World Quantum Day

Today is World Quantum Day, and I thought — what better way to celebrate than by confusing you slightly less about quantum physics?

This is not just about throwing words like "quantum entanglement" or "quantum supremacy" or even "quantomania".

As Scott Lang asked in Endgame - “Can we actually talk without using the word Quantum”(Well precisely that wasn’t his statement, but I had little to much time to go and check out Endgame again!

No, Absolutely no, We’ll use it every where. Today, let’s actually understand this Quantum thing:

Where did this whole quantum thing come from? Why is the world suddenly obsessed with it? And, wait, does India have a Quantum Mission too?

Sit tight. I’ll take you on a journey.

Act 1: Physics, Before Things Got Weird

Let’s rewind. Imagine it’s the 17th century.

Science is feeling very proud of itself.

• Newton has written his laws of motion and gravity. Objects move predictably. You drop an apple, it falls. You launch a cannonball, you can calculate exactly where it will land (which, honestly, made warfare a bit too efficient).

• Kepler’s laws are telling us how planets orbit the Sun. We even discovered Neptune, not by spotting it, but by noticing weirdness in Uranus’s orbit and doing math. Yes, we basically mathed a planet into existence. Respect.

• Light? Sorted. It’s a wave, like ripples in a pond.

• Sound? Easy. Vibrations in the air.

The vibe of the scientific community at that time was basically:

"We got this. Nature is no more a Mystery Physics-i-cally. We can know everything!"
They even said: If we know the positions and speeds of all particles in the universe, we can predict the future completely.

Pause for a moment.

That’s how confident they were, basically booming in Overconfidence.

Act 2: The Ultraviolet Catastrophe (The Plot Twist)

But then — like every good story — a plot twist arrived.

Scientists were studying blackbody radiation. ( That’s basically: if you heat something, what kind of light does it give off ? ).

So, usually it seemed as if when you’ve more temperature, the light which is radiated is of higher energy (or high frequency). Makes sense right? If you’re heated more, you wish to give off more and more energy as soon as possible so you give off the light which can take the maximum amount of energy!

Here’s where things got spicy:

• At low frequencies (like red light), everything was fine.

• But as you went to higher frequencies (like ultraviolet light), calculations went bonkers.

According to Rayleigh-Jeans law, the energy radiated at high frequencies should become infinite. Infinite energy!

Which sounds cool in theory.

Until you realize: if this were true, your toaster would unleash enough energy to vaporize your kitchen.

Which wouldn’t be an interesting breakfast experience for sure.

This disastrous prediction became famously known as the Ultraviolet Catastrophe. The scientific community panicked.

"Our perfect model of the universe is broken!"

Act 3: Enter Max Planck (The Reluctant Genius)

Now, imagine Max Planck, sitting in his study in 1900, probably sighing loudly. He looks at the math and thinks:

"What if… energy doesn’t flow continuously as water, but instead comes in little packets,……..like ice cubes??

This was a wild thought. Until then, everyone assumed energy was continuous, nut plank revolutionized by thinking of it as a discrete energy packets,

This was a wild thought. Until then, everyone assumed energy was continuous, nut plank revolutionized by thinking of it as a discrete energy packets,

What we now call it quanta.

He even gave it a formula: E = hf

Where:

• E is energy

• h is Planck’s constant (a teeny-tiny number: approx. 6.626 × 10⁻³⁴ Js)

• f is frequency

Planck’s constant is the "price tag" of a quantum. The minimum packet size of energy. Suddenly, the math worked. The ultraviolet catastrophe disappeared. Planck saved breakfast.

But Planck himself thought this was just a mathematical trick. He didn’t yet realize he had just kicked open the door to a whole new world.

Act 4: The Quantum Revolution

Enter Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger—basically, the Avengers of physics.

They took Planck’s idea and ran with it:

• Einstein explained the photoelectric effect using quanta of light (photons!). Which, by the way, won him the Nobel Prize. (Not relativity!)

• Schrödinger gave us the famous cat: dead and alive at the same time, until you check. (No cats were harmed in this thought experiment.)

• Heisenberg said you can’t know both position and momentum perfectly. Not because your instruments are bad — it’s a law of nature.

There are other prominent Physicists, I’ll just paste their pictures but more on them in some different post (Total IQ of this picture >> infinity)

And now some weird Quantum results:

• Quantum entanglement? Particles become mysteriously linked, like the ultimate WhatsApp group chat where typing from one end instantly appears at the other, no matter how far away.

• Superposition? Quantum objects exist in multiple states until measured. Like if you left your house and were simultaneously at home, at work, and on vacation — until someone calls you.

Act 5: So, What is World Quantum Day?

Now that we understand the magic, let’s celebrate it!

World Quantum Day is celebrated every year on April 14th. Why April 14?

Remember Planck’s constant? Yeah that - 6.626 × 10⁻³⁴ Js

Now, if I change it’s units in a bit more useful units, it can be written a certain way (h ≈ 4.14 × 10⁻¹⁵ eV·s), you get 4.14 — April 14.

Yeah, that’s much of effort these Physics and Math guys give in naming days, either it be March 14, (3.14), and we call it Pi day or this…

Physics loves a good pun.

It’s a global initiative to raise awareness about quantum science and its growing role in our future.

Every year, talks, public lectures, workshops, and even comedy shows (yes, quantum comedy exists) are organized worldwide. Universities, research institutes, and science communicators join in to make quantum physics a little less scary — and a lot more fascinating.

Visit: worldquantumday.org to see global events.

Act 6: India’s Quantum Mission

Now, here’s the exciting part.

India is not just watching from the sidelines — we’re leading from the front!

The National Quantum Mission (NQM) was launched by the Government of India in 2023, with a budget of ₹6,003 crore.

Objectives:

• Build quantum computers with 50–1000 physical qubits by 2031.

• Develop quantum communication systems.

• Secure quantum networks and encryption (because, hello, future cybersecurity!)

• Train a workforce of quantum experts right here in India.

Simply put, India wants to be a global hub for quantum tech — from quantum computers to sensors, from secure communication to new materials. Now colleges like IISER Pune and IIT Mandi are mostly leading this in India, they’ve got really cool Quantum computers of there own. I’m sharing a video from channel “Gareeb Scientist (quite a good name, I should agree)” in case you wish to understand Quantum computers are making possible the coolest place in world, and how India is leading it, go check that out.

Final Act: Why It Matters

So, my dear reader, the next time someone rolls their eyes at "quantum" being thrown into everything (like Ant-Man did in Endgame — "Do you guys just put the word 'quantum' in front of everything?"), you’ll know:

Quantum physics is not just a buzzword.

It is the story of how nature behaves at its most fundamental level.

From saving us from mathematical disasters to powering tomorrow’s technologies, quantum is the bridge between curiosity and creation.

Happy World Quantum Day!

Go out there, confuse your friends with quantum jokes, and remember: the universe is far stranger (and cooler) than we ever imagined.