Marco Piani
@marcopiani.bsky.social
Physicist by training, silly by choice. Views my own.
Physicists: we should counter the impression that quantum mechanics is weird and inaccessible to ordinary people; anybody with sufficient interest and ready to put in the effort can learn quantum mechanics
Also physicists:
Also physicists:
August 18, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Physicists: we should counter the impression that quantum mechanics is weird and inaccessible to ordinary people; anybody with sufficient interest and ready to put in the effort can learn quantum mechanics
Also physicists:
Also physicists:
Reposted by Marco Piani
We are organizing a short course on Quantum Foundations at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona funded by Catalonia Quantum Academy (CQA). Few spaces left! Apply before 20 August, 2025.
August 8, 2025 at 9:36 AM
We are organizing a short course on Quantum Foundations at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona funded by Catalonia Quantum Academy (CQA). Few spaces left! Apply before 20 August, 2025.
😅
Why fix anything?
Sam Altman re-iterated the other day that the aim was to have the user feel they were talking to a PhD or post-doc; this nails it.
www.businessinsider.com/gemini-self-...
Sam Altman re-iterated the other day that the aim was to have the user feel they were talking to a PhD or post-doc; this nails it.
www.businessinsider.com/gemini-self-...
Google says it's working on a fix for Gemini's self-loathing 'I am a failure' comments
Google Gemini users said the bot is sharing self-loathing messages while attempting to solve tasks, including "I am a disgrace to this universe."
www.businessinsider.com
August 8, 2025 at 10:16 AM
😅
Reposted by Marco Piani
"I can hear his French-Canadian accent in my memory, but not without hearing him smile at the ends of most sentences." A blog post for Ray Laflamme. @quantumiqc.bsky.social @perimeterinstitute.ca @majidy.bsky.social quantumfrontiers.com/2025/07/27/l...
Little ray of sunshine
A common saying goes, you should never meet your heroes, because they’ll disappoint you. But you shouldn’t trust every common saying; some heroes impress you more, the better you know them. Ray Laf…
quantumfrontiers.com
July 28, 2025 at 3:35 PM
"I can hear his French-Canadian accent in my memory, but not without hearing him smile at the ends of most sentences." A blog post for Ray Laflamme. @quantumiqc.bsky.social @perimeterinstitute.ca @majidy.bsky.social quantumfrontiers.com/2025/07/27/l...
Reposted by Marco Piani
Postdoc opening in my group:
careers.nus.edu.sg/job/Research...
careers.nus.edu.sg/job/Research...
Research Fellow in Quantum Information Theory
Research Fellow in Quantum Information Theory
careers.nus.edu.sg
July 1, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Postdoc opening in my group:
careers.nus.edu.sg/job/Research...
careers.nus.edu.sg/job/Research...
It turns out that the solution to the Fermi paradox is stupid.
Pardon, it’s “stupid”.
Meaning, the so-called Great Filter is the plain stupidity that even relatively advanced civilizations, say, humanity as a whole, can still display.
The solution was in front of us all this time.
Pardon, it’s “stupid”.
Meaning, the so-called Great Filter is the plain stupidity that even relatively advanced civilizations, say, humanity as a whole, can still display.
The solution was in front of us all this time.
June 16, 2025 at 8:56 AM
It turns out that the solution to the Fermi paradox is stupid.
Pardon, it’s “stupid”.
Meaning, the so-called Great Filter is the plain stupidity that even relatively advanced civilizations, say, humanity as a whole, can still display.
The solution was in front of us all this time.
Pardon, it’s “stupid”.
Meaning, the so-called Great Filter is the plain stupidity that even relatively advanced civilizations, say, humanity as a whole, can still display.
The solution was in front of us all this time.
Chuckling at this breakdown of the Vatican City resident population
May 9, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Chuckling at this breakdown of the Vatican City resident population
BREAKING
An immigrant becomes the head of state of the Vatican.
Again.
But this time he is American.
An immigrant becomes the head of state of the Vatican.
Again.
But this time he is American.
May 8, 2025 at 8:17 PM
BREAKING
An immigrant becomes the head of state of the Vatican.
Again.
But this time he is American.
An immigrant becomes the head of state of the Vatican.
Again.
But this time he is American.
The way Trump declares that there are National Security threats to invoke emergency powers for tariffs reminds me of one of the early South Park episodes, where hunters shout they are being attacked by protected animals, to shoot them unpunished.
Trump announces 100% tariff for movies produced outside US reut.rs/3GRsD0k
Trump announces 100% tariff for movies produced outside US
U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Sunday a 100% tariff on all movies produced outside the United States.
reut.rs
May 5, 2025 at 12:07 AM
The way Trump declares that there are National Security threats to invoke emergency powers for tariffs reminds me of one of the early South Park episodes, where hunters shout they are being attacked by protected animals, to shoot them unpunished.
If you are saying that the Canadian election was rigged at whatever local level, be aware you sound like a child having a tantrum after dropping on the ground your fresh ice cream cone
OTOH you would be entitled to complain against the old man in a blue suit that bumped into you
OTOH you would be entitled to complain against the old man in a blue suit that bumped into you
April 29, 2025 at 1:43 PM
If you are saying that the Canadian election was rigged at whatever local level, be aware you sound like a child having a tantrum after dropping on the ground your fresh ice cream cone
OTOH you would be entitled to complain against the old man in a blue suit that bumped into you
OTOH you would be entitled to complain against the old man in a blue suit that bumped into you
Trump’s appeal to Putin sounds very similar to me turning off a ringing Alexa alarm.
April 25, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Trump’s appeal to Putin sounds very similar to me turning off a ringing Alexa alarm.
There is a lesson here: if you Putin the effort, you can achieve a lot - like almost flipping the approval ratings - in a short time.
April 24, 2025 at 2:58 AM
There is a lesson here: if you Putin the effort, you can achieve a lot - like almost flipping the approval ratings - in a short time.
When was the last time Trump mentioned Fentanyl as rationale for tariffs against Canada, China, and Mexico?
April 23, 2025 at 2:42 PM
When was the last time Trump mentioned Fentanyl as rationale for tariffs against Canada, China, and Mexico?
Reposted by Marco Piani
Wrote up a little tutorial + review on higher-order quantum operations. If you love quantum channels, you can think of these as linear maps that act on channels themselves in manner fully consistent with quantum theory! I hope it helps future students / researchers! 🤗
arxiv.org/abs/2503.09693
arxiv.org/abs/2503.09693
Higher-Order Quantum Operations
An operational description of quantum phenomena concerns developing models that describe experimentally observed behaviour. $\textit{Higher-order quantum operations}\unicode{x2014}$quantum operations ...
arxiv.org
March 14, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Wrote up a little tutorial + review on higher-order quantum operations. If you love quantum channels, you can think of these as linear maps that act on channels themselves in manner fully consistent with quantum theory! I hope it helps future students / researchers! 🤗
arxiv.org/abs/2503.09693
arxiv.org/abs/2503.09693
Correlation is not causation but…
April 21, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Correlation is not causation but…
Reposted by Marco Piani
There are many aspects of the COVID pandemic the US needs to learn from, not least given the >1 million deaths it suffered and the current threat of viruses like H5N1. But the misleading, politically-charged content at covid.gov is not a route to the constructive or evidence-based debate we need.
April 19, 2025 at 8:47 AM
There are many aspects of the COVID pandemic the US needs to learn from, not least given the >1 million deaths it suffered and the current threat of viruses like H5N1. But the misleading, politically-charged content at covid.gov is not a route to the constructive or evidence-based debate we need.
Happy World Quantum Day in the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology!
It does not get more quantum than this - unless you are Ant-Man. Then you can celebrate while in the Quantum Realm.
It does not get more quantum than this - unless you are Ant-Man. Then you can celebrate while in the Quantum Realm.
April 14, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Happy World Quantum Day in the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology!
It does not get more quantum than this - unless you are Ant-Man. Then you can celebrate while in the Quantum Realm.
It does not get more quantum than this - unless you are Ant-Man. Then you can celebrate while in the Quantum Realm.
Reposted by Marco Piani
Stare at it a bit!
I have recently looked into Fibonacci coverings, and it is hard not to play with them to create cool images.
Plotted with @matplotlib.org
Plotted with @matplotlib.org
April 8, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Stare at it a bit!
What some people do not seem to understand is that the U.S. under Trump has lost the trust of other countries and (further) damaged the status of leader of the Western World. It does not matter whether tariffs go / stay down.
This is particularly true for Canada.
This is particularly true for Canada.
April 9, 2025 at 11:35 PM
What some people do not seem to understand is that the U.S. under Trump has lost the trust of other countries and (further) damaged the status of leader of the Western World. It does not matter whether tariffs go / stay down.
This is particularly true for Canada.
This is particularly true for Canada.
Reposted by Marco Piani
Perhaps the funniest bit was when the S&P popped by +1.2% for a couple of minutes, all the traders earned their "Fell for it again" awards... and then the country-by-country tariff slide came out.
April 2, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Perhaps the funniest bit was when the S&P popped by +1.2% for a couple of minutes, all the traders earned their "Fell for it again" awards... and then the country-by-country tariff slide came out.
I have recently looked into Fibonacci coverings, and it is hard not to play with them to create cool images.
Plotted with @matplotlib.org
Plotted with @matplotlib.org
April 2, 2025 at 12:08 PM
I have recently looked into Fibonacci coverings, and it is hard not to play with them to create cool images.
Plotted with @matplotlib.org
Plotted with @matplotlib.org
It is not clear that it’s multiverses that provide a quantum advantage
Back to sCuare 1
arxiv.org/abs/2503.22768
Back to sCuare 1
arxiv.org/abs/2503.22768
Definitive Proof of the Classical Multiverse!
Recent astonishing experiments with quantum computers have demonstrated unambiguously the existence of a quantum multiverse, where calculations of mind-boggling complexity are effortlessly computed in...
arxiv.org
April 1, 2025 at 11:45 AM
It is not clear that it’s multiverses that provide a quantum advantage
Back to sCuare 1
arxiv.org/abs/2503.22768
Back to sCuare 1
arxiv.org/abs/2503.22768
Reposted by Marco Piani
In 2004, it took the world a year to add one gigawatt of solar power — now it takes a day.
March 18, 2025 at 10:41 AM
In 2004, it took the world a year to add one gigawatt of solar power — now it takes a day.
The work is mysterious and important
March 18, 2025 at 11:28 AM
The work is mysterious and important
Reposted by Marco Piani
One week until UK release! Here’s why you might want to consider pre-ordering 👇
Excited to officially announce my new book Proof: The Uncertain Science of Certainty, out in March (UK) and May (US) and available now to pre-order: proof.kucharski.io
It digs into the ideas we can use to weigh evidence and converge on truth under pressure - and what happens when they fail... 1/
It digs into the ideas we can use to weigh evidence and converge on truth under pressure - and what happens when they fail... 1/
March 13, 2025 at 2:31 PM
One week until UK release! Here’s why you might want to consider pre-ordering 👇