Thank you for all your private messages to me about Balrog wings. Unfortunately, in 2025, wingers like @dangaristo.bsky.social still exist and think Balrogs were just glorified penguins. In this era of fake news we must defend important facts: Balrogs do not have wings.

Now this is classic Usenet beef. We're talking 30-year-aged stuff here. Simpler times. Better times.

I was just sent a video of a child in a Balrog halloween costume. Appallingly, the Balrog costume had wings. **Balrogs do not have wings** Why are we teaching children incorrect anatomy of mythical creatures? Are you going to also throw a pair of wings on a giraffe? My day is already ruined.

Let's be very clear: Google’s claims are debatable, Microsoft’s are a work of fiction. Be sceptical of Google like the bloke down the pub claiming he lives in a mansion. Be sceptical of Microsoft like the bloke claiming he lives in a castle in the sky powered by topoconductors and fairy dust.

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

The correct decision from the Nobel committee. If they had even muttered the words "quantum computing" the number of start-up founders posting about their quantum crypto coin NFTs would break LinkedIn.

Our Nobel Prize predictions for the next week. #Nobel2025

Bit grim seeing the FT treat HSBC’s quantum computing theatre as actual news. Why worry about fake news when the establishment press has already been lobotomised by corporate press releases? I wish HSBC (my mortgage provider) were as flexible with my interest rate as they are with reality…

Bullshit www.hsbc.com/news-and-vie...

Quantum hype meets financial trading 🤢 Also: "The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships" How can being employed by HSBC not be a competing interest? www.hsbc.com/news-and-vie...

The promise of spin qubits has always been their potential to leverage existing semiconductor fabrication techniques. As such this is really a very exciting publication… even if you can’t always trust everything published in Nature. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Or you can go here neos-server.org/neos/solvers... and wait about 0.02 seconds for the problem to be solved exactly 😂

This is really scary - I always thought physics was safe. It would be huge loss to see physics departments close across the country. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Donald’s H1B visa policy is already a HUGE success. Many people are saying it to me this morning – the most important people. They say, "Donald’s done it again, so clever, real clever.” America already has the BEST brains. Like Einstein. He was American you know. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The year I arrive @physastrostand.bsky.social rises to #1 in the UK for Physics in the Times & Sunday Times University League table. (and we all know that correlation *does* imply causation, right?!) www.thetimes.com/uk-universit...

"We must make fire work. Stop asking why wet sticks no good." - Grug, circa 50,000 BC “We must make Majorana work. Stop asking why InAs no good.” - Microsoft, 2025 pubs.aip.org/physicstoday...

I feel compelled to repost my experimental colleagues’ job adverts because physics is ultimately an experimental science and trust me you really don’t want me anywhere near your lab…

Apparently Microsoft are trying to patent their topological gap protocol. In other news: I have decided to patent my protocol for optimising the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. It’s a real breakthrough for angel based quantum computing.

In the last few months Microsoft (+ apparent friends) have tried to dismiss me as a 'spin qubit guy', a 'competitor', on a 'fishing expedition', and now as a 'theorist'. Let's check the scoreboard: - Names for critics: Endless - Topological qubits: 0 www.theregister.com/2025/07/31/m...

Where does this go next? All authors contributed to this manuscript as inhabitants of planet earth

To be clear: I have huge respect for Microsoft Quantum. They likely spent months analysing dozens of devices to find a single reasonable looking few millisecond of signal. It's like repeatedly trying to find Jesus in your toast, but with a billion dollar toaster and a village worth of electricity.

Microsoft Quantum's preprint out tonight is a masterclass in cherry picking. The whole claim focuses on a single device, a single data run, & a single peak in a sea of data similar in size to their claimed noise floor (red region) How much electricity was wasted finding this peak in a sea of noise?

Congratulations to my Master’s project students Jacob, Sam, and Walter on graduating today. Congratulations also to all of our @physastrostand.bsky.social graduates!

Very minor annoyance on my daily commute: Calling the bus route 787 but using a picture of an Airbus A340 🙄

A policy with zero positive purpose — just another move to placate the ego of a vindictive president. What’s truly alarming is how quickly this sort of petulant decision has become normalised.

The Royal Society URF is a great opportunity for advanced postdocs to set up their own research group… and why would you even consider applying anywhere other than @physastrostand.bsky.social?

Congratulations to Jacob, Sam, and Walter on successfully defending their Master projects! Congrats also to the full (23) theory MPhys cohort who had their vivas over the last 3 days (and for putting up with my questions!) A fantastic set of students graduating from @physastrostand.bsky.social

Tonight it’s back to that famous unbroken Scottish sunshine p.s. yes, that is my local whisky distillery now visible in the distance…

My colleague discovered Majoranas by accident at a conference... Although it must be said: he did not confirm whether the pizza costs $1+ billion and after 17 years all that's produced is some noise.

Who wants unbroken summer sunshine when you can instead walk home to high tide and a beautiful Scottish haar (sea fog)

This is very likely not — and also should not be — the last action we will see to correct the scientific record when it comes to Microsoft Quantum funded research www.science.org/content/arti...

Microsoft's Majorana team are now cosplaying as "a small startup sitting inside a huge tech company" Just your typical shoestring outfit: 100+ people and $1 billion+ burnt As if we needed any more evidence that this team is now fully detached from reality...

Microsoft Quantum then: We set the bars out before we had any of the data... that's the key to avoiding confirmation bias. Microsoft Quantum now: It's not surprising the protocol evolved!

Since Microsoft already have a strange relationship with coauthorship: Should Jesus be a MSFT Quantum coauthor? Surely only divine intervention can explain the multitude of “bugs” that miraculously always land in their favour 🤔 #QuantumMiracles

Introducing: The quantum olympics! The gold medal in mental gymnastics goes to… Microsoft Quantum!🥇 Apparently pointing out glaring omissions and irregularities isn’t “disputing” the results. So, just to be clear: Microsoft Quantum's papers should not form part of the scientific literature.

Microsoft Quantum refused to respond for a programme on German national radio today that sharply criticised them. For a group that once claimed to the world’s media “quantum computing in years not decades” the silence since the March meeting is deafening. www.deutschlandfunk.de/zank-um-mutm...

Astonishing to see a public broadcaster like Danmarks Radio still pumping out client journalism for Microsoft — pages of breathless repetition of corporate BS, including claims of an 8 topological qubit chip, tempered by just a few words of surface-level skepticism. www.dr.dk/nyheder/vide...

Congratulations to Dr Melina Lüthi for a fantastic PhD thesis and defence yesterday. It was a pleasure to be a part of it. We had so many fun projects over the years and it’s wonderful to see a colleague and friend ace that final step of the PhD 😊

It’s great to be back in Basel for the week! Primarily because @decodoku.bsky.social just called me English and needs a good talking to, but also to be on a PhD committee (yes, they allow me to now have a say in who gets a PhD. Clearly this is an insane thing to do...)

The German press has been largely very good with Microsoft Quantum stories, but a little reminder: 😡Schottland ist nicht England!😡 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I have a question to Nature (communications): if you publish a correction soooo extensive PLUS an Editorial Expression of Concern, why not just retract the paper? This is Microsoft-Delft, from 2017. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This new preprint [1] from @antonakhmerov.org and team demonstrates how Microsoft's theoretical definition of topology in their gap protocol can make "a trivial system appear topological". Oh dear! [1] arxiv.org/abs/2504.01069

Not bullshit

Preparing for my spin qubit lecture tomorrow morning in the Scottish sunshine next to the river Eden Yes: Scotland has sunshine. This one is genuinely not an April fool!

I regret to inform you that when it comes to Microsoft Quantum the press release can be quite far from reality... #TheyPromisedMeAYacht #TheyPromisedUsAQubit

❗Big news: I’ve accepted an offer to join Microsoft Quantum ❗ After reviewing unreleased data (and the compensation package) I can now confirm I fully believe in the topological gap protocol. A full explanation of my decision: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4... #SentFromMyNewYacht

“The data was incredibly unconvincing. It is as if Microsoft Quantum was attempting a simultaneous Rorschach test on hundreds of people,” says physicist Henry Legg of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, one of the fiercest critics of Microsoft’s work. www.sciencenews.org/article/micr...