Category: News

Scientists will travel 7,000 kilometres over 19 days and visit 40 cities and towns across Australia on the National Quantum & Dark Matter Road Trip.

The road trip will begin in Brisbane on 8 August and visit metropolitan, regional and rural schools and communities before finishing in Perth on 26 August.

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS) and ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics (CDM) are organising the event as part of National Science Week 2022.

The road trip aims to introduce quantum and particle physics to Australians, inspire the future generation of scientists and engineers, and highlight the potential of quantum technologies and dark matter discovery for the benefit of our society.

During the road trip, 25 scientists will present talks and demonstrations at 26 schools and hold public events including talks and pub trivia nights.

The cities and towns it will visit are:

Brisbane/Meanjin QLD, Oakey QLD, Gatton QLD, Murwillumbah NSW, Byron Bay NSW, Ulmarra NSW, South Grafton NSW, Coffs Harbour NSW, South Kempsey NSW, Port Macquarie/Guruk NSW, Kew NSW, Wingham NSW, Taree NSW, Newcastle/Malubimba NSW, Morisset NSW, Narara NSW, Sydney/Gadi NSW, Canberra/Ngambri ACT, Yass NSW, Corryong VIC, Mount Beauty VIC, Bendigo VIC, Stawell/Yirip VIC, Manangatang VIC, Red Cliffs VIC, Clare SA, Adelaide/Tarndanya SA, Ceduna SA, Border Village SA, Norseman WA, Kalgoorlie WA, Esperance WA, Ravensthorpe WA, Katanning WA, Lake Grace WA, Narembeen WA, Corrigin WA, Quairading WA, Cunderdin WA & Perth/Boorloo WA.

Road trip organiser and physicist Dr Ben McAllister, from CDM, EQUS, Swinburne Institute of Technology and the University of Western Australia, said the route had been carefully selected to visit rural and regional areas.

“We want to share the excitement of science, and physics in particular, with students and communities that might not otherwise have the opportunity to meet scientists face-to-face and learn about the cutting-edge science happening in Australia,” Dr McAllister said.

“We want to build a diverse scientific community and that means engaging with regional and rural people, along with those living in cities, to inspire them to consider a career in science and show them how fun physics can be.”

“We urge people to attend our public events, to celebrate science, meet our world-leading scientists and have a great time.”

More information about the road trip is available here on our website.

The National Quantum & Dark Matter Road Trip is officially less than a month away from hitting the road!

We’re still busily planning demonstrations, presentations and activities.  But if you can’t wait to dive into the world of quantum and dark matter, we’ve provided a bunch of resources to get you started!

There’s a SciArt activity, a quantum podcast, videos, virtual labs tours and more!

Check out our resources

—by Jacinta May

You may have heard of the problem of the Travelling Salesman.  A travelling salesperson is given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities.  They are then tasked with figuring out:

What is the shortest possible route that visits each city once (and only once) and then returns to the original city?

You can imagine that this dilemma chimes very closely with what our road-trippers were challenged with when mapping out our route.  However, our road-trippers have an approach at their disposal that our poor salesperson does not—quantum computation.

Could a quantum computer really help our road-trippers out?

The quandary may appear a simple statement, but do not be deceived.  The salesperson’s task is no mean feat; in fact, the problem is so complex that it has stumped even the most powerful classical supercomputers on the planet.

This is because the problem of the travelling salesman belongs to a particular class of problems in combinatorial optimisation—the NP-Hard problems.  The solution to an NP-Hard problem can only be verified in polynomial time (this means that for a problem with n cities, the solution may be verified with fewer than n^k tries at it), as opposed to a so-called P-problem, which can actually be solved in polynomial time.  Naturally, P-problems are much less complicated and are easily handled by classical computers every day.

NP-problems are incredibly complex, but are also of vital importance in the field of computer science.  Finding an algorithm that can solve NP-problems in polynomial time represents a Holy Grail for computing research, as solving one NP-problem will open the door to solving the thousands of other complex problems within the NP-family.

Why are quantum computers being used to attack these problems?

Well, the very nature of quantum computing allows for a very different approach to finding solutions.  Using the strangeness of quantum mechanics, a quantum computer has ability to perform certain tasks at an exponentially faster rate than classical computers.

It is important to note that quantum computers may very well never be able to solve the Travelling Salesman Problem in polynomial time.  But the possibilities of their problem-solving capabilities will have much further reach than the current threshold of what classical computers can achieve.

So, our road-trippers may be unable to delegate the logistical tangle of scheduling to a quantum computer just yet.  Although, perhaps next year, they (paying due diligence to our quantum research) will be able to rely on the strangeness of quantum mechanics for enhanced precision GPS technology to ensure we don’t get lost as we implement our very own solution of the Travelling Salesman Problem!

The road trip team are looking forward to hitting the road!

The road-trippers include scientists and science communicators from two national research centres, working to engineer the quantum future and unlock the secrets of dark matter.

They are excited to share their knowledge and enthusiasm for quantum and dark matter, and to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Find out more about our road-trippers by following the link below or in our #MeetTheRoadTrippers series on Twitter (@qdmroadtrip) and Instagram (@qdmroadtrip).

Meet the road-trippers

Work is well underway preparing for the 2022 National Quantum & Dark Matter Road Trip.  We’re excited to have 25 school visits confirmed, with more schools potentially being confirmed in the next few days.  Plotting a sensible route across Australia, while fitting in as many schools as possible, has been an interesting challenge.  The focus is now on filling in the gaps with public lectures, pub quizzes and other public events.  Check out our interactive map to see where we’ll be stopping: https://www.qdmroadtrip.org/about/route.

Assigning our scientists to the various legs of the road trip was also a mammoth task.  We had to take into account the availability of our road-trippers and where they’re usually based (to minimise travel costs), while ensuring we had enough drivers for each leg and a mix of experience and expertise.  To get a sense of the chaos involved in this problem, check out our post-it planning:

The team are also working hard on several other fronts: booking accommodation, cars and flights; preparing engaging quantum and dark matter presentations and demos; organising media, merchandise and collateral; and finalising other operational requirements.

We’re very much looking forward to hitting the road!  With only 5 weeks to go, we’d better get back to work…

Scientists will travel across Australia to share the excitement of quantum technologies and the search for dark matter in the National Quantum & Dark Matter Road Trip, 8–26 August 2022.

The road trip aims to bring particle and quantum physics to regional and rural areas.

Scientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics (CDM) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS), which have bases in multiple states and territories, will visit community hubs along a route from Brisbane to Perth, connecting their research centres.

The event has been expanded to travel across the continent after a successful road trip throughout southwest Western Australia in 2021.

Centre researcher Ben McAllister, from Swinburne University of Technology and the University of Western Australia, said the response to the event had been extremely positive.

“Last year’s road trip was an awesome experience — getting out into regional and rural communities to spread the excitement and wonder of science was so rewarding.  I’m looking forward to reaching more regional and rural Australians this year.”

CDM Education and Outreach Coordinator Jackie Bondell described the National Quantum & Dark Matter Road Trip as “an interactive travelling science and art show”.

“Quantum technology and the nature of dark matter are key Australian research priorities and are vital to unravelling the greatest mysteries of the Universe,” Ms Bondell said.

“During the trip, which spans National Science Week, scientists from two ARC Centres of Excellence will engage and enlighten the public on the importance of the fundamental scientific research taking place in their own backyards.

“The goal of the program is to visit regional communities to engage audiences of all ages with the cutting-edge science happening here in Australia.  Our scientists will provide hands-on activities and give talks in hopes of engaging visitors in conversations about the excitement and the impact of science.”

Funding for the National Science Week activity was announced by the Minister for Science and Technology, Melissa Price, today.

The road trip was among 35 projects that received support in the $500,000 National Science Week grant round.

National Science Week grants provide the opportunity for community participation in high-profile science engagement activities across Australia.  They aim to inspire participation in science, technology, engineering and maths, acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of Australian scientists to the world of knowledge, encourage an interest in science pursuits and foster in younger people a fascination in the world we live in.

Ben McAllister discusses the value of scientific exploration

A quantum technology road trip, robotics competitions and an inflatable digestive system ‘poo palace’ are just some of the science projects being supported by the Morrison Government’s 2022 National Science Week grants.

Thirty-five public science projects will share in more than $500,000 as part of Australia’s annual celebration of science and technology.

The grants include funding for:

• The University of Melbourne’s interactive travelling science and art show bringing quantum physics to regional and rural areas.
• Student Robotics Club of South Australia’s Robot Scrimmage competition day where students can work together to battle it out.
• The Hunter Medical Research Institute’s oversized inflatable re-creation of the digestive system where children can conduct interactive food experiments and learn about digestion.

Minister for Science and Technology Melissa Price said National Science Week was a great way to encourage interest and participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

“National Science Week is a fantastic and fun opportunity to recognise the wonderful work of our scientists and hopefully inspire our next generation of big-thinkers,” Minister Price said.

“Science plays a huge part in our daily life, even if we don’t always realise.

“The great events and activities in National Science Week are not only fun and interactive, but they can show us just how much we use science in our everyday life.

“This year, we’ve got a huge range of events and there’s something for everyone, whether that’s learning about the science of bush tucker, quantum physics, robotics or even how our bodies work.

“Last year, we saw more than one million Aussies participating in events across every state and territory, and we’re expecting that this year we’re going to see even more people getting out and joining in on the fun.”

The 2022 school theme for National Science Week is ‘Glass: More than meets the eye’ and is based on the UN International Year Of Glass.

National Science Week 2022 will run 13–21 August.

More details, including the full list of grant recipients, are available at scienceweek.net.au.

As part of National Science Week 2021, researchers from the Quantum Technologies and Dark Matter Lab at the University of Western Australia—Aaron Quiskamp, Ben McAllister, Catriona Thomson, Cindy Zhao, Elrina Hartman, Jeremy Bourhill, Mike Tobar and William Campbell—piled into a minibus and embarked on the Quantum & Dark Matter Road Trip, visiting schools and communities across southwest Western Australia.  It was a resounding success, thoroughly enjoyed by the road-trippers and those they visited along the way.

Over the five-day trip, the team spoke to nine classes across seven schools and delivered three public events, reaching a total of roughly 1,000 students, teachers and members of the public.  They engaged their audiences through demonstrations such as a water clock and an umbrella-based proof of the existence of dark matter, provided a sneak peek into the lives of physicists, and talked up the cutting-edge research being done at the ARC Centres of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems and Dark Matter Particle Physics.

Mike Tobar delivered a public lecture on quantum technology, measuring time, sapphire clocks and the search for elusive dark-matter particles.  On display during the talk was a sculpture by local artist Duncan Moon, Tempus fugit, which explores the human perception of time and space.

The team had a stall at the Newton Moore Senior High School STEM Community Fair, during which Ben McAllister gave a public talk about dark matter and how quantum technologies are being used in dark-matter searches.  They also set-up their demonstrations at the Rose Hotel, facilitating fruitful discussions with local punters.

Road trip stops:

• Wagin District High School
• Denmark Senior High School
• Mt Barker Community College
• UWA Albany Campus
• Albany Senior High School
• Newton Moore Senior High School
• Dalyellup College
• The Rose Hotel, Bunbury
• Nannup District High School

This initiative was enabled by funding from National Science Week Small Grants, and the ARC Centres of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems and Dark Matter Particle Physics.  Thanks also to Linda Barbour for helping to organise the road trip.