Duluth Folk School Talks About Cats, Cakes, And Other Quantum Analogies

DULUTH, Minn. — The Duluth Folk School was full of scientific brains Thursday night as the community gathered to talk about cats, cake, and other Quantum Analogies.

Cafe Scientifique is a monthly free event the Folk School hosts. The public is invited to come and discuss a range of topics in the scientific community.

Each month they get different guest speakers who are experts in their fields to come give a presentation. Thursday night’s presentation was focused on Quantum Physics. Dr. Greve answered questions about what makes quantum mechanics so weird, how to make it, and why it’s useful today.

“The red laser has a certain amount of energy per photon. So red is the right one for this guy, he gets hit by it and he absorbs that photon, and he jumps up and he’s got more energy now. At some point in time something called spontaneous submission happens, it spits out that photon in a random direction and it gets a momentum kick because of good old newtons law still applies, but it pops back down to the zero-energy level. So that’s really the fundamental rules of quantum mechanics,” said Dr. Graham Greve, Physicist.

If you are interested in having mindful conversations that really get the brain turning you can find the Cafe Scientifique schedule on the Duluth Folk Schools website.