Our Pedagogical Manifesto: 
Why Quantum can be taught to non-specialists

Too important to be left to specialists

Many quantum institutes exist within physics and engineering departments at leading universities around the world. A dedicated quantum institute hosted by a business school is an international first, and its very existence is itself a message. Quantum is a public good. Its implications reach well beyond technology, and it is too important to remain the preserve of a small group of academic and technical specialists.

Creating such an institute inside a business school is a concrete way of saying that a strictly technological reading of quantum is not sufficient, and that its economic, strategic and societal dimensions belong to the same conversation as the physics.

Quantum technologies are advancing quickly and are expected to affect most industries, while the level of understanding among those who will have to act on them lags well behind. Business leaders do not need to run a quantum algorithm. They need to understand what these technologies can and cannot do, ask the right questions of their teams and their vendors, and avoid both excessive skepticism and unrealistic expectations.

That ambition raises a pedagogical challenge. How can quantum concepts, often perceived as abstract, counter-intuitive, or even "mysterious", be taught to students and executives coming from a management background? How does one keep the conceptual rigor of the theory while remaining accessible to that audience? What follows is my answer.

The mathematical barrier is lower than most people assume

Start with the mathematics, because that is where most people expect the difficulty to be. If one focuses on quantum information science without entering into the details of hardware engineering, the relevant framework is largely that of discrete systems: two-level systems and their generalizations. It is therefore possible to go quite far with relatively simple tools borrowed from linear algebra and complex analysis. From a strictly mathematical standpoint, the barrier is much lower than is generally assumed when the goal is to teach quantum concepts to non-physicists.

The real difficulty is conceptual

The real challenge lies elsewhere. Quantum theory invites us to grasp a form of logic that departs from classical intuitions, and this is precisely where its pedagogical value lies. Teaching it to non-specialists is an opportunity to reflect on a non-classical logic that appears to govern nature at its most fundamental level.

The most fruitful route into that work, in my experience, is to highlight the continuity between the quantum formalism and classical probability theory. Quantum probabilities are subtler than classical ones, but they are not mysterious: they emerge as the squared modulus of complex amplitudes, which can interfere constructively or destructively. Quantum theory extends the familiar ideas of probability rather than replacing them, and the right pedagogical sequence follows from that. Build on the classical framework, then show where it reaches its limits.

What quantum theory describes: the structure of the possible

Science is generally understood as aiming to provide a mathematically rigorous description of physical phenomena as we can observe them. Quantum physics turns out to have a more ambitious objective: describing the full range of potentialities, a regime in which outcomes have not yet crystallized and in which the very structure of what is possible remains in the process of becoming.

These potentialities are real enough to interfere and to become entangled, taking part in a subtle choreography that forms a hidden, underlying, and perhaps even prior layer of reality. This reading of the formalism is the object of our research, within the EDHEC Foundations of Quantum Mechanics Initiative, where a potentiality-based formulation is developed in full mathematical detail. It also has direct pedagogical value: it reduces unnecessary abstraction while giving students a conceptually intuitive framework, which is what a non-specialist audience needs.

Our journey and our mission

At the EDHEC Quantum Institute we have embarked on a journey and a mission.

Our journey is to develop a pedagogical approach suited to informing decision-makers and the public at large about quantum physics, and to explaining the rules that allow for a formal description of what is real: the outcomes of physical experiments, and also the unfolding of potential trajectories before they materialize.

Our mission is to share the story of how physicists and engineers are beginning to access this deeper layer, to shape possibility itself, and to turn it into technologies capable of transforming the way we compute, communicate and perceive the world. It is a fascinating story, and it should not be told only among specialists.

We are driven by one conviction: quantum theory can be taught and shared with non-specialists, provided the pedagogical approach is adapted to that audience. This means avoiding references to overly abstract mathematical notions, and emphasizing the links with classical frameworks in order to reveal their limitations.

In practice, this takes three forms. For EDHEC students, introductory courses, electives and conference formats build a working grasp of quantum concepts and of their economic and strategic significance, within a management education rather than beside it.

For experienced professionals, our executive programs address quantum disruption and quantum-related risk. The current offer is built as custom programs tailored to a single organization, and an open-enrollment offer is in development, starting with a program on quantum for finance.

For the wider public, our research, our glossary of quantum concepts and our outreach work exist to make the subject available to anyone willing to engage with it seriously.

Quantum will shape the coming decades. Whether it is understood only by specialists, or also by the people who make economic and political decisions, is not only a scientific question. It is a pedagogical one, and closing that gap is why this Institute exists.

Lionel Martellini is Founding Director of the EDHEC Quantum Institute and Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School. He holds two PhDs, one in Finance from the University of California, Berkeley, and one in Astrophysics. Read more about the Institute and its education programs.