What is Superposition, Really?

The next episode in the fAQ video podcast is now up! As mentioned last time, this is a new project I've embarked on with Adam Green where we chat about different ideas in quantum physics and (at some point) AI. Our primary goal is simply to help make these ideas more accessible to wide audiences — especially to folks who may've heard about certain words in, say, the popular media, but who may not have a technical background and who aren't really sure what those words mean.

We thought it'd be good to launch the podcast with some basic, fundamental ideas that can be used as a foundation for discussing real-world application in future episodes. Last time we introduced the topic of qubits, and today we're focusing on another basic topic, namely superposition.

So, what is superposition? We spend nearly an hour on this question, so I won't spoil it all for you! But there are a few remarks I can't resist sharing here.

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New Video Podcast: fAQ

In a bit of fun news, I've just launched a new video podcast with my coworker Adam Green. This new video series, which we're calling fAQ, consists of casual conversations between me and Adam on basic ideas in quantum physics and eventually some topics in AI. (Hence the "A" and "Q," which is also a hat tip to our employer, SandboxAQ.) The target audience is very broad and includes any curious human who wants to learn more about these ideas. Our hope is that these informal chats might help demystify some ideas in math, physics, and their applications and make the concepts more accessible to wide audiences.

Adam is a biologist by training, an excellent science communicator, and before joining Sandbox he was the Director of US Academic Content at Khan Academy. He's now the Head of Science education at Sandbox, and since neither of us are physicists, we're essentially working together to learn new things and are inviting anyone to join us!

Our plan is to spend the first few episodes discussing fundamental ideas, just to lay down some ground work, and then we'll see where things go from there. So, without any further ado, here's a short seven minute "trailer" video we made to introduce the podcast.

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