Quantum Physics at the Ars Electronica Festival 2011

The Vienna Doctoral Program on Complex Quantum Systems (CoQuS) –cooperation partner to this year's Ars Electronica festival "Origin - how it all begins"– was represented in Linz by students of the Quantum Optics, Quantum Nanophysics, Quantum Information group. In the course of this celebrated international festival for media art, Robert Fickler, Marissa Giustina, Mateusz Kotyrba, Robert Polster, Christoph Schäff, and Sascha von Egan-Krieger which are all supervised by Prof Anton Zeilinger engaged visitors of the exhibition ‘Symmetries’ in interactive demonstrative experiments exhibiting fascinating phenomena of quantum physics. The exhibition which was frequented by around 5.200 visitors in total offered an inspiring environment to convey on a personal level the fundamentals of modern quantum science and technology to the interested non-specialist audience. The demonstrative experiments served as an ideal starting point to provide an insight into the motivation and working methods of scientists, to communicate cutting-edge research results and, at the same time, to capture the enthusiasm of the young generation of researchers.