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I had to further read on this for a while before anyone actually explained how it works
These are only quantum in a very, very technical sense.
https://laserscientist.com/optically-pumped-magnetometers/
They're optically pumped magnometers. They shoot lasers at helium to align them and measure how they move in response to magnetic fields.
They're quantum like a polarizing lens uses quantum effects, no one serious goes around saying they're wearing quantum sunglasses
Oakley prices to skyrocket as they introduce Quantum Shades
Yeah, that's fair. I mean, essentially the whole world is "quantum", given quantum phenomena govern the subatomic particles we're all made from.
I'll give these guys a pass, though, they just want good PR for their new research project, so they employed some mild clickbait. Which is fair in today's world. They're not technically wrong, lasers are a utilization of quantum physics.
I think they're doing themselves a huge disservice though...I mean, my first reaction was "okay, this makes absolutely no sense", because I have a basic understanding of biology and physics
The technology stands for itself... You can image brain activity with a silly looking hat instead of strapping people into a giant machine. And it's better than the big machine in every way.
Why would you try to make it mysterious? I could explain to a child why this is cool technology in 30 seconds
Also, I don't think this team invented the opm tech or even the headset, so they basically bought a medical device, slapped the word magic on it, and pretended like it was this cool new thing they invented
This group is just researching the effects of shooting big guns on the brain. They might spend more on bullets than they did for the hat. They're using a cool, fairly new, toy that is already in use elsewhere... It feels like they're just being dishonest TBH
This particular research project is working on making the hat smaller, so it's more portable. That's what this small team is working on specifically.
Regarding the wording they used, well yeah, you may have some interest in science, but that doesn't mean the broader public does. If they make people like us, hanging out in a tech community, raise an eyebrow but also generate some buzz among the broader public, that's probably a smart move on their part. The word "quantum" can do that, the way bigger words like "miniaturization" can't.
They didn't even say they were working on miniaturization. Instead they implied they invented a new technology, and added the word quantum before someone else's invention and presented it as a new technology
The broader public will never care about this either way. This is so specific that it's barely even popsci...I mean the results might be interesting, starting a study using the latest toy isn't
The more I think about it, the more dishonest it seems
Mobile means smaller, so you can move it around. Did you even read the article? They don't imply they invented something new anywhere, you just made that up.
Nor did they just add "quantum". The word is featured in the links I provided above about MEG, from the NIH and Yale. Did you even look at those?
No, see I kept reading. I searched the keywords and went from there. It's opm-meg, not meg... That's the big ass machine vs the silly hat
These people aren't the vanguard. They're not the ones pushing the limits of the technology... They're just another group using it
No, OPM-MEG is still done with a large machine, where do you think all the wires coming out of the silly hat go? I don't think you read much at all.
They go to the fucking lasers. They're fiber optic cables. The big machine was a device your head was strapped into, and you couldn't move or you'd disrupt the readings
See? This is what I mean by dishonest. My research took me to other groups who built this tech. If they miniaturized it, it was incremental improvement on the big advancement someone else made
Well of course it's an incremental improvement. Nobody but you is claiming anyone invented anything new.
The wearable headset as it sits is still not portable, making it portable would be an excellent, and incremental, yes, advancement.
From a different article:
Making this portable if possible would be very useful.
See? Now that's reasonable. If the article was about that, it'd be respectable
But instead, it was about quantum brain imaging. It took two science enthusiasts doing adversarial research to get to what the team was actually doing, which is cancelling out the impact of Earth's magnetic field so opm-meg can be used outside
Do you still think this is good for public engagement?
Yea I kinda still do.
Communicating to the public about science advances is about using marketing techniques, not education techniques. It's business stuff, not science stuff. We have journal articles for the real science. It's unfortunate, but it's just the reality with anti-intellectual attitudes running so rampant, where real science makes most people tune out.
Btw, the quantum refers to how the tiny magnetic field is actually detected. The laser shines into some helium, and the helium is set to all have one specific quantum spin. This allows the strength of the field to be consistently measured based on how much the laser gets deflected. Without the ability to manipulate quantum spin, this technology would be unavailable. (I did some more reading on it yesterday. lol) So it is actually pretty quantum stuff apparently.
But the article doesn't even explain how they're advancing the technology - it makes it sound like they invented it for this purpose, and mentions nothing about using it outside. How does that help them?
Also, the link I sent you all the way at the beginning describes how the process works... Yes, it's quantum in that it takes advantage of things happening at the quantum scale. Like polarized lenses
The article I sent you, which l picked because it actually described how the technology works, doesn't use the word quantum once. It uses the word laser a lot... Which is probably why it's named optically pumped magnometers
I still think the fact that it took this long and this much further reading for us to understand what the team is actually doing makes it terrible science communication
OP's article (which seems like a press release) says several times that they're trying to make the device portable. I don't know what is so hard to understand about that.
Regardless of what your article said, I explained to you the quantum aspects. They are being technically accurate in how they describe the device and what they are attempting to do.
I think you and I arguing is just you being intransigent and mistaken on the original article's claims. For better or for worse, I am also a very stubborn person, so here we are.