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kenbrownquantum.bsky.social
@kenbrownquantum.bsky.social
Reposted
🚀 We just posted a new paper on arXiv!
“Dynamic local single-shot checks for the toric code”
arxiv.org/abs/2511.20576
Dynamic local single-shot checks for toric codes
Quantum error correction typically requires repeated syndrome extraction due to measurement noise, which results in substantial time overhead in fault-tolerant computation. Single-shot error correctio...
arxiv.org
November 26, 2025 at 6:16 AM
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.
November 25, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted
If I believed in the simulation hypothesis (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulat... for my opinion that somehow made it to Wikipedia) I’d say this is obviously how magic works arxiv.org/abs/2511.15304
Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models
We present evidence that adversarial poetry functions as a universal single-turn jailbreak technique for Large Language Models (LLMs). Across 25 frontier proprietary and open-weight models, curated po...
arxiv.org
November 24, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Congrats to Samuel Phiri for successfully defending his thesis!
November 19, 2025 at 12:02 AM
November 15, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Also my experience. Academic culture benefits immensely from terrific people at the top. To put it more bluntly "Dave Wineland is super nice. Why do you think you can be a <insert favorite expletive here for someone who is a pain to work with >?"
My Ph.D. advisor was Bill Phillips, who's a terrific person. Alain Aspect, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Eric Cornell, Jean Dalibard, Wolfgang Ketterle, Dan Kleppner (RIP), Norman Ramsey (RIP), and Dave Wineland were also great whenever I interacted with them. AMO physics is full of good folks.
Right, enough of James Watson - who's a senior academic you've met who's been an utter delight?

I'll go first: Jocelyn Bell Burnell
November 10, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Reposted
If you are interested in doing a postdoc with me, please apply to the IQC postdoctoral fellowship here: iqc-uwaterloo.slideroom.com#/login/progr...
University of Waterloo Attn: Institute for Quantum Computing - SlideRoom
Apply to University of Waterloo Attn: Institute for Quantum Computing. Powered by SlideRoom.
iqc-uwaterloo.slideroom.com
November 6, 2025 at 7:12 PM
A great example of the challenge of writing tests.
Quite possibly the dorkiest thing I've ever posted on Substack, about the too-complicated-for-a-midterm question that's been distracting me for a couple of days: open.substack.com/pub/chadorze...
Adventures in Exam Writing: Quantum Edition
"This will be a fun question..." is on the list of Famous Last Words
open.substack.com
October 23, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Reposted
Aside from Yang-Mills theory and parity nonconservation, Yang made so many profound contributions to physics! One that deeply impressed me as I was starting grad school: a 1975 paper with T. T. Wu highlighting the role of fiber bundles in gauge theory.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/s...
Chen Ning Yang, Nobel-Winning Physicist, Is Dead at 103
www.nytimes.com
October 19, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Reposted
A little treat going into the weekend: the midterm for my quantum mechanics class was a couple weeks ago, and again the students made memes for extra credit.

Let's start out strong with a PSA about the dangers of nondegenerate perturbation theory. Do you know where your good states are?
October 17, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Reposted
Fault-tolerant logical measurement just got a lot faster!

In new work, we show that code surgeries based on hypergraphs, rather than graphs, allow fast and parallel fault-tolerant logical measurements with low qubit overhead (without requiring the code to be single-shot).

arxiv.org/abs/2510.14895
October 17, 2025 at 5:36 AM
Reposted
Here's the recording of my talk at the Simons institute quantum industry day: www.youtube.com/live/SULOaOQ...

And the slides: docs.google.com/presentation...

I was also on the panel discussion at the end of the day (also in the linked playlist).
Optimizing the Annoying Stuff: Reducing Costs Obscured by the Abstract Circuit Model
YouTube video by Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing
www.youtube.com
October 17, 2025 at 6:27 AM
Reposted
After #SQuInT2025 concluded, @balintpato.bsky.social , Cole Maurer, & I opted for a post-conference discussion on quantum computing, its capabilities, public perception of it, and various geopolitical issues that have arisen recently. Recording available here:

www.reverbnation.com/markwilde/so...
Quantum Computer (SQuInT 2025) | Mark Wilde
Quantum Computer (SQuInT 2025) by Mark Wilde, Rock music from Ithaca, NY on ReverbNation
www.reverbnation.com
October 14, 2025 at 2:28 AM
Reposted
The pioneering work of Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis showed that very cold electrical circuits behave in ways that exhibit fundamental principles of quantum physics.
www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi...
Nobel Prize in Physics 2025
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 was awarded jointly to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an...
www.nobelprize.org
October 7, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted
Nice result on inherent size of fault-tolerance scirate.com/arxiv/2510.0...

"Our work contributes to this broader effort by providing evidence of inherent limits: Even when codes
have good rate, there may be fundamental constraints on how much they can reduce the volume of
fault-tolerant circuits."
Tradeoffs on the volume of fault-tolerant circuits
Dating back to the seminal work of von Neumann [von Neumann, Automata Studies, 1956], it is known that error correcting codes can overcome faulty circuit components to enable robust computation. Choos...
scirate.com
October 6, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted
It may not be shiny but there are several critical enabling technologies needed to make quantum networking happen ⚛️

phys.org/news/2025-10...
White Rabbit optical timing technology meets quantum entanglement
A small yet innovative experiment is taking place at CERN. Its goal is to test how the CERN-born optical timing signal—normally used in the Laboratory's accelerators to synchronize devices with ultra-...
phys.org
October 4, 2025 at 2:50 PM
One danger of modern social media is that crazy posts, bot posts, and real posts all look professional due to formatting. I call it the myspace vs facebook divide or the difference between a zine and a pamphlet. Now I find this non-crazy zine on social media and may need to rework my analogies.
loglog.wtf nate @loglog.wtf · Sep 17
I made a zine about quantum gates and distributed it at @unitary.foundation's unitaryCON this two weeks ago.

check it out :) and lemme know what you think

nates.place/static/ng01....
September 17, 2025 at 4:38 PM
My favorite Robert Redford movie is Sneakers which features a computer that can break RSA encryption and came out 2 years before Shor's algorithm.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5bA...
Sneakers (4/9) Movie CLIP - No More Secrets (1992) HD
YouTube video by Movieclips
www.youtube.com
September 16, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted
Tenure track assistant prof job up for grabs in Basel. It's quantum computing theory, based in computer science, and part of the NCCR SPIN.

Whoever gets this job will probably have to collaborate with me. Whether you see that as a pro or con is up to you.

jobs.unibas.ch/offene-stell...
Universität Basel: Tenure-track Assistant Professorship in Theoretical Quantum Computing
The University of Basel, Switzerland, invites applications for a professorship in theoretical quantum computing. The University of Basel is the home institution of the Swiss National Center of Compete...
jobs.unibas.ch
September 15, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted
New paper out ✨

Fault-tolerant Transformation of Spacetime Codes, a collaboration w/ @vasmer.bsky.social, Austin Daniel & Ilan Tzitrin, which started during my internship @xanaduai.bsky.social

scirate.com/arxiv/2509.0...

Let's now see if I can summarize 101 pages (🙈) in a few tweets (and memes!)
September 13, 2025 at 11:05 AM
At the European Conference on Trapped Ions talking about quantum simulation with ions today
www.ecti2025.com/home
https://www.ecti2025.com/home
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www.ecti2025.com
September 9, 2025 at 6:30 AM
Reposted
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
September 8, 2025 at 9:53 PM
#Sunailday #SnailsofBluesky Snail in Ridgefield, WA
September 7, 2025 at 2:05 PM