World Quantum Day 2023: 350+ events around the World to celebrate
The World Quantum Day, celebrated on 14 April, and on the days and weeks around that date, is an initiative of the World Quantum Day Network, constituted by quantum scientists from 65+ countries, that aims to promote the public understanding of Quantum Science and Quantum Technology around the World.
“Since 2021, April 14th has been established as the World Quantum Day, in order to promote Quantum Science, that is fundamental for our understanding of nature, and for many current and future technologies essential in our everyday life. So let’s celebrate !” Philippe Grangier, QUCATS Coordination and Support Action coordinator
The World Quantum Day celebrates all aspects of Quantum Science, and their role in our fundamental understanding of Nature, as well as in the technologies that surround us and contribute to our quality of life, from the internet to medical imaging. Furthermore, the World Quantum Day Network supports the proposal to proclaim 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. Currently, the celebrations of the World Quantum Day in 2023 include already 350+ events, as more events are still being added, and new countries are joining the World Quantum Day Network.
This year, in 2023, the World Quantum Day also celebrates the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 awarded to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”. It is a special occasion to celebrate this fundamental aspect of Quantum Science, and how it is at the origin of novel and disruptive information technologies, such as quantum computing, quantum communications, and quantum sensing, which may impact our society in the future.
The World Quantum Day was pre-announced on 14 April 2021, with an online talk by Alain Aspect, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics 2022, to kick off the preparation for the launch the following year. It is a decentralized and bottom-up initiative, inviting all scientists, engineers, educators, communicators, entrepreneurs, technologists, historians, philosophers, artists, museologists, producers, etc., and their organisations, to develop their own activities, such as outreach talks, exhibitions, lab tours, panel discussions, interviews, artistic creations and so on, to celebrate the World Quantum Day. The year 2022 was then the official launch year with 200+ events, in 5 continents, in 44+ countries, 193+ cities… The WQD was celebrated in many different languages.
The World Quantum Day will continue promoting the public understanding of Quantum Science and Quantum Technology around the World in the future, with its long-term and inclusive perspective.
Why April 14: The World Quantum Day is celebrated on April 14, a reference to 4.14, the rounded first digits of Planck’s constant: 4.135667696×10−15 eV.s = 0,000 000 000 000 004 135667696 electronvolt second, a product of energy and time that is the fundamental constant governing quantum physics.
