Griffith Sciences hosted one of the world’s most innovative minds in quantum mechanics at a special evening lecture recently.

‘A Quantum Symphony: From the Schrödinger cat to quantum computers‘, featured special guest Dr Caralina Curceanu from the National Laboratory of Frascati in Italy and was held at Griffith’s QCA Lecture Theatre South Bank.

Dr Curceanu discussed a new alternative theory, collapse models, the existence of many worlds and Bohmian mechanics.

She also shared the types of experiments which test quantum mechanics and how peculiar features, such as entanglement, offer fascinating perspectives for future technologies.

Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in science. For almost 90 years, experimenters have subjected it to rigorous tests, none of which has called its foundations into question.

It has implications and applications everywhere around us; from the explanation of the atomic structure to the silicon-based technologies.

About Dr Catalina Curceanu

Dr Curceanu was born in Transylvania (Romania), near Dracula’s Castle. She is Senior Researcher at the National Laboratory of Frascati, Italy where she leads a group of researchers performing experiments in nuclear and quantum physics to answer questions about exotic atoms and impossible phenomena.

Dr Curceanu obtained her PhD in physics from the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering of Bucharest, Romania, with a PhD thesis dedicated to the study of exotic mesons within the OBELIX experiment at CERN. Catalina is the spokesperson of the SIDDHARTA-2 (spectroscopy of kaonic atoms) and VIP2 (experimental test on the Pauli Exclusion Principle violation by electrons).

She has won important awards and prizes, including awards from the John Templeton Foundation and from the Foundational Question Institute (FQXi) and the 2017 Emmy Noether prize from the European Physical Society.

She is also actively engaged in science outreach, and in 2016 was awarded the AIP Women in Physics Lectureship and presented physics lectures in all states of Australia.