Christopher K. Long's Avatar

Christopher K. Long

@christopher-k-long

4th year PhD student at the University of Cambridge focusing on Quantum Computing (he/him) Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GRSIcsEAAAAJ GitHub: https://github.com/Christopher-K-Long ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3230-942X

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Latest posts by Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long

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What’s purportedly wrong with Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style”? I was reading the comments on this answer where several users claimed that Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style was “misinformed, hypocritical, and wrong” and “flat-out wrong or totally mislead...

[1] G. K. Pullum, 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Apr. 2009. Original url:
www.chronicle.com/article/50-y.... PDF download from @archive.org (no sign-in required): web.archive.org/web/20260208....

[2] @archive.org: web.archive.org/web/20220811...

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08.02.2026 14:27 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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What’s purportedly wrong with Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style”? I was reading the comments on this answer where several users claimed that Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style was “misinformed, hypocritical, and wrong” and “flat-out wrong or totally mislead...

I found Pullum's critical essay, 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice, helpful in discerning Strunk & White's rules from suggestions [1]. Pullum's essay is heavy-handed, and a counter-critique can be found in the following Stack Exchange answer: english.stackexchange.com/a/3223/695205 [2].

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08.02.2026 14:27 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition ebook by William Strunk Jr - Rakuten Kobo Read "The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition" by William Strunk Jr available from Rakuten Kobo. 'The Elements of Style' (1918), by William Strunk, Jr., is an American English writing style guide. It is...

I finally read The Elements of Style by Strunk & White; I should have read it on day one of my PhD. At least I read it before writing my thesis. A free copy can be found on Kobo: www.kobo.com/ebook/the-el....

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08.02.2026 14:27 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

I second the Hyperion Cantos

08.02.2026 10:35 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I've only read a couple of books from the Hainish Cycle; now I'm really excited for the rest. Maybe the dispossessed will have to be next.

In the left hand of darkness at first names are used but not explained. After a few chapters some you can infer some and some are explained.

08.02.2026 10:33 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Unfortunately, it looks like you need third-party apps to create markdown-style links on @bsky.app:

31.12.2025 16:27 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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GitHub - Christopher-K-Long/GitLab-Repo-Sync: Tutorial for syncing GitHub repos to GitLab with a GitLab CI triggered by GitHub Webhook. Tutorial for syncing GitHub repos to GitLab with a GitLab CI triggered by GitHub Webhook. - Christopher-K-Long/GitLab-Repo-Sync

I have finally finished mirroring my scientific @github.com repositories to @gitlab.com. Here is a tutorial by [justncodes](github.com/justncodes) which I modified: github.com/Christopher-...

31.12.2025 16:18 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Congrats on the successful year @mouhaqh.bsky.social, looks like I should your articles a read when I'm back to work!

27.12.2025 11:35 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
22.12.2025 12:24 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
22.12.2025 12:24 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Now is not a good time for citations: Miss-citing online-only journals and Google Scholar indexing non-existent articles cited by hallucinating LLMs. Maybe the silver lining is that this will undermine metrics such as citation counts and h-indices, forcing academics to be judged more holistically.

22.12.2025 12:24 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

For example, numerical quantum optimal control techniques such as GRAPE and CRAB fall within the framework of VQAs and are used ubiquitously today to tune quantum processors.

30.11.2025 12:09 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

My point is I wouldn't declare VQAs doomed—that's too strong. Most no-go theorems have loopholes and assumptions. They tell us where it is still worth looking. I would just say that VQAs' use cases are increasingly constrained, and so there are probably more promising directions.

30.11.2025 12:09 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Quantifying the effect of gate errors on variational quantum eigensolvers for quantum chemistry - npj Quantum Information npj Quantum Information - Quantifying the effect of gate errors on variational quantum eigensolvers for quantum chemistry

Given the drastic improvements in noise tolerance of VQE algorithms since colleagues and I wrote [doi:10.1038/s41534-024-00808-x](doi.org/10.1038/s415...), it may even be possible to use coherently executed shots to improve the runtime of expectation value estimation.

30.11.2025 12:09 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

The large shot count is a problem. I hope that better techniques for estimating expectation values will be developed.

30.11.2025 12:09 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Given that many alternative methods for eigenvalue estimation require polynomial overlap between the initial state and the eigenstate, it may be that VQAs are still needed for initial-state preparation.

30.11.2025 12:09 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Guarantees are good but not vital. I think once there is good enough hardware someone will run the best known VQE for a molecule (like FeMoco) and it will either work or it won't. They will probably use tricks like adaptivity, pulse optimization, and error mitigation as asymptotics won't matter.

29.11.2025 13:15 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Thank you for the reference, I will add it to the read list

29.11.2025 13:09 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Adaptive, problem-tailored variational quantum eigensolver mitigates rough parameter landscapes and barren plateaus - npj Quantum Information npj Quantum Information - Adaptive, problem-tailored variational quantum eigensolver mitigates rough parameter landscapes and barren plateaus

I agree with this for non-adaptive VQAs. Last I checked, no one had proved barren plateaus cause problems for adaptive VQAs—[numerical evidence](doi.org/10.1038/s415...) suggests the contrary. There is still some life in VQAs. Nonetheless, I'm glad to have diversified my research away from VQAs.

29.11.2025 09:51 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Wish I could have gone, looking forward to #QuiDiQua4!

11.11.2025 07:15 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you for sharing this! Please give us an update of you hear back from Springer Nature.

07.11.2025 06:08 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Keep Android Open Advocating for Android as a free, open platform for everyone to build apps on.

Starting next year, Android will no longer be the open computing platform we were promised: keepandroidopen.org

04.11.2025 12:38 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

At a glance this looks like it considers higher orders than Fermi's Golden rule so should give a better estimate. I hadn't thought about phonon spin coupling—which seems important in your use case. Phonon spin coupling could also be studied with Fermi's Golden rule. But higher orders are better.

03.11.2025 19:31 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I think being hit by a meteroid might be harder to error correct than by a few cosmic rays...

03.11.2025 19:22 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Let me know if this helps :)

30.10.2025 07:02 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Note due to approximations the rule breaks down for large t. Differentiating this at t=0 will give the initial rate, R, where the approximations are most valid. The if amplitude damping noise is modeled as 1-e^{-t/T1} then differentiating at zero we can fit for T1 and we find T1=1/R.

30.10.2025 07:02 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

I don't know anything about diradical molecules, but hopeful the following is helpful:
In the stack I retain the sinc terms. You can either approx these as delta function first or just integrate the probability over the emission frequency. This will give total probability of emission after a time t.

30.10.2025 07:02 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_phase_estimation_algorithm#/media/File:PhaseCircuit.svg

Under CC BY-SA 4.0 License.
Author: Omrika
Created: 14 April 2023
Uploaded: 14 April 2023
Caption:
"The circuit of the quantum phase estimation algorithm, which estimates the phase of an eigenvector of a unitary matrix."

Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_phase_estimation_algorithm#/media/File:PhaseCircuit.svg Under CC BY-SA 4.0 License. Author: Omrika Created: 14 April 2023 Uploaded: 14 April 2023 Caption: "The circuit of the quantum phase estimation algorithm, which estimates the phase of an eigenvector of a unitary matrix."

It looks like Bluesky doesn't like transparent images. Here is take two:

28.10.2025 17:58 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

"A good description of the phase estimation algorithm can be found in Mosca's Ph.D. thesis"—of which I found a copy here:
www.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~holub/soubo...

(4/4)

28.10.2025 17:53 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Quantum algorithms revisited | Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences Quantum computers use the quantum interference of different computational paths to enhance correct outcomes and suppress erroneous outcomes of computations. A common pattern underpinning quantum algor...

Cleve, Ekert, Macchiavello and Mosca (doi.org/10.1098/rspa...) "integrated several of the techniques of Shor and Kitaev"—section 5 and figure 6 present the algorithm as we know it today.

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28.10.2025 17:53 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0