An exciting week for our group – first, Daniela's paper on observing negative "excitation times" was published (at long last!) in PRL: journals.aps.org/prl/abstract... ; (1/2)

So, I do have to say it: if you're in Denver at the #APSGlobalSummit, and will still be here (and awake) at 8am on Friday, please come to Mile-High Ballroom 4F, and I'll tell you about "The Private Lives of Photons: asking particles where they spent the night" – come

14,000 physicists are visiting Denver this week. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

14,000 physicists are visiting Denver this week. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

14,000 physicists are visiting Denver this week. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Congratulations to two deep thinkers, to whom Physics and Computer Science both owe so much! awards.acm.org/about/2025-t...

Charles H. Bennett and Gilles Brassard are the recipients of the 2025 ACM A.M. Turing Award for their essential role in establishing the foundations of quantum information science and transforming sec...

Bennett, an American physicist at IBM Research, and Brassard, a Canadian computer scientist at the Université de Montréal, are widely recognized as founders of quantum information science, a field at ...

awards.acm.org

Happy 2026, and hearty Congratulations to Antoine Browaeys, Misha Lukin, and Mark Saffman on the 9th biennial John Stewart Bell Prize for their ground-breaking work developing quantum computational technologies relying on tweezer arrays of Rydberg atoms! cqiqc.physics.utoronto.ca/bell-prize/b...

Holiday throwback... our group around the turn of the Millennium, when we were younger and (even) more playful. CW from upper left, Stefan Myrskog, Jalani Kanem, some kid I don't recognize, Marcelo Martinelli, Ana Jofre, Mirco Siercke, & Samansa Maneshi.

Find me another school whose fundraiser performances include a dramatic recitation of Catullus (in the original, certe) ! Vivat #TheAbelardSchool !

😞 The end of an era. [Extended 20th century, I guess.] Tom Stoppard, playwright who dazzled with verbal gymnastics, dies aged 88 - www.reuters.com/world/uk/bri...

Tom Stoppard, playwright who dazzled with verbal gymnastics, dies aged 88

"What's it about?" was a frequent response from bemused theatre-goers to "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", Tom Stoppard's first stage triumph.

reuters.com

I love quantum computing (& quantum information science, even more), don't get me wrong -- but we have to acknowledge how much of the so-called "ecosystem" this captures:

Put in mind of the Infinite Improbability Drive, as I listen to Bárbara Amaral explain over @cqiqc-uoft.bsky.social Quantum Tea how contextuality may power anomalous heat flow… see journals.aps.org/prxquantum/a... for more on her actual work... #Contextuality #QuantumThermodynamics

Happy day of Quantum, and congratulations to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, & John Martinis! There's no stopping it now! #NobelPrize #SuperconductingQubits #QuantumTunneling nobelprize.org/prizes/physics…www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2025...df

Crazy milestone passed over (I think) in silence – as of last November or so, I have spent over half my life as a professor at the University of Toronto. [Since as people my age understand, I firmly believe I'm in my early 30s, this implies that I became a professor at around 16.]

Chuffed^* to announce our theory on how long an unabsorbed photon causes atoms to spend in the excited state is out: lnkd.in/gF--eQgV It extends the dichotomy to a confounding "simple to state, but looks wrong; turns out to be right, but this is difficult to prove."

U of T is thrilled to celebrate the Year of Quantum by advertising three new faculty positions! Please spread the word, encourage friends/mentees to apply, or consider applying yourself. (Links in rest of thread) #QuantumOptics #QuantumInformation #AMO @cqiqc-uoft.bsky.social

Nominations for the 2026 #BellPrize are being accepted through September 30th, 2025 – please consider nominating the work from the past 6 yrs which you believe has done the most to advance #Quantum science. Please RT. (See cqiqc.physics.utoronto.ca/bell-prize/n... .) @CQIQC_Toronto

Lazaro Felice! Seeing atoms floating in vacuum and glowing bright in the laser beams that suspend them there (while cooling them millions of times below room temp) should always be inspirational, even if it's now routine for AMO physicists & the MOT is nearing its 40th birthday.

Nominate the most innovative work on Fundamental Issues in Quantum Mechanics and their Applications for the 2026 John Stewart Bell Prize! (Pls rebleep!) See cqiqc.physics.utoronto.ca/bell-prize/n... Deadline 30 August 2025. #QuantumInformation #FoundationsOfQM #BellPrize #QuantumPhysics

Heads-up: we'll be searching this Fall for a tenure-stream faculty member in Theoretical #QuantumOptics (#AMOPhysics #QuantumInformation) at U of T Physics @cqiqc-uoft.bsky.social Official ad out next month – please alert potential strong candidates you may know! www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3-5...

U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Official Music Video)

YouTube video by U2VEVO

youtube.com

Super-fascinating new article out, on the speed of particles in a forbidden region. For me, it raises more questions than it answers, which is of course my favorite kind of experiment. Kudos to the authors for a novel approach and technical tour de force! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Energy–speed relationship of quantum particles challenges Bohmian mechanics - Nature

The study of the relationship between particle speed and negative kinetic energy, arising in regions in which, according to classical mechanics, particles are not allowed to enter, reveals behaviour t...

nature.com

Finally got around to reading this fascinating article by Amanda Gefter -- kudos on an epic investigation and a gripping story! Sad but also inspiring. Thanks for making his writings publicly available - I hope this will lead to new inspirations as well as to restoring his legacy.

Finding Peter Putnam

The forgotten janitor who discovered the logic of the mind

nautil.us

Disgusting Weaponizing the justice department, and research funding, against what the US has left of intellectual institutions. Against one of the real good guys, at that. His crime? Not dismantling efforts in support of equity vigorously enough. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/u...

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

nytimes.com

Fearing yet more war; hoping for peace. May war-mongering leaders be removed, and innocents everywhere be safe. What else is worth saying?

RIP Ray Laflamme, gone too soon. Ray was a stellar scientist, the founding director of ⁦‪the IQC‬⁩ and ⁦‪of CIFAR's‬⁩ Quantum Information program, but more importantly a warm & generous human who built community and helped many (particularly junior researchers). May his memory be a blessing.

Krister Shalm in the news again, with a new paper on the Colorado Random Number beacon. Well, we always did say that getting a paper into Nature was a roll of the dice... Always exciting to see our group members go on to lead such creative & successful efforts! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Traceable random numbers from a non-local quantum advantage - Nature

A study demonstrates a public generator of random numbers based on device-independent techniques, with the randomness being fully auditable and traceable.

nature.com

Sad news. A great scientist & author, of course, but also a kind man and thoughtful teacher. He will be missed. www.optica.org/about/newsro...

I like to hope we're already doing this in Physics (at least in most groups..), but a discussion around a more systematic approach like this would not be out of place.

Theory and practice #FIAN 2014

Just sharing for the yocks. Seriously, YOCTOjoules. How many of you have even *heard* that prefix before? That's 10^-5 visible photons, in case you're keeping count. "Fieldoscopy." arxiv.org/abs/2504.13121