Jonathan Oppenheim

Caltech Team Sets Record with 6,100-Qubit Array The neutral-atom platform shows promise for scaling up quantum computers.

6,100 neutral-atom qubits trapped in a grid by lasers @caltech.edu ... is a lot.

www.caltech.edu/about/news/c...

Quantum optics table with Nick Mantella's muscle in the foreground and his Maxwell eqn tattoo.

They sure take electromagnetism seriously in @quantumaephraim.bsky.social's lab!

In a recent Substack post, FQxI's Jonathan Oppenheim discusses how far #LLMS have progressed. @postquantum.bsky.social says "their answers often look very convincing on the surface until you go through them more carefully".
DISCUSS: forums.fqxi.org/d/4283-how-g...

A Spin-Based Pathway to Testing the Quantum Nature of Gravity A key open problem in physics is the correct way to combine gravity (described by general relativity) with everything else (described by quantum mechanics). This problem suggests that general relativi...

The CERN whitepaper, on testing the quantum nature of gravity, has even more co-authors and is now available on the arxiv, scirate.com/arxiv/2509.0.... Check it out! 🧪⚛️

Is gravity quantum? Experiments could finally probe one of physics’ biggest questions Physicists are developing laboratory tests to give insight into the true nature of gravity.

There is one fundamental phenomenon that quantum physics can't explain: gravity

go.nature.com/45v70f1

Panel discussion at QTEdu.

I'm at the African Institute for Mathematical Science Ghana this week for a quantum hackathon. Which is apparently called a Quantathon! Excited to interact with great students and researchers from across Africa. Live feed at t.co/J8UzPKc6Vx & schedule at qtedu.aims.edu.gh. Public lecture on Friday.

Orbit diagram of interstellar object A11pl3Z

FACT THREAD on New Interstellar Object #A11pl3Z

This story unfolded pretty fast yesterday for a few reasons. The object was discovered on July 1st UTC by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS team. A #NASA funded survey at the University of Hawaii. atlas.fallingstar.com 🔭🧪

!!!!! Waking up to the news that we might have found an interstellar object passing through our Solar System - only the third ever seen. Looks convincing based on the orbit.

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years.

NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."

Just click on this: skyviewer.app/explorer #RubinTelescope

Sad news, Ray was both a a really kind man and a great scientist.

Bluesky has just changed the messaging you get when you hit "show less like this" to make it clear that you're giving feedback to the feed curator. While I just want to tweak what I see, not what everyone else sees...

But I generally prefer the Discover feed. Surely it isn't difficult to make the "show less like this" tag actually do something? Or perform some machine learning based on what I interact with. I've tried some of the other feeds, but haven't yet found one that works for me.

What if gravity isn’t a pull from mass, but a push from entropy? @georgemusser.com reports on the latest version of an old idea.

www.quantamagazine.org/is-gravity-j...

Is there a way to stem the endless cavalcade of cats, birds, and sunsets flooding my feed? No matter how many times I hit 'show less like this,' they keep coming. Anyone else drowning in cats? @rose.bsky.team @jay.bsky.team @support.bsky.team

Palestinian Advanced Physics School 2025 - Scientists For Palestine The Palestinian Advanced Physics School 2025 (PAPS) will be held in-person at the University of Jordan between 26th — 31st July 2025. Additional students will join remotely from Gaza. The school is ai...

Scientists for Palestine is holding a school on quantum physics Palestinian students in Jordan in July, but they need donations to make it happen! 🇵🇸

www.scientists4palestine.org/palestinian-...

www.gofundme.com/f/support-pa...

Quantum Dark Matter | Cheltenham Festivals Astronomers have been amassing evidence for “dark matter” in space –  far more mass than can be seen directly. Yet, despite intensive efforts, there is no

On Sunday, I'll be at the Cheltenham Science Festival, with Andrew Pontzen, Hiranya Peiris and Cham Ghag, discussing whether the phenomena we attribute to dark matter, could be explained by stochastic fluctuations in spacetime. Come say hello! www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/quant... 🧪⚛️

Musk’s AI bot Grok blames ‘programming error’ for its Holocaust denial Grok doubted 6 million death toll, days after peddling conspiracy theory of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa

Elon Musk wanted to buy Wikipedia so that he could determine our society’s collective view of truth.

He couldn’t, so he created grok.

Do not let these machines be arbiters of truth. It is abundantly clear that they are being used to push absurd far-right conspiracies.

Analysis: Clean energy just put China’s CO2 emissions into reverse for first time - Carbon Brief For the first time, the growth in China’s clean power generation has caused the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth.

I wonder what the "Why don't you go and protest in China?" brigade will make of this news.

www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-cle...

and (apparently) the multiverse.

And merging black holes (Ringdown by Conrad Shawcross)

Photo of the Lego interferometer

I'm at the Quantum Symposium at @uniofnottingham.bsky.social and they have a working Lego interferometer!

Donald Trump post on Truth Social, "RANKED_CHOICE VOTING IS ONE OF THE GREATEST THREATS TO DEMOCRACTY. It is a total, and very fraudulent, JOKE! https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5253950-ranked-choice-voting-unpopular-legislatures/"

If we want fewer psychopaths in charge, we should start with ranked-choice voting. It’s about as complicated as picking pizza toppings with friends.

Sougato Bose, Flaminia Giacomini, Richard Howl

The final session, on "Table-top quantum experiments for gravity" with Flaminia Giacomini, Richard Howl and Sougato Bose, closes out the QISS conference in Vienna vienna2025.qiss.fr/index.html. The recorded talks and subsequent discussion should appear online in the coming days. 🧪⚛️

This past week, I received a second stop work order on one of my grants. This now means that we can no longer spend on *two* of my major grants. Several of my group members will now graduate earlier than expected, I am looking into being a consultant for the summer, and students will do internships

As someone who loves paradoxes and these two in particular, I'll be very disappointed if they're actually the same...

Reports of LLMs mastering math have been greatly exaggerated What happens when you minimize the chance of data leakage?

update: Ernest Davis and Gary Marcus have posted about a much more quantitative analysis here. It jibes with my experience, but I think it's also important to acknowledge how fast these models are improving. garymarcus.substack.com/p/reports-of...

Insufferable mathematicians AI mathematicians will one day be impressive, but for now, they're confidently wrong, dopamine-addicted, and desperate for likes.

I've been asking various AI models math questions. I'm sure they'll one day be impressive mathematicians, but wow, they're insufferable! Confidently wrong, dopamine-addicted, and desperate for likes. I wrote up my experience here:
open.substack.com/pub/superpos...

Google AI summary: The "Dubnovy Blazen problem" in graph theory, as mentioned in a recent X post by Anthony Bonato, is a well-known problem that AI model Grok solved after several attempts. Here's what we know from the X post: Problem: The "Dubnovy Blazen problem" is a well-known problem in graph theory. Solution: AI model Grok solved the problem after several attempts. Significance: This event is noteworthy, as it marks a potential milestone in AI's ability to solve complex mathematical problems. Context: Anthony Bonato, who made the announcement on X, had been working on the problem for over a year. Where to find more information: You can find the X post by Anthony Bonato here: https://twitter.com/Anthony_Bonato/status/1907056400573800768.

April fools day tweet by Timothy Gowers: "It's finally happened: after several unsuccessful attempts, I found a prompt that got Grok to solve a maths problem (the well-known Dubnovy Blazen problem in graph theory) I've been working on for over a year. How long till it's better than human mathematicians across the board?"

Tim Gowers @wtgowers.bsky.social claimed that Grok solved the Dubnový Blázen problem as an April Fools Day joke. Now Google thinks the Dubnový Blázen problem is a real problem in graph theory (it's Czech for "April Fools").

"Despite the hype, it’s been surprisingly challenging to find quantum algorithms that outperform classical ones. In this episode, Ewin Tang discusses her pioneering work in “dequantizing” quantum algorithms — and what it means for the future of quantum computing."