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Episode details

World Service,30 May 2025,30 mins

What on earth is quantum?

CrowdScience

Available for over a year

Listener Christine wants to understand one of the strangest phenomena in the universe. But to get to grips with it, she’ll need a crash course in the bizarre behaviour of the very small. Here, things don’t act the way you might expect — and it’s famously hard to wrap your head around. Anand Jagatia has assembled some of the sharpest minds in the field and locked them in a studio. No one’s getting out until Christine and Anand know exactly what’s going on. Or at least, that’s the plan. On hand to help are Kanta Dihal, lecturer in science communication at Imperial College London; James Millen, King’s Quantum Director at King’s College London; and particle physicist Harry Cliff from the University of Cambridge. Prepare to enter the world of the very small—and the very weird—where particles can be in two places at once, influence each other across vast distances, and seem to decide what they are only when observed. Hear how these once-theoretical oddities are now driving a technological revolution, transforming everything from computing to communication. Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Harrison Lewis Series Producer: Ben Motley

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