Paul Kwiat is a Quantum Physics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he focuses on quantum information. We all know there are people who are passionate about what they do but Dr. Kwiat is a "Summer Sunday Late-Night" level of passionate. We met Dr. Kwiat during LabEscape, the science-based escape room he created. During the summer, we were walking by the Physics Building (Loomis) on a Sunday night when we saw him carrying big and heavy boxes into his car. We stopped, said "Hi", and offered to help him. We talked for a bit and ten minutes later, we saw ourselves helping Dr. Kwiat get LabEscape ready for the State Fair. We already knew we wanted to have a conversation with him but this was our confirmation. What kind of professor would be working on a Sunday night by himself? That is when we realized he was sane in a way most people are crazy. In this conversation, we explore the foundations of light and move along to discover the mysteries and anomalies of photons, one of Dr. Kwiat's favorite topics to the point of owning three "photons." We start on a solid and fundamental ground to fully understand yet another mystery, quantum physics and its practical uses such as quantum computers and quantum communications. We all know Dr. Paul Kwiat is a professor but few people know that he is also a talented swing dancer (more on 1:21:44), and perhaps the secret twin of Ant-Man's Hank Pym. Physics, curiosity, and Dr. Kwiat's ability and patience to explain and have a unique conversation makes this a very special episode number 20. This is the UIUC Talkshow and this is our conversation with Dr. Paul Kwiat. EPISODE LINKS: Paul Kwiat's Website: http://research.physics.illinois.edu/QI/Photonics/ Paul Kwiat's UIUC Website: https://physics.illinois.edu/people/directory/profile/kwiat OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 0:58 - What is Light? 2:00 - Photon 6:25 - Owning a "Photon" Car 8:47 - Classical Communications 15:26 - How do you create Photons? 20:40 - How Photons Die 24:00 - Why Photons Have No Mass 31:31 - How do you see/detect Photons? 42:15 - Seeing Light/Photons 46:15 - "Collapsing" the Wave Function & Entanglement 53:52 - Fundamental questions 56:00 - Quantum Communications & Quantum Cryptography 1:08:55 - Quantum Computers 1:19:00 - Advice for young people 🚥Overrated or Underrated Section 🚥 1:21:44 - 🕺 Swing Dancing 1:23:18 - 🤯 Quantum Startups 1:24:05 - 🐜 Ant-Man and Dr. Kwiat's Twin Brothers 1:24:39 - Reading comic books and becoming "Captain Quantum" 1:26:46 - Closing Words SOCIAL: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uiuctalkshow Twitter: https://twitter.com/uiuctalkshow TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@uiuctalkshow Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ezoc4xJa4DrGq7N4lhqQn Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-uiuc-talkshow/id1611427075 Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1H9UJqXvJXr3qlx9c89Rv76c6IpnwGeC Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1H9UJqXvJXqdyEq7fuyUz9cmpdfqN1Rb What is the UIUC Talkshow? Our goal with this show is to introduce to the most interesting people and most interesting people from the UIUC campus. Learn more about Juan David & Aaryaman: Aaryaman https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaryaman-patel-779437205/ Juan David Website: https://www.juandavidcampolargo.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jdcampolargo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdcampolargo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jdcampolargo/
