Campus and Community Técnico marks the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology with school visits, lectures and a board game
The event celebrates the 100th anniversary of the initial development of quantum mechanics.
It was proclaimed by the United Nations and Instituto Superior Técnico joins the festivities – 2025 is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, celebrating the centenary of the initial development of quantum mechanics. To mark the occasion, several research units affiliated with Técnico will organise lectures and visits to primary and secondary schools throughout the year. A board game called Deus Joga Dados! (God does not play dice!) will also be presented.
Inspired by Einstein’s ‘God does not play dice’ saying, in which he defended a deterministic idea of the Universe, the game’s title refers to the probabilistic nature of quantum phenomena, which also reflects its rules – through successive dice rolls, players check whether a set of photons, the particles that make up light, is able to advance along various polarisers (devices that only allow photons to pass through under certain conditions).
The initiatives involve the participation of Técnico professors and researchers from the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion (IPFN), Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) and the Center of Physics and Engineering of Advanced Materials (CeFEMA).
‘If there are going to be technological revolutions in this century, they’re going to be quantum ones’, says Horácio Fernandes, a professor at Técnico and the driving force behind some of the initiatives within the celebration of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, including the creation of the board game. The importance given to the current and future role of this branch of science has made countries like Germany plan a first experimental contact with quantum physics at levels as early as primary school, points out the IPFN researcher.
Some experiments of this kind have already been presented to Portuguese secondary school classes through the Engineering for All initiative, a project involving Técnico which, among other activities, has distributed polarising discs so that students can explore the properties of light. The board game Deus Joga Dados! was presented as part of these activities and previously demonstrated at the science fair held during Técnico Open Day 2025.
In addition to these initiatives, a group of Técnico PhD students will present their research on quantum on 14 April at a conference at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto.