Introducing Quantum Technology 1.0

Summary

In Quantum Technology 1.0, scientists and engineers used the insights from quantum mechanics at a coarse level, working with large numbers of photons, electrons, and other quantum particles. Quantum mechanics continued to be developed and refined. Also, the first wave of technological change driven by quantum mechanics began. This chapter describes the technologies, along with dates that represent important early milestones for each of them: solar cells (1890s), electron microscopes (1931), transistors (1947), atomic clocks (1955), masers and lasers (1953 and 1960), and MRI scanners (1977). Today's world is completely dependent on the technologies developed in the first wave of technological change made possible by quantum mechanics. The quantum mechanics — powered technologies have powered a transformation of our world. The core strangeness of quantum mechanics, represented most strongly by superposition, entanglement, and tunneling, is not used directly in most of the first wave of technologies derived from quantum mechanics.