Behind the scenes of Quantum realm with Dr. Spiros — Part I
Unfolding the mysteries of the world of MCU with Dr Spyridon Michalakis
Disclaimer — The following article may contain spoilers and explanations of some very befuddling questions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and much more!
The greatest treasure of human interactions are perhaps conversations that forever change your thought paradigm. We were lucky enough to have a taste of that connection with a quantum physicist none other than the Marvel scientific advisor himself, Dr Spyridon (Spiros) Michalakis. Physicist and researcher at Caltech, Spiros is best known in the academic world for his contributions to the ‘quantum hall effect’ problem. However, Spiros is also a part of the charismatic universe of Marvel. He has been the scientific consultant for groundbreaking movies like the Ant-Man series, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame.
When we met Spiros for the interview, he was already eager to answer all our queries with utmost enthusiasm. Despite flying into Trichy that morning, Spiros was wide awake and was looking forward to his lecture. He also seemed all set for the interview to follow. Not wanting to miss our chance, we began with our first question for the session-
It isn’t easy to make life choices that align with your dreams, what made you take up physics as your primary area of research?
“I did not pick Physics; Physics picked me.”
I started with maths and computer science as an undergraduate at MIT. Even as a kid, I never took physics as a subject for me or thought physics as elegant as mathematics. Physics, for me, came after I started my PhD in California. I couldn’t find my advisor. I went to the Head of my Mathematics Department, and asked him to sign my study guide so that I could continue attending my classes. He said, “Don’t worry, you will be my research student from now on. We will work on quantum teleportation”, and I was like, “I have no idea what you just said, but I want to do it.”
Now encouraged that reality might one day catch up to the promises of quantum teleportation, we went on with our next question-
Having worked so closely with the production of Ant-Man, do you think it is possible to implement such feats in the real world?
I would say that it is not easy at all, the shrinking part and all that. I would also say that this is not relevant because in your mind you can do things, you can simulate realities that don’t exist here. It can be like you putting on a VR headset and imagining that everything else around you is so much bigger than you and you running around like a little ant. But what is fascinating to me is the reason I switched from mathematics to physics — my advisor saying “quantum teleportation”.
I don’t know what a quantum is, but I know teleportation, I have seen it on screen. But if you’d asked me if it was real, I would have said it’s not. But now that I have worked on actual teleportation and tried to figure out how to make it happen, it all seems possible.
When you tread on the fictional realm, the extent of things you can do doesn’t have any limits. But as a Physicist, where do you draw that line between fiction and reality?
In my dreams.
You are asking the one person in the world who is always walking the edge between reality and fiction. My research at Caltech is trying to define reality, trying to understand what it is, how to break it and how to go beyond it. Things that create reality are some foundational things like space and time. And then there are laws of physics that constrain us to do certain things in specific ways.
We have forces like gravity and magnetism that bind us together, but my research is figuring all about how these things come to be, instead of them being the foundation of reality. I aim to go beneath them and figure out what they emerge from. And it’s fun because there are things that are more fundamental than this.
*Spoiler Alert*
While watching Doctor strange, we had a lot of questions about how the time stone works. One of the most frequent ones that we encountered was in the climax scene, where Strange bargains with Dormammu. He uses a time loop to have the upper hand, but how is he able to retain the memories of the time he reversed?
A few more interesting questions that can be asked here are — When he reverts to one point, why were there not two of him at that instance? Why was he not stuck in an infinite loop? How could he break the loop and take a different path?
To explain these, take this example. When we go for a roller coaster ride, and we go through a loop, we don’t return to the same place at which the loop started. We get as close as we can to the starting point, but the loop path is diverted a little. So analogously, time reversion is like the roller-coaster, almost like a loop but not exactly one, with the starting point being a bit away from the previous reversion.
Being Marvel fans ourselves, there is so much that we want to see on screen, from Hulk’s planet smash to silver surfer’s board. It would be a treat to see all that on the screen right out from the pages of comics and physics books. And thus, we wanted to know what Spiros thought about it.
In Ant-Man and the Wasp, we were shown entanglement and quantum realm on screen. What are the other quantum mechanical phenomena that you would like to see on the big screen?
They did an excellent job with the after-effects. What I would like to see are not specific concepts, but more of properties and the processes of those properties — figuring out how something would work and why something that looked right, is wrong and vice-versa. The fact that I love about sci-fi movies is that they might be closer to the truth than us scientists. We just haven’t found the correct way to ask the universe for the right answers.
One hundred years ago, the ubiquitous smartphone would have been magic. Everything we do now, for example, recording my voice in this interview and then sharing it would have all been magic. That magic is what excites me, and I love to see that on screen.
Hollywood does a much better job than books or professors at inspiring the students of the next generation to think crazy. Science is hard, engineering is harder, and it can all be very dull. Applying the fundamentals without knowing what is happening is frustrating, but it pays off. With all this knowledge that you students acquire, arcane knowledge that eludes your parents, you can do amazing feats with it. Make magic into technology. That’s why I enjoy watching and consulting with Hollywood. I want to learn from them as much as I want to teach them new ideas.
Being Star Trek fanatics ourselves, we have always wondered about the concept of teleportation, and as you are currently working on it, can you throw some light on the topic?
Quantum teleportation used to be a hot subject — something we showcased at Caltech, even around 15 years ago, where you can transport the information between particles beneath space-time. The way you do that is very simple, once you understand how the universe works.
But wait! Do you think it is easy to understand how the mysterious universe works? No, right?
We thought the same and asked him to explain the universe in the best way possible. While delving deep into the web of reality, Spiros gave a pretty good picture of the quantum world while keeping the plot of Endgame a secret. To read about it, stay tuned to The Pragyan Blog for the second, and more mind-boggling part of the interview!
The interview was taken along with Varshiny Arumugam
Yes, like every Marvel movie, we have a post-credit sequence of questions too-
Who would win a fight between Ant-Man and Superman?
Ant-Man easily.
(Gearing up for Civil War, Part 2)
Are you Team Cap or Team Iron Man?
Team Cap, although I love Iron Man.
Dr Spyridon Michalakis will be back
