Patrick Schnider
@schnpatr.bsky.social
Mathematician/Computer Scientist interested in discrete and computational geometry and topology. Working at University of Basel and ETH Zürich.
https://people.inf.ethz.ch/schnpatr/
https://people.inf.ethz.ch/schnpatr/
I was in Matera today, a really beautiful city with a very interesting history. As a geometer, I particularly enjoyed the many different airvents.
September 2, 2025 at 3:29 PM
I was in Matera today, a really beautiful city with a very interesting history. As a geometer, I particularly enjoyed the many different airvents.
You know you‘re in a CS department when you see these door stoppers.
July 7, 2025 at 8:56 AM
You know you‘re in a CS department when you see these door stoppers.
The difference between „fly“ and „fry“ is small but important…
June 22, 2025 at 1:38 PM
The difference between „fly“ and „fry“ is small but important…
My picture is still up on the wall of exchange students, kudos if you can find it :)
June 18, 2025 at 9:16 AM
My picture is still up on the wall of exchange students, kudos if you can find it :)
Visited my old high school from my exchange year today, very nostalgic feeling.
June 18, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Visited my old high school from my exchange year today, very nostalgic feeling.
#HALG25 agsin had some really nice talks today, my personal highlight was the one by Xi Chen on a query-efficient way to find a fixpoint of a contraction map. He even mentioned our recent work on this problem :)
June 5, 2025 at 4:41 PM
#HALG25 agsin had some really nice talks today, my personal highlight was the one by Xi Chen on a query-efficient way to find a fixpoint of a contraction map. He even mentioned our recent work on this problem :)
What I found most surprising: you‘d think that if you have some protocol that is based on a problem that is likely still hard for quantum computers, it would still be secure against quantum adversaries. However, this is not always true, as many such proofs use multiple calls to the adversary.
June 4, 2025 at 9:15 AM
What I found most surprising: you‘d think that if you have some protocol that is based on a problem that is likely still hard for quantum computers, it would still be secure against quantum adversaries. However, this is not always true, as many such proofs use multiple calls to the adversary.
This week, ETH hosts #HALG25, the conference „Highlights of Algorithms“ (2025.highlightsofalgorithms.org/index.html). The conference started with a great survey talk by Yael Kalai on quantum cryptography. Despite no real knowledge about quantum or cryptography, I learned a lot from her talk.
June 4, 2025 at 9:10 AM
This week, ETH hosts #HALG25, the conference „Highlights of Algorithms“ (2025.highlightsofalgorithms.org/index.html). The conference started with a great survey talk by Yael Kalai on quantum cryptography. Despite no real knowledge about quantum or cryptography, I learned a lot from her talk.
Congratulations to my friend and collaborator Simon Weber on passing his doctoral defense last week!
May 17, 2025 at 7:11 AM
Congratulations to my friend and collaborator Simon Weber on passing his doctoral defense last week!
Today I visited @pseudomanifold.topology.rocks at the University of Fribourg. A lot of nice discussions and some cool new ideas!
April 17, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Today I visited @pseudomanifold.topology.rocks at the University of Fribourg. A lot of nice discussions and some cool new ideas!
Day 3 of #EuroCG25 began with an invited talk by Uli Wagner on a generalization of the g-vector. Amazing results and also an amazing talk!
April 11, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Day 3 of #EuroCG25 began with an invited talk by Uli Wagner on a generalization of the g-vector. Amazing results and also an amazing talk!
The day ended with a trip to Melnik where we visited a castle and had a delicious dinner.
April 11, 2025 at 9:18 PM
The day ended with a trip to Melnik where we visited a castle and had a delicious dinner.
Johanna Ockenfels, one of our MSc students at ETH presented her joint work with Yoshio Okamoto and me about catching a puppy on a graph (arxiv.org/abs/2503.05216). Her talk was very well received!
April 11, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Johanna Ockenfels, one of our MSc students at ETH presented her joint work with Yoshio Okamoto and me about catching a puppy on a graph (arxiv.org/abs/2503.05216). Her talk was very well received!
Day 2 of #EuroCG25 started with the invited talk by Eva Rotenberg on dynamic planarity testing. A very interesting topic where Eva recently made a breakthrough (with Jacob Holm). My favorite quote of her talk: „the outer face is a social construct“
April 11, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Day 2 of #EuroCG25 started with the invited talk by Eva Rotenberg on dynamic planarity testing. A very interesting topic where Eva recently made a breakthrough (with Jacob Holm). My favorite quote of her talk: „the outer face is a social construct“
Two other of our students, Julia Hütte and Mats Bierwirth, talked about our joint work on k-centers for multisets of points under the bottleneck distance. They turned tgis abstract problem into a very fun talk about restaurants snd supermarkets.
April 9, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Two other of our students, Julia Hütte and Mats Bierwirth, talked about our joint work on k-centers for multisets of points under the bottleneck distance. They turned tgis abstract problem into a very fun talk about restaurants snd supermarkets.
Hannah Rotzoll and Shengzhe Wang, both students at ETH, gave a nice and interactive talk about the work they did at our group workshop last summer.
April 9, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Hannah Rotzoll and Shengzhe Wang, both students at ETH, gave a nice and interactive talk about the work they did at our group workshop last summer.
Day 1 started with an invited talk by Oswin Aichholzer about reconfiguration problems on geometric graphs, an area where we have a joint paper (arxiv.org/abs/2410.06139). It was a very interesting survey talk which also highlighted many nice open problems.
April 9, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Day 1 started with an invited talk by Oswin Aichholzer about reconfiguration problems on geometric graphs, an area where we have a joint paper (arxiv.org/abs/2410.06139). It was a very interesting survey talk which also highlighted many nice open problems.
I‘m at #EuroCG25 this week, so I‘ll again write about some of my personal highlights.
The first highlight is the location, we are in a beautiful castle in Liblice, outside of Prague.
The first highlight is the location, we are in a beautiful castle in Liblice, outside of Prague.
April 9, 2025 at 5:45 PM
I‘m at #EuroCG25 this week, so I‘ll again write about some of my personal highlights.
The first highlight is the location, we are in a beautiful castle in Liblice, outside of Prague.
The first highlight is the location, we are in a beautiful castle in Liblice, outside of Prague.
Today the students of my „Intro to TDA“ course had the pleasure to listen to a very interesting guest lecture by Bernadette Stolz @stolzbernadette.bsky.social (bernadettestolz.me) about TDA in the life sciences. Thank you Bernadette for an amazing lecture!
April 4, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Today the students of my „Intro to TDA“ course had the pleasure to listen to a very interesting guest lecture by Bernadette Stolz @stolzbernadette.bsky.social (bernadettestolz.me) about TDA in the life sciences. Thank you Bernadette for an amazing lecture!
When your constructions look like dogs
March 14, 2025 at 1:55 PM
When your constructions look like dogs
Malmö University has some nice moveable whiteboards which we are using extensively :)
March 12, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Malmö University has some nice moveable whiteboards which we are using extensively :)
Yesterday we hopped over the Øresund to visit some of the computational geometers in Copenhagen. It was a special feeling to visit the place where I lived and worked for two years as a guest.
March 12, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Yesterday we hopped over the Øresund to visit some of the computational geometers in Copenhagen. It was a special feeling to visit the place where I lived and worked for two years as a guest.