Vision

BraketLab is designed to facilitate facilitate student experiences in the quantum realm.

Many students of quantum physics and chemistry will at some point have to deal with the difficult fact that in their effort to explore the many facets of quantum theory, they'll run into mathematical complications at almost every turn. It is hard to get familiar with the scientific aspects with profoundly hard and complicated integrals lurking in every corner.

Furthermore, the scientific theory is in itself quite non-intuitive and unfamiliar from a macroscopic point of view. In this regards, it may seem reasonable to simply force the students to accept the postulates of quantum theory, rather than having them "reach the conclusion on their own" as might be preferential from a pedagogical point of view.

This is especially true for many-body quantum theory, where the intrinsically complicated nature of the matter forces us to resort to many layers of approximations and compact notation, thus (for many students) obfuscating the connection to our tangible, everyday reality. Representing the electronic structure of a molecule with a linear combination of Slater determinants, built from independent particle orbitals, constructed as linear combination of atomic orbitals expanded in Gaussian type functions (under Born-Oppenheimer conditions) is not a trivial solution to the many-body problem, and most definently not a solution we should expect students to discover on their own.

Yet, these topics are taught at many undergraduate physical chemistry courses worldwide. In order to master these courses, the students will either have to memorize and accept, or rely on a mature ability to engage in abstract thinking, which likely only a minority possess. (Of course, we would like to train this ability as well)

With BraketLab, the quantum world becomes tangible. Quantum states can be instanciated, measured, visualized and react to manipulations according to the postulates and formalism of quantum mechanics. Conventional methods for dynamics and even many body problems can be constructed in a modular way, whithout disconnecting with the underlying algebra.