The days get sunnier, yet the working from home continues. Some labs over the world are closed. At QuTech we have the luck that the labs stayed open, although the people in it disappeared. Monitoring measurements remotely and struggling with simulations is, also at QuTech, the new standard. With, of course, the now very well-known background noise of the video calls; people who are still on mute while talking, interesting background sounds and the frequency with which you can, or can’t hear someone with a failing internet connection (fun fact: the QuTech communications team even made a bingo card for everyone, containing the most-heard sentences in quantum video calls). The most interesting things we had so far were someone trying to fix his finances and stocks during a group meeting (and wasn’t muted), someone’s child breaking into a group meeting and someone’s pet chicken overtaking a whole meeting with its noise.

Yet more and more, we’re getting used to it. And a new normal requires new ways of keeping in touch and having fun together (one of the things I like of the video calls is that you get a sneak peak of someone’s home). That’s why the QuTech blog team organised a pub quiz for QuTech last Friday. It was a great success! The teams were competitive and we had a lot of fun with distributing the bonus points for best outfit and best background image. Of course, we don’t want to withheld you, therefore we made a puzzle out of the bonus questions of the quiz for you to think about during this long weekend.

In this puzzle you see nine tiles. Each tile cryptically describes a word that has something to do with quantum computers. You can fill in your answers in the answer card below (which also tells you how many letters an answer should have). If you fill it out correctly, you can read another word in the yellow tiles. A small note, a word like T2 would be spelled T-two and thus would occupy 5 tiles. Enjoy and good luck! The answers will be added to this post next week.

Puzzles

Answer sheet

Note. The sources for the images of these puzzles are:

Fig 1: adapted from https://favpng.com/png_view/tea-tea-bag-clip-art-coffee-cup-png/YKeGLq1N
Fig 2: https://pixers.nl/fotobehang/karpaten-landschap-op-een-bergkam-37618452
Fig 3: https://www.jing.fm/iclip/JJJioh_this-png-file-is-about-clipart-plastic-dustbin/
Fig 4: –
Fig 5: –
Fig 6: http://clipart-library.com/hats-cliparts.html
Fig 7: https://webstockreview.net/explore/clipart-rock-sedimentary-rock/
Fig 8: https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/446485-castle-towers-on-the-cliff
Fig 9: http://www.clipartpanda.com/clipart_images/brown-hen-clip-art-vector-25375045