Some of you may have wondered whether I have a life. I do. He’s a computer scientist, and we got married earlier this month.
Marrying a quantum information scientist comes with dangers not advertised in any Brides magazine (I assume; I’ve never opened a copy of Brides magazine). Never mind the perils of gathering together Auntie So-and-so and Cousin Such-and-such, who’ve quarreled since you were six; or spending tens of thousands of dollars on one day; or assembling two handfuls of humans during a pandemic. Beware the risks of marrying someone who unconsciously types “entropy” when trying to type “entry,” twice in a row.
1) She’ll introduce you to friends as “a classical computer scientist.” They’d assume, otherwise, that he does quantum computer science. Of course. Wouldn’t you?
2) The quantum punning will commence months before the wedding. One colleague wrote, “Many congratulations! Now you know the true meaning of entanglement.” Quantum particles can share entanglement. If you measure entangled particles, your outcomes can exhibit correlations stronger than any produceable by classical particles. As a card from another colleague read, “May you stay forever entangled, with no decoherence.”
I’d rather not dedicate much of a wedding article to decoherence, but suppose that two particles are maximally entangled (can generate the strongest correlations possible). Suppose that particle 2 heats up or suffers bombardment by other particles. The state of particle 2 decoheres as the entanglement between 1 and 2 frays. Equivalently, particle 2 entangles with its environment, and particle 2 can entangle only so much: The more entanglement 2 shares with the environment, the less entanglement 2 can share with 1. Physicists call entanglement—ba-duh-bum—monogamous.
The matron-of-honor toast featured another entanglement joke, as well as five more physics puns.1 (She isn’t a scientist, but she did her research.) She’ll be on Zoom till Thursday; try the virtual veal.
3) When you ask what sort of engagement ring she’d like, she’ll mention black diamonds. Experimentalists and engineers are building quantum computers from systems of many types, including diamond. Diamond consists of carbon atoms arranged in a lattice. Imagine expelling two neighboring carbon atoms and replacing one with a nitrogen atom. You’ll create a nitrogen-vacancy center whose electrons you can control with light. Such centers color the diamond black but let you process quantum information.
If I’d asked my fiancé for a quantum computer, we’d have had to wait 20 years to marry. He gave me an heirloom stone instead.
4) When a wedding-gown shopkeeper asks which sort of train she’d prefer, she’ll inquire about Maglevs. I dislike shopping, as the best man knows better than most people. In middle school, while our classmates spent their weekends at the mall, we stayed home and read books. But I filled out gown shops’ questionnaires.
“They want to know what kinds of material I like,” I told the best man over the phone, “and what styles, and what type of train. I had to pick from four types of train. I didn’t even know there were four types of train!”
“Steam?” guessed the best man. “Diesel?”
His suggestions appealed to me as a quantum thermodynamicist. Thermodynamics is the physics of energy, which engines process. Quantum thermodynamicists study how quantum phenomena, such as entanglement, can improve engines.
“Get the Maglev train,” the best man added. “Low emissions.”
“Ooh,” I said, “that’s superconducting.” Superconductors are quantum systems in which charge can flow forever, without dissipating. Labs at Yale, at IBM, and elsewhere are building quantum computers from superconductors. A superconductor consists of electrons that pair up with help from their positively charged surroundings—Cooper pairs. Separating Cooper-paired electrons requires an enormous amount of energy. What other type of train would better suit a wedding?
I set down my phone more at ease. Later, pandemic-era business closures constrained me to wearing a knee-length dress that I’d worn at graduations. I didn’t mind dodging the train.
5) When you ask what style of wedding dress she’ll wear, she’ll say that she likes her clothing as she likes her equations. Elegant in their simplicity.
6) You’ll plan your wedding for wedding season only because the rest of the year conflicts with more seminars, conferences, and colloquia. The quantum-information-theory conference of the year takes place in January. We wanted to visit Australia in late summer, and Germany in autumn, for conferences. A quantum-thermodynamics conference takes place early in the spring, and the academic year ends in May. Happy is the June bride; happier is the June bride who isn’t preparing a talk.
7) An MIT chaplain will marry you. Who else would sanctify the union of a physicist and a computer scientist?
8) You’ll acquire more in-laws than you bargained for. Biological parents more than suffice for most spouses. My husband has to contend with academic in-laws, as my PhD supervisor is called my “academic father.”
Academic in-laws of my husband’s attending the wedding via Zoom.
9) Your wedding can double as a conference. Had our wedding taken place in person, collaborations would have flourished during the cocktail hour. Papers would have followed; their acknowledgements sections would have nodded at the wedding; and I’d have requested copies of all manuscripts for our records—which might have included our wedding album.
10) You’ll have trouble identifying a honeymoon destination where she won’t be tempted to give a seminar. I thought that my then-fiancé would enjoy Vienna, but it boasts a quantum institute. So do Innsbruck and Delft. A colleague-friend works in Budapest, and I owe Berlin a professional visit. The list grew—or, rather, our options shrank. But he turned out not to mind my giving a seminar. The pandemic then cancelled our trip, so we’ll stay abroad for a week after some postpandemic European conference (hint hint).
11) Your wedding will feature on the blog of Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter. Never mind The New York Times. Where else would you expect to find a quantum information physicist? I feel fortunate to have found someone with whom I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.
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1“I know that if Nicole picked him to stand by her side, he must be a FEYNMAN and not a BOZON.”
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