It was an utter delight to gather with so many researchers keen on furthering and applying quantum thermodynamics. This week's symposium included participants from cosmology, solid-state physics, quantum optics, Shannon theory, and more. Join us again next spring in Cambridge, MA!

One of quantum thermodynamics's greatest achievements, in my opinion, is the hijacking of the research program of Mark Wilde @markwilde.bsky.social, AKA Mr. Quantum Shannon Theory.

Brilliant keynote/public lecture by science journalist and novelist Mark Alpert at "Quantum Thermodynamics and Decoherence." On scientists and writers: "We’re both trying to make sense of the world."

Is it useful to define a work (or work-type) observable in quantum contexts, or isn't it? The debate, having had its ups and downs over the years, reopened recently. Giulia Rubino adds to the conversation in the first talk at the symposium "Quantum Thermodynamics and Decoherence."

Swag from the Center for Coherence and Quantum Science at the University of Rochester! The text on the keychains is etched on my heart, too. May I take a whole handful? 😆

Looking forward to visiting Rochester for “Quantum Thermodynamics and Decoherence” this week. If you’re in the area, stop by at least for the public lecture! Author Mark Alpert will talk about bridging quantum science and writing. www.umiacs.umd.edu/news-events/...

I’m a bit floored that there are, by now, several followup papers from various groups about the non-Abelian eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. Here’s our first test of it. Much still remains to be done! journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...

Failure and rejection are famously key parts of science. Less famous are recipes for overcoming these hurdles. Here’s a prescription for dimming the pain, sweeping up the pieces, and moving forward—and descriptions of some of my favorite failures. quantumfrontiers.com/2026/05/20/n...

A student in my course crocheted a cat for me! (We read Ursula K. LeGuin's 1974 short story "Schrödinger's cat.") It’s making friends with the owl another student gave me a few years ago.

Ok, own up. Who are you?

How do you collaborate between departments as disparate as physics and English? Thanks to the audience at this panel for the thought-provoking questions and to the U. of Maryland library for hosting quantum steampunk at its “Speculative Futures” event!

Don't know who wrote this, but somebody was excited about workshopping quantum-steampunk short stories in class last week... @umdbiochemphys.bsky.social

Maryland is so quantum, even the buses contain quantum technologies.

Astute observation by Chinmay Nirkhe: English has the perfect word for when a quantum oracle suffices for verifying a proof but no classical oracle does---when you can confirm but not describe/explain something: ineffable. Thanks for the QuICS Seminar (and adorable pictures)!

Thanks to Billy Braasch for guest-lecturing about quantum thermodynamics in the quantum-steampunk-creative-writing course! I wouldn’t have drawn Maxwell’s demon nearly as well…

Extra motivation for students and postdocs to come to this week's group meeting: my husband baked us ginger–molasses cookies!

Congratulations to quantum steampunker Hubert Pugzlys on signing up for a PhD at Caltech! Chip off the old block. Take good care of him, IQIM!

The conversation at this group dinner was remarkably philosophical—about whether math is invented or discovered, what makes for taste in physics research, whom AI can and can't replace, etc. Maybe there was something in the horchatas...

Goldilocks quantum cellular automata generate a great deal of complexity. Some are integrable and so may help with benchmarking quantum computers. Thanks to Logan Hillberry, Lorenzo Piroli, Eric Vernier, Tomaž Prosen, & Lincoln Carr for the collaboration! iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Trust a faculty member from Trinity College Dublin @tcddublin.bsky.social to depict a medieval philosopher and show Latin during a quantum-physics talk. Thanks to Felix Binder for the excellent QuICS Seminar about memory!

tfw philosophy and physics actually imprint themselves deeply on your everyday life quantumfrontiers.com/2026/04/12/h...

The University of Maryland libraries are featuring the quantum-steampunk-creative-writing class in their event on science fiction in the classroom. Come listen to a sci-fi writer and a quantum physicist in dialogue! umd.libcal.com/event/16685824

We’re just beginning to understand the implications of non-Abelian symmetry for the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. SU(2) symmetry turns out to have the potential to disrupt a prediction of linear-response theory. @umdscience.bsky.social doi.org/10.1063/5.03...

Clarice Aiello @claricedaiello.bsky.social of the Quantum Biology Institute proposes 5 tiers of quantum phenomena in biology at the Quantum-Biotech Conference at the University of Maryland. @umdscience.bsky.social

Congratulations to Dr. Greeshma Shivali Oruganti, who’s heading to Cornell to postdoc with Mark Wilde @markwilde.bsky.social soon! @umdscience.bsky.social

The quantum-steampunk creative-writing class tours trapped-ion labs. Thanks to Alaina Green and Connor Goham for showing us around! Later this week, students begin reading and critiquing each other’s quantum-steampunk short stories… @umdscience.bsky.social @umdbiochemphys.bsky.social

Continuous-variable systems offer many opportunities in quantum error correction and beyond. Victor Albert @vva.bsky.social lifts the JQI's gaze beyond qubits and even qudits at this week's seminar

The last time I took a photo with this fellow, I was a college sophomore who'd just declared a Physics Modified major. Little did I suspect that I'd end up a physicist in the DC area... @nasonline.org

If you receive an offer of a faculty position, congratulations! And good luck---more work and consideration lie ahead of you. In this blog post, I offer my advice about navigating the post-offer process. quantumfrontiers.com/2026/03/11/n...

With characteristic attention to detail, @nicoleyh11.bsky.social offers guidance on handling faculty offers. quantumfrontiers.com/2026/03/11/n...

Science-fiction novelist Mark Alpert will present the keynote at the symposium “Quantum Thermodynamics and Decoherence” on Mar. 3! The keynote is open to the public, not only symposium registrants, so come join us! qtd-hub.umd.edu/event/sympos...

Pedram Roushan demonstrates the optimal way to hook a quantum thermodynamicist on midcircuit measurements: characterize them as "in the spirit of Maxwell's demon"

Phantom codes: not “a free lunch, but it’s a lunch that was sitting there and that we weren’t fully eating.” Shayan Majidy @majidy.bsky.social at the QuICS Seminar---after which we took him to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

NIST has a theme song! www.nist.gov/blogs/taking...

A reader's recall ability is limited by their working memory's capacity (4 ideas). Remember this limitation as you draft each sentence, paragraph, and section of a paper! Weishun Zhong @weishunzhong.bsky.social from the IAS applies statistical mechanics to memory—and offers useful applications.

The quantum-steampunk creative-writing course had a treat when Shayan Majidy @majidy.bsky.social came to guest-lecture about quantum computers...and he was joined by the Power Rangers of quantum computing.

Liang Jiang: Concerned that noise is spoiling your quantum advantage? Use entanglement to learn the noise channel efficiently! #SIPQNP @rleatmit.bsky.social

One reason why I'm a theorist #SIPQNP @rleatmit.bsky.social

My first workshop-banquet talk. It was a technical talk about photonic thermodynamics, rather than a bird's-eye view of the field of quantum computation, but I still felt a bit like a chip off the old @preskill.bsky.social block.

Some of the dilution refrigerators in Will Oliver's lab @MIT are still wearing their Halloween costumes. Thanks to Aziza Almanakly for the lab tour!

When I read that bosonic statistics can benefit Maxwell’s demon, I was delighted. How surprising, yet intuitive. The prediction appeared by 2011...and now collaborators have tested it, using photons. arxiv.org/abs/2602.11276 @umdscience.bsky.social

What not even Google Maps can show you. @librarycongress.bsky.social quantumfrontiers.com/2026/02/11/q...

Physics Today @physicstoday.bsky.social published its first crossword puzzle in its Jan. edition. My husband and I filled in every box except one. More crossword puzzles, please (especially more that refer so often to thermodynamics)!

I had fun tag-teaming with my student José Antonio on this QMeets Seminar. I introduced quantum thermodynamics broadly, and then he delved into autonomous quantum machines. Thanks for hosting us! Video available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kui...

Collaborators and I noticed that many quantum metrologists apply effective time reversals, but in (sometimes radically) different ways and often without knowing of each other's work. This perspective bridges the gaps and highlights new ones. arxiv.org/abs/2601.20952

People often ask me what open problems in quantum thermodynamics need addressing. Now, the "Roadmap on quantum thermodynamics" addresses this question---and has just been published. @ioppublishing.bsky.social @umdscience.bsky.social iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Announcing the symposium Quantum Thermodynamics and Decoherence! Registration is free and now open. Highlights include a keynote by a physics-inspired novelist and poster-session prizes for students/postdocs. Join us in New York June 3–4! qtd-hub.umd.edu/event/sympos...

My coauthor Stefano Baiguera created an online talk for the Physics Reports Seminar Series, profiling our review about quantum complexity. Check out the video for an introduction to the toolkit! cassyni.com/events/FPkaL...

Overheard in the grocery: "That negativity." My head whips around. "That poor perspective." Never mind---I continue on my way. #quasiprobabilities #onetrackmind

What have our members achieved in the last year..? Quite a lot it turns out. qspace.fqxi.org/news/165315/... @alyssaney.bsky.social @nicoleyh11.bsky.social @seanmcarroll.bsky.social @nafshordi.bsky.social @saraimari.bsky.social @rovelli.bsky.social @coecke.bsky.social @postquantum.bsky.social