There are lots of ways to find ground states of many-body quantum systems, but what do you do if you want to prepare an excited state? 🤔 That's the question we've addressed in a new preprint, out today: arxiv.org/abs/2508.00065

This appeared on a wall at work recently and it makes me laugh every time I see it. Well played, anonymous art critic. 😄

I'm currently reviewing candidates who applied to my postdoc position, which has required looking back at the job ad that I wrote. I think I may have to dock myself a few points for my own "ability to communication". 😅

Since coming back to the UK I've been slowly getting reunited with various things I left behind when I moved to France. Today I found the hard drive with all my old recordings and songs on it. It's like a time capsule - I haven't heard some of this stuff in ten years. 🥹

More and more content with my decision not to go to the APS Global Physics Summit this year, and if this is how things are going then I'm disinclined to travel to the US for any other meetings in the near future. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

French scientist denied US entry after phone messages critical of Trump found

France’s research minister said the scientist was traveling to Houston for a conference when his phone was searched

theguardian.com

Not much time left to apply for this - the deadline is on Monday, so get those applications in quick if you're interested in joining the University of Edinburgh to work on exciting challenges in open quantum systems!

Steven Thomson@physicssteve.bsky.social · last yr.

I'm hiring a postdoc in quantum condensed matter theory! This will be a 3 year position, with a focus on developing and using novel numerical techniques to investigate open quantum systems. For further info and to apply, see the following: elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

What I'll definitely do is make a serious attempt at writing the "Cond Mat Phys for Quantum Computer Scientists" tutorial paper I've been threatening to write for years. I think it's important that people are equipped to distinguish realistic use cases of quantum computers from straw man arguments.

Steven Thomson@physicssteve.bsky.social · last yr.

I've never been tempted to write a "Comment on..." paper before, but today is teaching me that there's a first time for everything. 👀

I've never been tempted to write a "Comment on..." paper before, but today is teaching me that there's a first time for everything. 👀

I never posted an update on this, but in the end I declined to participate in this year's APS meeting. I can't in good conscience travel to and contribute to an event in the US while the current administration is causing so much harm to people and communities I care about.

Steven Thomson@physicssteve.bsky.social · 2y ago

I'm having a moral/ethical quandary about this year's APS meeting. I'm deeply uncomfortable at the idea of contributing to events in the US happening under the new political administration, but a boycott of US conferences seems like a feeble, ineffective and possibly misguided way to protest.

Microsoft's extraordinary claim last month—to have created a bonafide topological qubit—was met with caution by many experts. Now, a physicist is raising specific and substantive concerns about a key test that underlies Microsoft's approach. My reporting: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Microsoft quantum computing 'breakthrough' faces fresh challenge

Analysis pokes holes in protocol that underpins Microsoft’s claim to have created the first topological qubits.

nature.com

I have synaesthesia, but I can't say it helped my language skills any! It took me a long time to pick up French, and my German never really got past elementary level. 😬 Maths though, that's another story - I do think it really helps me navigate complex equations. 🤔 www.bbc.com/future/artic...

The people who 'see' foreign languages: How synaesthesia can help language learning

Synaesthesia is a neurological condition found to enhance memory and learning. Now, scientists say seeing in colour could help when it comes to learning a second language.

bbc.com

I've done PhD interviews before, but today was the first time I was ever on a panel alongside someone who once offered me a PhD place...! Such a surreal feeling to now be on the same side of the fence as people who I've admired and respected since I was an undergrad. 😅

I had made Microsoft Quantum aware of issues before publication of this latest Nature paper (which uses it tune up their devices). Since they seem to not care, I have make these issues public. In short: The topological gap protocol and all claims based on it are flawed. arxiv.org/abs/2502.19560

Comment on "InAs-Al hybrid devices passing the topological gap protocol", Microsoft Quantum, Phys. Rev. B 107, 245423 (2023)

The topological gap protocol (TGP) is presented as "a series of stringent experimental tests" for the presence of topological superconductivity and associated Majorana bound states. Here, we show that...

arxiv.org

In their roadmap, Microsoft described a protocol for demonstrating a topologically protected qubit. There is no publicly available evidence that this test has been conducted successfully. I hope we will hear more soon. arxiv.org/abs/2502.12252

Roadmap to fault tolerant quantum computation using topological qubit arrays

We describe a concrete device roadmap towards a fault-tolerant quantum computing architecture based on noise-resilient, topologically protected Majorana-based qubits. Our roadmap encompasses four gene...

arxiv.org

Just leaving this here, from the very beginning of the peer review file of the new Microsoft paper (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).

I'm hiring a postdoc in quantum condensed matter theory! This will be a 3 year position, with a focus on developing and using novel numerical techniques to investigate open quantum systems. For further info and to apply, see the following: elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Last week taught me two main things. 1) I actually can write and deliver two entirely new talks on two entirely different subjects within the same week, while balancing all sorts of other tasks. 2) I should never do this again. 😅

a man wearing glasses says " yeah yeah but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could

Alt: Famous scene from Jurassic Park: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

media.tenor.com

One of the fun things about being back in Scotland is being reunited with things I stored away when I left for France and haven't seen for years. Things like this...!

Today is a good day. Huge thanks to NVIDIA for supporting my work via their Academic Grant program!

I seem to have turned up to this afternoon's QSL seminar in camouflage. 🥷

As a good friend of mine said earlier today - to lost futures.

Hello! 👋 Who’s here on Bluesky from the quantum community? Follow recommendations welcome!

I'm having a moral/ethical quandary about this year's APS meeting. I'm deeply uncomfortable at the idea of contributing to events in the US happening under the new political administration, but a boycott of US conferences seems like a feeble, ineffective and possibly misguided way to protest.

Obligatory 'first day back at work, trying to remember what I do for a living' post. 😅

a man in a suit and tie is giving a speech on physics

Alt: David Tennant in Doctor Who repeating the word 'physics' over and over.

media.tenor.com

The NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada GPU is, obviously, not the same as the NVIDIA RTX A6000 GPU which you can tell by the fact that almost all of the letters are identical and in the same order. NVIDIA must be following the Ibanez guitars school of naming things. (I'm looking at you, RGIT27FE-NTF.)

Steven Thomson@physicssteve.bsky.social · 2y ago

Some wonderful news this morning, courtesy of NVIDIA!

Some wonderful news this morning, courtesy of NVIDIA!

Why is anyone allowed to call these tools “intelligence”? Surely advertising standards should intervene. It’s machine learning, which is really just advanced statistics. It’s not intelligent, and it can’t be trusted to get the sense of a text right. Calling it intelligence is dangerously seductive.

I have received two ridiculously big screens and I kind of love them. 😍 (Fret not, I've moved things around to be a bit more ergonomic since this photo was taken. 🙃)

This is actually one of the most sober, balanced articles about Willow that I've seen so far. No breathless hype, no vitriolic hate. Nice job, PC Gamer. www.pcgamer.com/hardware/goo...

Google's WIllow chip is a big leap towards usable quantum computing but its claim of beating a classical computer by a 'septillion years' is meaningless

Not that you'd be adding one to your gaming PC, sadly. Or any PC, for that matter.

pcgamer.com

Fellowship opportunity! 🚨 The School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh is calling for applications to the Elizabeth Gardner Fellowship, a 4 year fellowship aimed at early career researchers from underrepresented backgrounds. www.ph.ed.ac.uk/research/res...

Elizabeth Gardner Fellowship

Application details.

ph.ed.ac.uk