Henrik Söderblom and Daniel Österbacka attended the summer school in Varenna, Italy held between 11th and 18th of July 2025 titled ”Future needs for metrology: climate science, quantum technologies and the digital transformation”, hosted by the Italian Physical Society. The course had several elite experts in the field giving talks on topics of their own choosing, making the talks filled with motivation and enthusiasm. We were in total about 50 attendees at the school, which was held in the beautiful botanical garden of Villa Monastero in the idyllic small town Varenna next to lake Como. During the school there were also plenty of opportunities to network with people and make meaningful new contacts.
Although the theme of the summer school was future needs in metrology, we also got an overview of how metrology first came to existence 150 years ago. The lecture was held by the director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, BIPM, Dr. Martin Milton. He described that in the 19th century, mapping and cartography was an important step in the evolution of society, and a definition of a length unit was needed, which in the end led to the metre convention. There was another presenter that chose to present some history during the course, this time focusing on Galileo Galilei and the 17th century. Galilei was a curious soul and tried to figure out many things during his life, and his work has many connections to metrology.
A hot topic in the scientific world right now was also present during the course, quantum computers. A couple of lectures with a more introductory nature presented the basics of the key differences between a quantum computer and a classical one. The ability to rely on probabilities instead of deterministic ones and zeros can in some cases speed up the calculation process greatly. But it was emphasized that the real impressive thing is not the probability and in practice infinite states between 0 and 1, but the entanglement of the Q-bits in the computer. The entanglement means that each state knows the state of all neighbouring Q-bits, and changes made to the system are instantaneous. The highlight of the quantum computing presentations was a (remote) live demo of a real quantum computer, an IBM computer with 133 Q-bits located in the US, used to calculate a relatively simple optimization heat transfer problem, and (surprisingly enough) it worked without any issues. A funny side note to the live demo is that the quantum computers of IBM are assigned randomly when a task is submitted and by chance the computer in use during the demo was named” Torino”, the city which was only a couple hundreds of km from where we were. Other notable topics that were presented include quantum standards in electrical metrology, digital transformation, and optical atomic clocks.
During the school every attendee got to present a poster of their own work. Henrik presented his work on in-situ calibration of sensors in a sensor network and Daniel presented characterization of a lightning impulse voltage divider. It was a useful experience to present to people that do not necessarily have the same background as oneself.
A couple of days left some gaps in the schedule with time for exploring of the area, which was a nice break from the otherwise packed schedule filled with hours of lectures every day. Daniel teamed up with a few guys from the UK and the Netherlands and hiked up the mountain next to Varenna in the early hours just after dawn. A 12 km long hike and in total 1 km ascension was a nice way to get some exercise before the afternoon session. Unfortunately, the day was cloudy and a bit rainy, which meant the view was not as good as anticipated but it was of course still worth it. One day when there were fewer lectures, Henrik and Daniel went together with some other attendees to Bellagio with one of the many ferries that were sailing on the lake. A livelier area compared to Varenna, with amazing views of the mountains to the north.
The networking was a great aspect of the school; we had dinners almost every night with most of the students and lecturers attending. This in conjunction with the interesting lectures made the summer school a very enjoyable experience.
