tap-proof communication and quantum computers. In addition to a structured and long-term research programme, MCQST also offers the opportunity to address current issues and ideas and promote them through targeted measures. These benefit young researchers in particular.

Alongside the Technical University of Munich and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, the Walther Meißner Institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Deutsches Museum are as partners in MCQST

Further information and links