Scenes and Science
Scene I: Wide Awake - Photons
What does it mean to see?
The two voyagers, Terra and Akash, begin their journey lured by a Quantum Ensemble appearing as light and leading them to their guide, Sapienza. Along with the first quantum sage (physicist Gina Lorenz in the original version), she reveals mysteries of light, which heralded the quantum revolution. Light, which hitherto had been looked upon as a wave, but now showed traits of a particle, the photon.
Scene II: Quantum Conundrums/Superposition
Here and There - Get a Clue
The voyagers are plunged into one of the deepest mysteries of quantum physics. Schrodinger appears and presents his famous cat scenario (quoting the original paper) where if his contemporaries' outlook, known as the Copenhagen interpretation, were to hold, it would allow the ridiculous possibility of a cat being dead and alive at once.
Sapienza attempts to explain different outlooks through quantum versions of the murder mystery game, Clue. In the Copenhagen version, while the game exists in a 'superposition' of every one of the suspects actually having committed the crime, the act of observing picked one and determined reality. In the multiverse version, the reality is that there are parallel universes, each harboring a different murderer. All the more perplexed, Sapienza and the voyagers run to another quantum sage to enlighten them on the nature of reality.
Scene III: Bose-Einstein Condensates
State of Friendship
The voyagers venture into the coldest spaces of the Universe (these pockets are created by experimentalists right here on Earth!) and encounter curious quantum fluids that can only form at these lowest of temperatures. Known as Bose-Einstein Condensates, they are formed of a friendly breed of particles, bosons, which partially constitute the world and cosmos around us.
A quantum sage (original version physicist Brian DeMarco) guides the group through the making of a condensate. The ensemble becomes this strange fluid, Terra plunges in, undulating in its superfluid motion…..until, crash!
Scene IV: Atomic Landscapes
Frenemies
Reality strikes! The adventurers are plunged inside a crystal, a hunk of metal. There they encounter the other breed of quantum particles, the unfriendly fermions, in this case, electrons.
And as electrons do in metals, together the particles form a treacherous 'Fermi Sea'. While a quantum sage saves the voyagers with her insights on the Fermi sea, they have now discovered their intrinsic unfriendly nature, and a fallout ensues.
Scene V: Superconductivity
Finding Harmony
Sapienza is out of her depth in resolving the conflict and chaos in the Fermi Sea. And another quantum sage comes to the rescue. The voyagers learn of how sometimes electrons can form unlikely pairs and act like friendly bosons. Bosons that can condense and form superfluids, superconductors. The ensemble and voyagers are swept away once more by the magic of superfluid flow, and this time, disaster strikes hard.
Scene VI: MRI
Quantum Voyages of the Brain
Fate entombs one of the voyagers in an MRI chamber, a modern medical marvel based on quantum physics. She and her fellow voyager discover its workings-the manner in which magnets within protons dance to the magnetic fields in the chamber, respond to radio waves, and emit their own radiation. All to paint poignant images of the brain. Will she emerge out into the light to share her visions and explore new realms with her companions?