Purva Thakre

This is one of the reasons why I have a Goodreads account. Would not have discovered Ursula K Le Guin without it.

One panel comic with one person saying to another: Philip K Dick, Ray Bradbury. Like so many others in tech, I draw inspiration from completely misunderstanding those authors

via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon

A few quick notes:
1) Magic - not my favorite word choice - comes from magic angle directions and into quantum computing by arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph... . It is not about entanglement.

sign for a hotel called "NP HOTEL" in seattle's japantown

thing is, you only get access to the NP-oracle while you sleep

Meme showing six logical operators illustrated with jack-o'-lantern images. trick OR treat trick AND treat trick XOR treat trick NOR treat trick NAND treat trick XNOR treat

Are the talks being recorded?

Living in the Future benefit: the combination of Google Maps public transit directions and phone-tap onboard payment makes it SO EASY to take public trams/buses/metros when traveling now. It’s fantastic not to have to resort to taxis just for lack of easy access to the local transit ticketing system

In case you don't know, you can enable the option to always require alt text in 'Accessibility' settings. When this option is enabled, it doesn't let you post an image without the alt text.

A group of scientists huddle excitedly around a monitor. One says: "The program has detected a signal sent from another galaxy, but we need to upgrade to a paid version before we can reply." The screen reads "Choose a plan To unlock replies: 1. Student 2. Basic 3. Pro 4. Expert "

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

p.s. my new book of science cartoons 'Physics for Cats' is out now. Visit www.tomgauld.com for details

I wish we could develop common standards for
- circuit operations
- pulse data
- circuit manipulation (incl. transpilation, routing, optimization)
- calibration & calibration QUALITY data
- measurement results, incl. raw and complex
- wire serialization optimized for both job definitions and results

I got tired of mashing together tools to write long threads with 𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 and ℳα†ℏ—so I wrote La𝑇𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑡!

It converts Markdown and LaTeX to Unicode that can be used in “tweets”, and automatically splits long threads. Try it out!

keenancrane.github.io/LaTweet/

What's included in your rating scheme?

Apparently September 5th is "cultivate with fold-transversal S" day:

arxiv.org/abs/2509.05232

arxiv.org/abs/2502.017...

arxiv.org/abs/2509.05212

the very hungry caterpillar superimposed on an illustration of gregor samsa from the metamorphosis as a beetle

one morning, when gregor samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a very hungry caterpillar

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I pushed myself to learn Git so that I could become active in quantum open source. I found Jo Bovy's textbook useful.

Screenshot states: Unlike ordinary qubits, which store information in the state of a single particle, topological qubits store it in the arrangement of several particles—which is a global property, not a local one, making them far more robust. Take, for example, braided hair. The type and number of braids that a person has are global properties that remain the same regardless of how they shake their head. In contrast, the position of an individual hair strand is a local property that can shift with the slightest movement.

Scientific American with a great analogy for comparing physical qubits and encoded topological qubits.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/negl...

The Destruction of NASA Would Be a Blow to Our Collective Imagination As NASA grapples with major proposed budget cuts and losing some of its most brilliant minds, America’s willingness to look outward is also at risk.

“What’s being undercut isn’t just NASA’s technical ability to carry out missions, although that would be bad enough. It is America’s—and the world’s—capacity to wonder, to believe, to know.“
www.wired.com/story/the-de...

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Research or Beatles song?
LUCI in the hex with dropout🎶🎶🎶

Now I'm imagining the Indian mother version of ChatGPT

Screenshot from the article: During the postwar period, Vannevar Bush, head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development under FDR, sought to make America’s advantage in the sciences permanent. Bush hadn’t liked the way that the U.S. had to scramble to staff up the radar and atomic-bomb projects. He wanted a robust supply of scientists on hand at American universities in case the Cold War turned hot. He argued for the creation of the National Science Foundation to fund basic research, and promised that its efforts would improve both the economy and national defense.

I did not know about this particular motivation for creating the NSF.

Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End America’s run as the premier techno-superpower may be over.

Previous historic examples of deliberate destruction of scientific institutions from within a country.
www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

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David Tong goes to a doctor.

David: I am not feeling too good, doc. Trying to learn a new area of physics but somehow can't get into it.

Doc: The solution is simple. There is this guy who writes the best physics lecture notes..

Understanding Quantum Information and Computation This is a course on the theory of quantum computing. It consists of 16 lessons, each with a video and written component, covering the basics of quantum information, quantum algorithms (including query...

After 3 1/2 years of work my course on quantum computing is finally finished — the "Director's Cut" of Understanding Quantum Information and Computation is now available.

arxiv.org/abs/2507.11536