top of page

Search

Quantum Refuge

sciart0
Nov 15
1 min read

Qasem Waleed is a 28-year-old physicist who has lived in Gaza his whole life. In 2024, he joined a chorus of Palestinians sharing videos and pictures and writing about the chaos and violence they were living through, as Israel’s military bombardment devastated their lives. But Qasem was trying to describe his reality through the lens of the most notoriously confusing and inscrutable field of science ever, quantum mechanics. We talked to him, from a cafe near the Al-Mawasi section of Gaza, to find out why. And over the course of several conversations, he told us how this reality-breaking corner of science has helped him survive. And how such unspeakable violence actually let him understand, in a visceral way, quantum mechanics’ most counter-intuitive ideas.

Recent Posts

The First Prophet of Abundance

David Lilienthal’s account of his years running the Tennessee Valley Authority can read like the Abundance of 1944. We still have a lot to learn from what the book says — and from what it leaves out.

WHY IS ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. SO CONVINCED HE’S RIGHT?

How an outsider, once ignored by the public-health establishment, became the most powerful man in science

What the S&P 500 is hiding about the economy

A few trillion-dollar companies are powering the market’s gains. Here’s what’s happening to most other businesses in the United States. Thanks Tom!

bottom of page