UNAM celebrates the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) participates in the International Year of Science and Quantum Technology with a program called Quantum@UNAM 2025: 100 years of the quantum revolution that changed our lives, which began this Tuesday and will conclude next November , with all kinds of activities, including an international congress.

10 units of the maximum house of studies collaborate: the Center for Complexity Sciences, the General Directorate of Dissemination of Science; the faculties of science and engineering; The institutes of physical sciences, applied sciences and technology, physics, mathematics research applied in systems, chemistry and nuclear sciences.

Alfred Barry U’ren Cortés, director of the Institute of Nuclear Sciences, who presented the program, recalled that in 2021 the Mexican Society of Physics, headed by Ana María Cetto, a researcher at UNAM, promoted, together with a group of scientists, the Proposal so that it was now called the International Year of Science and Quantum Technology. These efforts were accompanied by international physics associations and culminated in May 2023, when UNESCO accepted the proposal. Today we celebrate the emergence of a field of physics created 100 years ago.

Regarding the relevance of quantum physics and the convenience of reflecting on it, U’Rencortés pointed out that technologies such as modern computers, lasers, smartphones and online purchases, were implemented during domain and application of mechanics Quantum: “These inventions have had complex global effects. For example, we communicate more efficiently; However, every time we use these techniques, gases that heat our planet also increase. These are changes that should care to all.

It is necessary to highlight that the technologies of the future, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous cars and telemedicine, are also based on quantum principles. The discoveries about the subatomic world have produced enormous transformations in the life of our planet. Technologies based on the principles of the quantum world transform, and will continue to do so, the relationship between us and nature. Quantum physics traces our future, so it matters.

The quantum@unam 2025 began on Tuesday at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences, with the round table The quantum in our lives: past, present and future. To commemorate the International Day of Women and Girl in Science, on February 11 a walk will take , and the Institutes of Physics and Nuclear Sciences.

Another of the planned activities has been called “one day in …”, in which students, mainly high school and high school, can visit various research institutions of the UNAM and know the scientific work that is done there. One of the objectives of the program is to promote scientific vocation.

The celebration will be taken to public media through Podcast Quantum entangling your earsin which it will be explained in a simple way how with quantum mechanics devices, tools and processes that change the lives of people and nature are created. The Pódcast will be transmitted by Radio UNAM and can be broadcast by any means that requests it. It is intended that more people find out why quantum mechanics is relevant.

Once a month, at the Faculty of Engineering, the activity will be carried out Approach a quantum computerin which academics will explain how this works and what are the main advantages with respect to a conventional one.

Mercedes Rodríguez Villafuerte, director of the Institute of Physics, commented that this and the Faculty of Sciences “were actually those that established a tradition of theoretical physics in the country from UNAM, which permeated a posteriori to different educational institutions; It was thanks to the presence and arduous work of many researchers and teachers, among which Marcos Moshinsky, Luis de la Peña and Ana María Cetto. We have a relevant group of theoretical physicists who promoted this area of ​​science from our country. It happened that they formed a school, not only with the intention of conducting research, but also teaching activities, training of human resources and the dissemination of science. ”

However, We have not stayed there. We talk about a tradition of more than 80 years, although in reality about 20 we have ventured into experimental aspects, with the intention of promoting the research that directs us towards technological applications through quantum techniques, so that not only today we cover A part of the development of theoretical quantum mechanics, but also have it from the experimental point of view, technology transfer to a future, I hope, that in the short term.

Juan Carlos Hidalgo Cuéllar, director of the Institute of Physical Sciences, located in Cuernavaca, expressed interest in addressing the border in which the quantum It looks like a certain science fiction. A research area that is encouraged at the institute is cosmology, continued, and quantum in particular. This draws a lot of attention, not only of expert people, but from the general public. We would like to take this aspect to distinguish the quantum from what could be information that does not correspond to reality or science.

Quanticum@unam will not only be carried out in university facilities. A series of meetings are prepared in which members of the UNAM scientific community will visit some public spaces to teach talks, workshops and demonstrations.

Programming can be consulted at https://quantum.unam.mx/.