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Quantum Microscope Could Reveal the Invisible at Atomic Scale · The Quark Side - Quantum Physics Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the QuarkSide Quantum Physics Podcast, an exploration of
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the fundamental structure of reality, where quantum laws govern matter, energy,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and information. Here, uncertainty is a feature, not a flaw,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and understanding begins at the smallest scales.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I want you to imagine, just for a second, That
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: you are standing in this dimly lit museum archive.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm picturing it. Right.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: And sitting on the metal table in front of you
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: is this priceless, ancient, incredibly fragile scroll. It is crumbling
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: at the very edges. You know, the paper is as
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: thin as a moth's wing. Now, you desperately need to
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: read what is written on this scroll, but there is
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: a catch.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: There's always a catch.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Always.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Always.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: The only tool you have been given to read it
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: is a heavy bucket of baseballs.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Which, I mean, if we're being objective here, is a
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: remarkably terrible tool for archiving historical documents.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: It is the absolute worst possible tool. But in this
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: bizarre scenario, the only way you can map out the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: ink on the parchment is by throwing these baseballs at it,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: like as hard as you can, and measuring exactly how
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: they bounce off the surface.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Right. So if you throw, say, 100,000 baseballs, you might
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: eventually get a rough... topographical outline of the text. But
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: by the time you do that.
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  Speaker 3: That fragile, priceless scroll is completely destroyed.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: It's just dust settling on the table. It is the
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: ultimate observer's paradox, really. To see the thing, you have
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: to completely obliterate the thing. And, you know, this raises
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: a really important question. What do we do when the
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: object we are trying to observe isn't a scroll, but
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: the fundamental microscopic machinery of life itself?
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: And that is exactly the mission we are on today.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: We are exploring a truly groundbreaking resolution to this exact
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: paradox in the microscopic world.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: It's a huge deal.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: It really is. We are unpacking this radical new paradigm
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: in physics out of Austria, where researchers are actively figuring
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: out how to merge a conventional electron microscope with... a
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  Speaker 2: trapped ion quantum computer.
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  Speaker 3: Which just sounds like science fiction.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: It totally does.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But the math is actually proven and the hardware is
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: being built right now.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you are at all curious about the
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: future of medicine, biotechnology, or, you know, material science, this
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  Speaker 3: directly impacts you.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Because understanding the fundamental building blocks of life down to
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: the exact folding structure of individual proteins, that is crucial
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: for curing diseases and designing new drugs. But up until now,
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  Speaker 3: looking too closely at those delicate building blocks meant destroying them.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: So we are talking about the ultimate workaround to see
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: the unseeable without breaking it in the process.
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  Speaker 2: Right, but before we can fully grasp how mind-bending this
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: quantum solution is, we need to understand the physical brick
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: wall that traditional microscopes have hit. Because we aren't just
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: talking about polishing a glass lens here.
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  Speaker 3: No, not at all.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking about fundamentally changing how humanity gathers physical information.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: So to start us off, Why is a standard electron
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: microscope currently acting like our bucket of baseballs?
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  Speaker 3: Well, it fundamentally comes down to the physical limits of
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: ordinary light.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: We want to see biological structures that are far, far
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: smaller than the wavelength of visible light. So in classical optics,
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: if an object is smaller than the wavelength of the
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: light illuminating it, the light waves just wash right over it.
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  Speaker 2: Like waves going over a tiny pebble in the ocean.
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  Speaker 3: Exactly. They wash over it without scattering enough to form
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  Speaker 3: an image. So to bypass that limit and achieve extraordinary
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  Speaker 3: atomic scale resolution, modern electron microscopes ditch light entirely.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: They use electrons instead.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, because a moving electron has a quantum wavelength thousands
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  Speaker 3: of times shorter than a photon of visible light.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So they fire a high voltage beam of electrons
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  Speaker 3: at a sample, and a sensor basically counts those electrons
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  Speaker 3: as they pass through or scatter off the object.
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  Speaker 2: So it's literally mapping the physical terrain by seeing where
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: the electrons hit and where they get deflected, just like
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: the baseballs.
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  Speaker 3: That is the basic mechanism, yeah. But here's the severe limitation,
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  Speaker 3: and this was highlighted by physicist Philip Hasslinger.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: To image tiny details on an atomic scale, you require
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  Speaker 3: a massive continuous flux of electrons. It's not a gentle shower,
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  Speaker 3: you know. It's a relentless high-energy bombardment.
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  Speaker 1: Yikes.
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  Speaker 3: And when those fast-moving electrons hit the sample, they deposit
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  Speaker 3: a ton of energy. They break chemical bonds. They cause
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  Speaker 3: what we call radiolytic damage. And not every sample can
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: survive being exposed to that much energy.
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  Speaker 2: Which is a massive problem when we're talking about biological samples.
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  Speaker 2: Like if you're looking at a solid chunk of titanium
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: or a silicon microchip, sure, blast away. The metal can
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  Speaker 2: take it.
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  Speaker 3: Right. Titanium doesn't care.
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  Speaker 2: But an individual protein or like a virus capsid, That
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: is this incredibly delicate, fragile web of carbon and hydrogen.
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  Speaker 2: It has the ancient scroll.
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  Speaker 3: Exactly.
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  Speaker 2: You hit it with that many high energy electrons and
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  Speaker 2: you literally boil away the exact molecular structure you're trying
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  Speaker 2: to study.
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  Speaker 3: And that puts researchers in an incredibly frustrating bind. You
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  Speaker 3: desperately want to understand how a specific protein functions. Because
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  Speaker 3: that could be the key to neutralizing a virus. Right.
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  Speaker 3: But the very act of looking at it with high
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  Speaker 3: enough resolution alters its natural state into basically useless carbon dust.
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  Speaker 2: OK, let's unpack this, because my immediate common sense thought
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  Speaker 2: here is if we know the massive quantity of electrons
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  Speaker 2: is what destroys the sample, why not just turn down
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  Speaker 2: the dial?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems obvious, right?
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  Speaker 2: Like, why not just use fewer electrons, lower the voltage,
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  Speaker 2: be a bit gentler and save the proteins? Why are
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  Speaker 2: we stuck at this destructive statistical limit?
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  Speaker 3: Well, because in classical physics, turning down the dial doesn't
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  Speaker 3: give you a gentle, clear picture. It gives you a blurry,
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  Speaker 3: completely unusable image due to something called shot noise.
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  Speaker 2: Shot noise.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Think back to the baseball analogy. If you only
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: throw three baseballs at the scroll, you don't destroy it, sure.
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  Speaker 3: But you also have absolutely no idea what's written on it.
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  Speaker 2: Because three bounces aren't enough to reveal a pattern.
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  Speaker 3: Right. Three data points aren't enough. Electrons arrive randomly over time.
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  Speaker 3: If you use too few of them, the random fluctuations
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  Speaker 3: in their arrival actually outnumber the structural data they are carrying.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I see. So the actual information gets drowned out.
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  Speaker 3: Exactly. You lose the signal entirely in the static. So classically,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: you face this brutal ultimatum. Do you want a crystal clear,
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  Speaker 3: high resolution image of a completely destroyed biological sample? Or
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  Speaker 3: do you want a blurry, useless, static filled image of
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  Speaker 3: a pristine one?
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  Speaker 2: Man, that is a terrible choice to have to make.
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  Speaker 3: It really is.
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  Speaker 2: So we are trapped by the physical reality of signal-to-noise ratios.
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  Speaker 2: We cannot safely increase the quantity of the electrons without
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  Speaker 2: causing damage, which means logically the only possible way forward
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  Speaker 2: is to drastically increase the quality of the information we
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  Speaker 2: extract from each individual electron.
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  Speaker 3: And that is the crucial pivot. We have to squeeze
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  Speaker 3: more structural insight from every single electron that passes through
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  Speaker 3: the sample so we can fundamentally reduce the total number
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  Speaker 3: of electrons needed to overcome that shot noise. And that
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  Speaker 3: is where classical physics just, you know, throws its hands
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  Speaker 3: up in defeat and we have to enter the quantum realm.
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  Speaker 2: Which takes us right to the revolutionary concept proposed by
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  Speaker 2: Elias Piskolor and his colleagues at the Technical University of Vienna,
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  Speaker 2: or TU Wien.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And honestly, the sheer audacity of this idea is staggering.
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  Speaker 2: They aren't just writing better imaging software. They are proposing
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  Speaker 2: placing an ion-based quantum computer directly inside the vacuum tube
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  Speaker 2: of the microscope right along the path of the electron beam.
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  Speaker 3: It's wild. And what's fascinating here is how they're exploiting
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  Speaker 3: a quirk of quantum mechanics that standard microscopes completely ignore.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, how so?
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  Speaker 3: Well, in a standard system, a detector just counts the electron.
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  Speaker 3: It acts as a particle.
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  Speaker 2: Quick, quick, quick.
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  Speaker 3: But an electron is a quantum entity. It exhibits wave-particle duality.
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  Speaker 2: Right, the whole wave-particle thing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so as it passes by the sample, it acts
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  Speaker 3: like a wave. And its quantum phase, meaning the actual
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  Speaker 3: alignment of its peaks and troughs, is subtly altered by
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  Speaker 3: the electromagnetic field of the protein it just passed.
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  Speaker 2: Wait, let me stop you right there. Sure. If the
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  Speaker 2: electron acts like a wave, and its trajectory or its
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  Speaker 2: phase changes when it passes the sample, why do we
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  Speaker 2: need a quantum computer to read that? Can't a highly
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  Speaker 2: sensitive normal sensor just see where the electron's wave shifted?
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  Speaker 2: What is the quantum computer catching that a normal classical
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  Speaker 2: sensor misses?
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  Speaker 3: That is the million-dollar question. So a classical detector measures intensity,
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  Speaker 3: the amplitude of the wave or simply where the particle landed.
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  Speaker 3: It cannot measure the quantum phase directly without destroying the
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  Speaker 3: electron through absorption. Ah, okay, so it just sees the splash,
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  Speaker 3: not the ripples.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. The moment a normal sensor goes click, the electron's
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  Speaker 2: wave function collapses. All that rich, subtle phase information, the
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  Speaker 2: tiny ripples caused by the protein's electric field, is instantly lost.
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  Speaker 2: It's just left on the table.
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  Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And Piscolar's team realized that if you can capture that
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  Speaker 2: phase information before you destroy the electron, you change the
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  Speaker 2: entire game.
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  Speaker 3: So how are they actually capturing a phase shift without
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  Speaker 3: destroying the electron? Let's talk about the mechanism here, because
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  Speaker 3: putting a quantum computer inside an electron microscope sounds incredibly chaotic.
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  Speaker 1: It is.
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  Speaker 2: The secret lies in trapped ions. The physical mechanism involves
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  Speaker 2: using oscillating electric fields to suspend a single charged atom,
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  Speaker 2: an ion, firmly in place in a vacuum right along
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  Speaker 2: the path of the electron beam.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, an ion just floating there.
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  Speaker 2: Right. And as the electron travels through the microscope and
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  Speaker 2: its wave phase is subtly shifted by the biological sample,
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  Speaker 2: it continues down the tube and is forced to fly
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  Speaker 2: direct past this stationary trapped ion.
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  Speaker 3: It flies past it. It doesn't crash into it.
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  Speaker 1: Correct.
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  Speaker 3: And because they are both charged particles, they interact via
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  Speaker 3: the Coulomb force. Their electric fields push against each other.
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  Speaker 3: And this brief, non-destructive interaction creates quantum entanglement.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Entanglement. Entanglement. We hear this word thrown around a lot
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  Speaker 2: in sci-fi, but mechanically, what is actually happening between the
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  Speaker 2: electron and the ion here?
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  Speaker 3: When the passing electron interacts with the trapped ion, their
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  Speaker 3: physical properties become mathematically linked. They now share a joint
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  Speaker 3: quantum state. So the subtle phase shift that the electron
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  Speaker 3: picked up from the biological sample is imprinted onto the
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  Speaker 3: internal energy state of the trapped ion.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: I picture it kind of like two highly sensitive tuning forks.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, I like that.
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  Speaker 2: So the electron is the first tuning fork. It flies
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  Speaker 2: past the protein, and the protein's magnetic field alters its
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: acoustic resonance just slightly, giving it a unique vibration. Then
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  Speaker 2: the electron flies past the ion trap. The ion is
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: a second tuning fork, and through that brief electric push,
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  Speaker 2: the ion perfectly picks up that exact altered resonance. So
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  Speaker 2: now the stationary ion is humming with the precise structural
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  Speaker 2: data of the protein, and the electron just keeps flying
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  Speaker 2: down the tube.
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  Speaker 3: That is an Excellent, really grounded analogy. The entanglement allows
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  Speaker 3: us to transfer the phase information of the moving electron
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  Speaker 3: into the stationary ion without having to absorb or destroy
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  Speaker 3: the electron to get it. The quantum information is now
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: safely stored in the ion trap.
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  Speaker 2: But I have to push back again here, because a
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  Speaker 2: single tuning fork humming with data doesn't give me a
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  Speaker 2: picture of a virus.
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  Speaker 3: True.
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  Speaker 2: I get that we've captured the hidden phase data of
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: one electron. But you just told me earlier that we
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: need millions of data points to build a topographical map.
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  Speaker 2: How does entangling one electron with one ion actually help
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: us build a visual picture?
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Because the process doesn't stop with one electron. It is
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  Speaker 3: an iterative, compounding quantum measurement. And this leads directly into
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: how quantum entanglement actually amplifies visual data out of the
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: background noise.
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  Speaker 2: Here's where it gets really interesting. Because they don't just
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  Speaker 2: trap one piece of information, read it, clear it, and
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  Speaker 2: start over. The measurement actually builds on itself.
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  Speaker 3: Precisely. Or rather, the mathematics behind it compound. After that
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  Speaker 3: first electron interacts with the sample, entangles with the trapped ion,
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  Speaker 3: and alters the ion's quantum state, another electron comes down
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: the beam. It passes the sample, picks up its own
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  Speaker 3: tiny piece of structural information, and then it also passes
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: by the ion and becomes entangled. The system is designed
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  Speaker 3: to repeatedly carry out these carefully calibrated quantum operations with
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: a continuous sequence of electrons.
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  Speaker 2: So instead of 100,000 separate isolated data points that a
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: classical computer has to blindly average out, the quantum computer
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  Speaker 2: is physically layering the information.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: It's like we are adjusting the focal length of a
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  Speaker 2: camera lens iteratively. The first electron gives a blurry outline.
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  Speaker 2: The second electron's wave data interacts with the ion's already
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: altered state to sharpen that outline. The third refines it further.
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  Speaker 2: They are compounding the wave resonance.
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  Speaker 3: You are describing adaptive quantum measurement perfectly. And the complex
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: algorithms required to carry out the specific iterative processing, those
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: were developed by researchers at the Johannes Kepler University, or J.K. Lentz. Oh, nice. Yeah.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Dennis Retzel and Johannes Kofler led the theoretical models there.
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  Speaker 3: They proved that by performing highly specific quantum computing operations
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: on the ion each time an electron passes... they can
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: optimally combine the phase information from several successive electrons into
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: one highly reinforced signal.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: They are mathematically squeezing the signal out of the noise.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: The imaging process fundamentally relies on the same electrons interacting
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: with the sample. The radical difference is that the quantum
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: computer is catching and compounding the subtle phase data those
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: electrons carry.
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  Speaker 2: Data that would normally just scatter, collapse upon hitting a
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: standard detector, and look like random static.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
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  Speaker 2: This is the massive breakthrough, because as theoretical physicist Eva
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Brzezinova explains, you're completely altering the statistical limits of Fisher information,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: which is a measure of how much information an observable
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: variable carries about an unknown parameter. What previously would have
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: been completely indistinguishable from random shot noise suddenly snaps into
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: a crystal clear signal.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: It allows us to extract maximum signal strength from a
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: dramatically reduced number of electrons. It allows us to recover
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: vital structural details that would be physically impossible to identify
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: using ordinary electron counting alone.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: So you're getting the whole picture of the ancient scroll
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: by gently tossing just three or four baseballs instead of
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: blasting it with 100,000. Exactly. We get the high-resolution atomic image,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: but we completely bypass the destructive radiolytic bombardment. It's It's brilliant.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: It really is an elegant solution.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the actual physical reality of doing this,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: because proving adaptive quantum measurement works on a chalkboard is
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: one thing, but physically engineering a hybrid machine that combines
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: a high-voltage electron microscope with an ultra-sensitive, ion-trapping quantum computer,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: that has to be a monumental engineering nightmare.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, it is an environment clash of epic proportions. It
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: requires an entirely unique blending of disciplines that rarely, if ever,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: intersect at this level of hardware integration. Right.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Just think about the physical environments. A quantum computer requires
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: absolute pristine isolation.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: It needs cryogenic cooling, perfect magnetic shielding, and utter stillness.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: So the trapped ions don't lose their delicate quantum states.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: An electron microscope, on the other hand, is a violently
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: noisy environment. It uses massive fluctuating electromagnetic lenses to steer
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: a high voltage beam of particles. Trying to put a
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: fragile trapped ion inside that magnetic hurricane without the quantum
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: state instantly collapsing is incredibly difficult.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: And that is exactly why they had to assemble the
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: theoretical and engineering, you know, avengers of Austrian physics to
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: make this work. The sheer scale of the collaboration required
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: to move this from mathematical theory to physical reality is astounding.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: The theoretical math has already been rigorously proven. They know
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: the physics works. Now, the actual physical machine is actively
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: being constructed in Vienna at USTEM, the University Service Center
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: for Transmission Electron Microscopy.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: And when you look at the different teams bringing this
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: hybrid machine to life, you understand why each specific discipline
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: is required. Like you have the quantum computer side of
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: the equation, which is being handled by Philip Schindler's team
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: at the University of Innsbruck.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Right. Schindler's team specializes in trapped ion quantum computing. Their
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: monumental task is designing an ion trap robust enough to
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: maintain its quantum coherence while sitting directly in the hostile,
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: magnetically active environment of the microscope's beam path.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: That sounds nearly impossible.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: It's definitely a challenge. They have to shield the ion
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: just enough to protect the entanglement, but leave it exposed
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: just enough to interact with the passing electron.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: And on the other side, managing that hostile environment, you
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: have Thomas Juffman at the University of Vienna. His expertise
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: is in electron optics and quantum electron microscopy. His team
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: is responsible for intricately steering the fast-moving electron beam, so
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: that it perfectly interacts with both the fragile biological sample
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: and the trapped ion without causing chaos.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: It's a delicate, high-stakes choreography. And, you know, you cannot
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: ignore the institutional backing required to physically build something of
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: this unprecedented scale. Right.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: The funding.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Major funding is flowing in from the Austrian Science Fund,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: the Quanah Cluster Excellence, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: This isn't just a fringe experiment. It is a massive, unified,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: institutional push across the country.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Because they know exactly what is on the line. If
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Elias Peskoler's theoretical proposal, backed by the algorithms from JKU
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Lens and the hardware from Innsbruck and Vienna, actually works
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: as expected. I mean, it's not just an incremental step
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: forward in imaging software.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: No. If we connect this to the bigger picture, this
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: isn't just an upgrade to a laboratory tool. It is
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: a completely new paradigm in microscopy and biological observation. Quantum
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: physics is allowing us to fundamentally overcome the classical statistical
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: limits that have constrained conventional electron microscopes for decades. We
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: are breaking the old rules of observation.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: So what does this all mean? It means that the
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: days of obliterating the most delicate, fascinating biological structures on
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Earth just to get a glimpse of them are coming
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: to an end.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: We are no longer limited to the brute force of
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: classical physics. We are learning how to listen to the complex,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: microscopic wave resonance of a single electron rather than relying
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: on the deafening, destructive roar of a million of them.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: And it leaves you with one last thing to ponder, really.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: We are currently building a highly complex quantum net, an
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: ion trap inside a vacuum that Just to catch and
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: translate the hidden, unused quantum phase information carried by a
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: single tiny electron as it passes by a protein. But
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: if that vast unseen world of rich information exists right there,
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: just waiting to be read, what other streams of invisible
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: quantum information are flowing through our world and even through
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: our own bodies right now, just waiting for humanity to
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: build the right net to catch them?