Chad Orzel, Associate Prof. and Chair of Physics and Astronomy, was one of the featured speakers at the opening of the new Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum Nano Center at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. The Quantum Nano Center will house the Institute for Quantum Computing and the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, and was made possible by a gift from Mike Lazaridis, founder of Research in Motion, the maker of Blackberry. Designed to foster collaboration and innovation, the Quantum Nano Center is a state-of-the-art research facility which will play a central role in the drive to create a “Quantum Valley” in the Waterloo area playing the same role for next generation information technologies that Silicon Valley does for conventional computers.
Prof. Orzel was part of two events at the Open House, giving a public lecture on “What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Mechanics,” and taking part in a panel discussion on “Bridging Worlds,” about the connections between the strange worlds of the quantum and nano systems studied at the QNC and future everyday technologies. The other panel participants were Mike Lazaridis, Raymond Laflamme (the Executive Director of the Institute for Quantum Computing) and Tom Brzustowski (a former Canadian government minister and expert on innovation). Both the lecture and the panel were recorded for future broadcast on the Web and TV Ontario.