Mark Mitchison

The Qalypso School on Quantum Science in Malta returns for its 3rd edition Aug 31 - Sep 4 this year! 🏖️

We have a great line up of lecturers covering Quantum Optimisation, Quantum Thermodynamics and Quantum Gibbs Sampling.

Pre-registrations opens today at forms.gle/3NkMJ3Br9V8b...

Do Share!

A sepia toned, seated portrait of mathematician Georg Cantor in his early twenties. His wavy hair is swept back and he has a curly beard and thin mustache. Cantor wears a dark jacket and white shirt, with a tie in a bow at this neck.

Mathematician Georg Cantor was born #OTD in 1845. He is the founder of set theory and developed the concepts of cardinal and transfinite numbers.

These shocking results led his former professor Kronecker to call him a "corrupter of youth."

Image: Oberwolfach Photo Collection

I am disgusted by the British government’s proposals to betray these people, after years of contributing to our society. I have so often heard right-wing voices moaning about “British values” of decency and fairness being eroded by immigration. A hypocrisy now laid bare.

I am disgusted by the British government’s proposals to betray these people, after years of contributing to our society. I have so often heard right-leaning voices moaning about “British values” of decency and fairness being eroded by immigration — a hypocrisy now laid bare.

Very hard to believe that there was really no advance warning to certain parties, for a programme of this magnitude

6 bad doodles with text under each one. horseshoe crab is literally the animal horseshoe crab. shoehorse crab is a crab riding a shoe, cowboy style. crabshoe horse is a horse wearing literal crabs as shoes. shoecrab horse is a horse telling a crab to go away. crabhorse shoe is a pair of shoes, left one crab shaped, right one horse shaped. horsecrab shoe is literally the same pair of shoes, flipped.

#InvertebrateShitposting as per @joabaldwin.com's request

10 years after its founding, driven by the energy, enthusiasm, & dedication of the community @quantum-journal.bsky.social quietly published paper #2000 some days ago.

At least I think this is a big deal, big shout out to the founders & all authors, reviewers, editors, board members & contributors!

How far back in time can you understand English? An experiment in language change

www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

I cannot speak as to the accuracy of the piece yet I found it a fascinating exercise @adamroberts.bsky.social @drlauravarnam.bsky.social

Credit: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP / Getty Brazil's Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, center, winner of an alpine ski, men's giant slalom race, jumps in celebration on the podium flanked by second placed Switzerland's Marco Odermatt, left, and third placed Switzerland's Loic Meillard, at the 2026 Winter Olympics.(AP)

What a great photo of Brazilian alpine skier Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, the first South American to ever win a medal at the Winter Olympic Games.

The physics of the cell surface: from molecular rules to cell-scale behaviour at King’s College London on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - The physics of the cell surface: from molecular rules to cell-scale behaviour at King’s College London, listed on FindAPhD.com

I am recruiting a #PhDstudent in Computational #Biophysics at @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social @kingslsm.bsky.social for October! Deadline February 28.

Details 👉 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Please share with interested students!
#PhD #PhDposition #PhDSky #AcademicSky #computationalphysics 🧪⚛️

Hey quantum Bluesky! Allow us to reintroduce ourselves! You may know us as QuIT: Marcus Huber's Quantum Information and Thermodynamics group at TU Wien. But we're so much more than that, and it's time our name reflected it.

So say hello to... 𝗤𝘂𝗢𝗜?

quoi-theory.at

OOPS.

As someone who uses ChatGPT for zero things whatsoever, the fact that they're putting ads in it is extremely funny

Cracking the limits of clocks: a new uncertainty relation for time itself – Physics World Physicists uncover a universal limit on timekeeping precision, proving that anything from heartbeats to ocean waves can be a clock – but none escape the noise

Researchers uncover a fundamental, universal limit to how precisely time can be measured in noisy, fluctuating systems. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/cracking-t...

Our work modelling heat engines driven by finite reservoirs has been published in PRE! 
What I really like about this work is that the reservoir's entropic temperature takes centre stage to explain stochastic engines’ performance🔥

journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...

I am tired of Earth. These people.

Chicken mappas (a kind of curry) and appam (a fluffy rice-based savoury pancake)

Merry Xmas BlueSky!! Breakfast today is chicken mappas and appam… They know how to celebrate in Kerala 🤩🎄

Hey! Our work made the list! Adding it to my CV

Bitter fight over 2020 Microsoft quantum paper both resolved and unresolved --The Register, 31 Jul 2025

2025 Headline of the Year nominee (July)

Upward trend in percentage of women physics and astronomy faculty in US

Women made up 21% of faculty members in US physics departments in 2024, up from 16% a decade earlier. The percentage of women faculty members in the nation’s astronomy departments rose from 19% in 2014 to 25% in 2024. #academia #womeninscience #faculty

If we are banning cell phones for kids we need to be talking about banning chatbots for boomers
www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...

Enough of this finite initial segment nonsense. A number is even if there is no remainder when divided by 2. \Aleph_0 = 2 \Aleph_0, so by cardinality, there is an even number of naturals *and* an even number of integers. And even if there was one more, that would still be an even number!

I've spent all day struggling to write a single page of a popular science article. I bang away at a word processor; give up; start diagramming on paper. Take some notes; draft a few sentences in pen; return to the computer...and very slowly I figure out what I was trying to say in the first place.

This is grossly asymmetrical and wrong. There are N positive numbers from 1 to N, and another N negative numbers from -1 to -N. Including 0, that makes 2N+1 numbers (for arbitrarily large N). I rest my case.

This is the saddest day of my professional life. Today is not only the final recording of the latest series of The Infinite Monkey Cage, it is my last ever Monkey Cage. I never thought that I would have to leave the show. I always imagined going on until | dropped dead under the studio lights due to a brain aneurysm caused by my final attempt to understand notions of quantum gravity or the shock of being told about fly maggot infestations in the sacks of macaque monkeys. I resigned in September, after sixteen years of dedication to the show, A show that I named and helped develop over all those years. Unfortunately, my opinions outside the BBC have been considered problematic for sometime, whether it has been voicing support for the trans community, criticism of Donald Trump, numerous other outlandish opinions, including once gently criticising Stephen Fry. These things were considered to conflict with being a freelance BBC science presenter

In a recent meeting where BBC Studio executives again voiced problems with me, I realised my choices. Obedience and being quieter to remain making Monkey Cage, or 'Resign and have the freedom to speak out against what I believe are injustices'. • I chose the latter. It broke my heart. I love this show and I love the audience, and it is because of the audience in particular, that this decision was so difficult to make. I kept thinking about all the extremist voices promoting hate and division. They are being given so many platforms, while voices that represent kindness, open mindedness, empathy seem to be scarcer and scarcer. I felt I couldn't pamper myself with the luxury of silence. One of my many privileges is that I am able to resign and I can speak out even if it is to the detriment of my career.

I have thought a lot about my heroes, Sinead O Connor, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and so many more. I think of Sinead's words, "the job of an artist is to be themselves at any cost". James Baldwin said prejudice was really just a word for cowardice. Audre Lorde, viewing her life, wrote that her only regrets were her silences. I think of my father as I resign, he brought me up to believe in fairness , justice and kindness. Though my heart is broken, it is also full of fire. I apologise to our incredible listeners for my departure, your love of the show means a great deal. I am so sorry to let you down. I hope that you can understand my reasoning. I have to accept that I am not what the current BBC expects of their freelance presenters.

Despite this I should add that I have always worked far more than my contracted hours to try and ensure the show was always the best it could be, as well as making myself accessible and responsive to the audience wherever and whenever I met them. Every night, we have recorded, I have been filled with determination to make the best show possible. This was not "just a job" I hope that with my departure I can be a better ally to the LGBTQ community, to the neurodivergent community, to activists fighting against those who aim to brutalise society, to those currently in prison on hunger strike, and to all those who fight for a more inclusive world. From many conversations, I know there are many Monkey Cage listeners who support these communities and activists too. The strawberry is dead. Long live the strawberry. B

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

Man, I hadn't thought about this as a consequence of LLM use. The first "theory of everything" I ever received was in grad school and I suspect it was probably because I was early in the alphabet at MIT. That one didn't strike me as reflecting any particularly disordered thinking... <1/n> 🧵

Covid inquiry live: ‘Inexcusable’ delays under Johnson led to 23,000 deaths Lockdowns may have been avoided if Boris Johnson’s government had acted faster, damning report finds

Having Johnson & Cummings in Downing Street when Covid struck was, just like Brexit, an entirely avoidable disaster caused largely by utterly appalling journalism. And now exactly the same clowns, arses & bigots with bylines are rolling out the red carpet for Farage.
www.thetimes.com/article/1b15...

Couldn't be more proud of this collab! Watch out for Quantum Quest in Portuguese, Gujarati, and Hindi 🐈‍⬛

A picture of 9 people who contributed to making Quantum Quest, standing in front of a large poster with AMBER written on it, and including the cartoon characters Alice, Bob and Cat.

Here’s the whole crew at the film’s world premiere at AMBER research centre last week 🥰

Cassette Vision The official project page for the animation film "Quantum Quest"

Last week I witnessed the birth of a new animation phenomenon: Quantum Quest! Born out of a collab between @aspects-quantum.bsky.social @khalak.bsky.social @saulovmo.bsky.social and our talented friends at Cassette Vision — watch here! cassette.ie/quantum