A few weeks before I built this, I was talking with my good friend and physics education researcher David Seiden about quantum computing. He asked whether it was purely a coincidence that quantum circuit diagrams resemble musical staffs so much.
I loved the question. I have always felt like the connection between the arts and sciences is intrinsic, and physics often becomes most beautiful when it is not only something we calculate, but something we can experience.
Quantum circuits already have a score-like structure: qubit wires look a little like staff lines, time moves across the page, and gates mark where the state changes. So I started wondering what would happen if we treated a circuit diagram a little more like sheet music.
The mapping is playful, but it is not random. A Hadamard gate creates superposition, which made me want it to sound like a tone opening up. Phase shifts can change the color of the sound because they change relative phase, and entangling gates can make separate voices start moving together instead of alone.
That question turned into New Wavefunction, a small interactive tool that turns quantum circuits into sound. Quantum mechanics has wave functions, and music has “new wave,” so this is, in a very literal and very unserious sense, a new wave function.
I hope it can be a fun outreach tool for students and anyone curious about quantum computing. Sometimes making science feel playful is one of the best ways to invite people in.
So now I am asking: what do you think a Hadamard gate should sound like?