Gemma De les Coves

Info on our work can be found in my website gemmadelescoves.com

By the way, if you'd like to work with me in Barcelona, please get in touch and I can share funding options.

E.g. if you are German and would like to do a PostDoc with me, one can consider the Feodor Lynen fellowship (as I am an Alexander von Humboldt alumnus).

Beyond Operator Systems Operator systems connect operator algebra, free semialgebraic geometry and quantum information theory. In this work we generalize operator systems and many of their theorems. While positive semidefini...

We consider the relation between observables and states for all internal dimensions at once. Building on operator systems, we derive results for other notions of positivity.

With Tim Netzer and Mirte van der Eyden, many beautiful drawings. To appear in J. Math. Anal.

arxiv.org/abs/2312.13983

The internal dimension of the system is essentially the number of independent answers it can give. I always found the dimension an ‘intimate’ property of the system, because one can only lower bound it.

In quantum theory, observables are associated to a vector space, and quantum states to a convex set. Observables can be thought of as questions, such as “Where is the quantum system?" States are something that answers these questions, albeit only probabilistically.

If you could travel through time — any era, any place — when would you go? Come imagine it with us, aboard our 1:1 Victorian time machine, at the upcoming exhibition “The Invention of Time” at Centre Martorell. Opening next Xmas!
museuciencies.cat/en/the-nat/venues/centre-martorell-dexposicions/

What a wonderful book! The age of wonder, by Richard Holmes, tells the story of some early scientists and romantics from around 1800 -- mainly men and mainly British, centered on Joseph Banks, William Herschel and Humphry Davy. Very enjoyable. Thanks @ricardsole.bsky.social for the recommendation 😍

Why is universality such a central concept in complex systems? How does it connect Turing Machines and Spin Systems? In this new paper, Tomáš Gonda and @gemmadlc.bsky.social present an accessible account on how to identify and compare different universalities arxiv.org/pdf/2406.16607

El naixement de la teoria que va canviar el món L’èpica i el romanticisme es barregen en la història de la primera formulació de les lleis de la física quàntica

Felicitats al @tonipou.bsky.social i al Diari @ara.cat per aquest magnífic article sobre la celebració dels primers 100 anys de la teoria quàntica.

Quina situació tan emocionant i sorprenent!

www.ara.cat/ciencia-medi...

Physicists disagree wildly on what quantum mechanics says about reality, Nature survey shows First major attempt to chart researchers’ views finds interpretations in conflict.

A remarkable portrait of the confusion and diasagreement on the foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Thank you Elizabeth Gibney for the great questions and initiative!

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‘It’s a Mess’: A Brain-Bending Trip to Quantum Theory’s 100th Birthday Party | Quanta Magazine Hundreds of physicists (and a few journalists) journeyed to Helgoland, the birthplace of quantum mechanics, and grappled with what they have and haven’t learned about reality.

An enjoyable article by Charlie Wood for Quanta magazine, portraying some of the views in the Helgoland conference. Thanks for the careful work! Very important and necessary.

www.quantamagazine.org/its-a-mess-a...

Universal spin models are universal approximators in Machine Learning. With Tobi Reinhart.

arxiv.org/abs/2507.07669

I estic molt contenta d'haver-me equivocat pronosticant que no sortiria als diaris 😊

El Demo Day de l’emprenedoria cultural La Fundació Catalunya Cultura ha convidat el sector cultural a la presentación dels 10 projectes culturals més prometedors a l’Antiga Fàbrica Damm.

Aquest acte de la Fundació Catalunya Cultura va ser preciós. Em va omplir d'esperança. I vaig estar ben agraïda de poder compartir alguns pensaments al costat de l'Eloi Planes. Gràcies, Bernat @puigtobella.bsky.social, per les paraules.

www.nuvol.com/art/el-demo-...

I greatly enjoyed Anaximander, by Carlo Rovelli. "Anaximander opened the doors of Nature", said Pliny.

In the sixth century BCE he proposed that the Earth is a stone floating in the void. And set the ball rolling for scientific instead of mythical cosmogonies.

Helgoland 2025: the inside story of what happened on the 'quantum island' – Physics World Matin Durrani reports from the Helgoland 2025 conference marking 100 years of quantum mechanics

Nice article about the conference in Helgoland

physicsworld.com/a/helgoland-...

Andreas Klingler received a Prize for his PhD! I'm so happy. The prize was given by the Hypo Tyrol Bank. Congratulations, great job 😍

His PhD Thesis is available here
www.andreas-klingler.com/publications

What a nice little video! Thank you Lizzie!

Gemma de les Coves being entirely honest from the start. #Helgoland2025

For some reason I am loving the experience of teaching Theory of Information at UPF... it is such a beautiful theory. And so recent, not even 100 years old. Many interesting lessons can be drawn from it.

One may think that all the secrets of a matrix can be read from its spectrum (and Jordan blocks, if needed). But this need not be the case. Sometimes you can't even tell if its moments will stay nonnegative forever. Joint work with Andreas Klingler, Joshua Graf & Tim Netzer

doi.org/10.1016/j.la...

Last November we met in a monastery next to a lake in Sweden (Vadstena) to talk about the philosophy of physics, particularly quantum physics. It was wonderful. The talks are now available.
www.philipgoyal.com/assets/websi...

The grammar of the Ising model: a new complexity hierarchy | Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences How complex is an Ising model? Usually, this is measured by the computational complexity of its ground state energy problem. Yet, this complexity measure only distinguishes between planar and non-planar interaction graphs, and thus fails to capture ...

I like seeing local physical interactions as the generative grammar of our physical world... For the Ising model, this idea can be made very precise, and prove if and only if theorems that characterize such grammar. Joint work with Tobi Reinhart.

doi.org/10.1098/rspa...

(CAT) 3x28 Gemma De Les Coves: Cremalleres de la realitat. Física, filosofia i poesia Podcast-Folge · She has a voice · 15.05.2025 · 54 Min.

L'altre dia vaig parlar amb l'Eli Tremps sobre inquietuds, la física, la filosofia i la poesia. Sobre el meu llibre i també la trajectòria. Va ser una conversa franca i agradable. Gràcies per l'oportunitat 😊

podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/s...

Is Trump’s America a new reich? Donald Trump poses a threat to American democracy. Historians agree that there are parallels with Hitler’s rise to power—and obvious differences

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/united...

Hi ha una llei segons la qual tothom qui vulgui es pot traduir nom o qualssevol dels cognoms al català. És fàcil de fer.

Animo a qui se senti a disgust amb el seu nom o cognoms a fer-ho!

Puc facilitar detalls de la llei i procediment.

An epistemic horizon is a limitation to what can be known. We derived such a horizon in a deterministic theory.

Now published in Synthese. I hope next time we can publish such results in a community-run journal.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Tobias Reinhart completed an excellent, thorough and excellently written PhD Thesis last month, entitled "Universality in Physics, Computer Science and Beyond".

It can be found here: ulb-dok.uibk.ac.at/ulbtirolhs/c...

In 1925, Werner Heisenberg had the inspiration that marked the true dawn of quantum theory.

A century on, quantum theory is here to stay. Read all about it: https://go.nature.com/3DzHM5v

That new light is ironically provided by history.

I look forward to exchanging impressions on these matters in Helgoland (cf. @philipcball.bsky.social )

helgoland2025.yalepages.org