Context:
Recently, The United Nations has said 2025 will be designated the ‘International Year of Quantum Science and Technology’.
More on the news
- The initiative will be “year-long”, and “worldwide”, and it will “be observed through activities at all levels aimed at increasing public awareness of the importance of quantum science and applications.
- The proclamation is the result of a resolution led by Mexico in May 2023 which was soon joined by other countries.
- By November 2023 almost 60 countries had co-sponsored the resolution and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General Conference adopted it.
- The proclamation has received the endorsements of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the International Union of Crystallography, and the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.
- U.N. states, that its proclamation “is a signal for any individual, group, school, institution, or government to use 2025 as an opportunity to increase awareness about quantum science and technology.”
Quantum Technology
- It is based on the principles of Quantum mechanics developed in the early 20th century to describe nature at the scale of atoms and elementary particles.
- To advance the awareness and appreciation of quantum science and technology among the public worldwide, an international initiative was taken in 2022, commemorated annually as World Quantum Day on April 14th.
Why 2025?
- 2025 will be a century since the German physicist Werner Heisenberg published a famous paper in which he laid the foundation of modern quantum mechanics.
- He reinterpreted a series of tweaks — required for classical mechanics to make sense of the quantum phenomena being discovered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — to lay the foundation stone of what would come to be called quantum mechanics.
India’s Position on Quantum Science and Technology
- The government of India announced a ‘National Quantum Mission’ in April 2023.
- It is to be implemented from 2023 to 2031 by the Department of Science & Technology (DST).