Vox Names Professor of Physics Christopher Fuchs on its Future Perfect 50 List
Professor of Physics Christopher Fuchs has been named one of Vox’s Future Perfect 50, honoring his work as a quantum physics pioneer imagining the future. The Future Perfect project at Vox tells stories about the world’s problems and the ideas that can transform our future.
Their second annual list, which honors visionary change agents, aims to amplify people who exemplify the principles and ideas Vox is most excited about. Those named on the list, including Fuchs, are the people who are pushing the novel and utopian ideas that can effectively change the world for the better, into the mainstream.
Fuchs is being recognized for his work on QBism, the subjective Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics that distinguishes itself from the traditional explanations of quantum reality. QBism follows the theory that the probabilities in quantum mechanics are reflections of personal belief that shape an observer’s expectations rather than outlining an objective reality. Based on this view, each person plays a crucial role in shaping their own experiences instead of reality being based on a pre-written script, which then bridges the gap between consciousness and the physical world.
Fuchs found out about his inclusion on Vox’s Future Perfect 50 list on a recent cold morning before getting ready for the day. Wondering if there was any recent chatter about QBism, Fuchs searched the internet for any news and was startled to find his own portrait included on the Vox website.
“To be called a ‘revolutionary’ in front of a million people – that is probably the biggest honor I could have ever asked for,” he said. “It made the years of QBism being rejected by the philosophers of physics feel worthwhile.”
While QBism has its critics, it’s Fuchs relentless work and disruption in the scientific community that invites new ways of engaging with the quantum world and reshapes the rules we live by. Vox describes Fuchs’s work as a physicist to be that of a “maverick thinker,” and his collected research working out the mechanics of QBism is reminiscent of past scientist-philosophers. Fuchs’s work serves as a reminder that progress comes from challenging the status quo.
To learn more about Fuchs’s work on QBism and the Future Perfect 50, read the Vox article.