Crazy milestone passed over (I think) in silence – as of last November or so, I have spent over half my life as a professor at the University of Toronto. [Since as people my age understand, I firmly believe I'm in my early 30s, this implies that I became a professor at around 16.]

Chuffed^* to announce our theory on how long an unabsorbed photon causes atoms to spend in the excited state is out: lnkd.in/gF--eQgV It extends the dichotomy to a confounding "simple to state, but looks wrong; turns out to be right, but this is difficult to prove."

U of T is thrilled to celebrate the Year of Quantum by advertising three new faculty positions! Please spread the word, encourage friends/mentees to apply, or consider applying yourself. (Links in rest of thread) #QuantumOptics #QuantumInformation #AMO @cqiqc-uoft.bsky.social

Nominations for the 2026 #BellPrize are being accepted through September 30th, 2025 – please consider nominating the work from the past 6 yrs which you believe has done the most to advance #Quantum science. Please RT. (See cqiqc.physics.utoronto.ca/bell-prize/n... .) @CQIQC_Toronto

Lazaro Felice! Seeing atoms floating in vacuum and glowing bright in the laser beams that suspend them there (while cooling them millions of times below room temp) should always be inspirational, even if it's now routine for AMO physicists & the MOT is nearing its 40th birthday.

Nominate the most innovative work on Fundamental Issues in Quantum Mechanics and their Applications for the 2026 John Stewart Bell Prize! (Pls rebleep!) See cqiqc.physics.utoronto.ca/bell-prize/n... Deadline 30 August 2025. #QuantumInformation #FoundationsOfQM #BellPrize #QuantumPhysics

Heads-up: we'll be searching this Fall for a tenure-stream faculty member in Theoretical #QuantumOptics (#AMOPhysics #QuantumInformation) at U of T Physics @cqiqc-uoft.bsky.social Official ad out next month – please alert potential strong candidates you may know! www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3-5...

Super-fascinating new article out, on the speed of particles in a forbidden region. For me, it raises more questions than it answers, which is of course my favorite kind of experiment. Kudos to the authors for a novel approach and technical tour de force! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Finally got around to reading this fascinating article by Amanda Gefter -- kudos on an epic investigation and a gripping story! Sad but also inspiring. Thanks for making his writings publicly available - I hope this will lead to new inspirations as well as to restoring his legacy.

Disgusting Weaponizing the justice department, and research funding, against what the US has left of intellectual institutions. Against one of the real good guys, at that. His crime? Not dismantling efforts in support of equity vigorously enough. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/u...

Fearing yet more war; hoping for peace. May war-mongering leaders be removed, and innocents everywhere be safe. What else is worth saying?

RIP Ray Laflamme, gone too soon. Ray was a stellar scientist, the founding director of ⁦‪the IQC‬⁩ and ⁦‪of CIFAR's‬⁩ Quantum Information program, but more importantly a warm & generous human who built community and helped many (particularly junior researchers). May his memory be a blessing.

Krister Shalm in the news again, with a new paper on the Colorado Random Number beacon. Well, we always did say that getting a paper into Nature was a roll of the dice... Always exciting to see our group members go on to lead such creative & successful efforts! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sad news. A great scientist & author, of course, but also a kind man and thoughtful teacher. He will be missed. www.optica.org/about/newsro...

I like to hope we're already doing this in Physics (at least in most groups..), but a discussion around a more systematic approach like this would not be out of place.

Theory and practice #FIAN 2014

Just sharing for the yocks. Seriously, YOCTOjoules. How many of you have even *heard* that prefix before? That's 10^-5 visible photons, in case you're keeping count. "Fieldoscopy." arxiv.org/abs/2504.13121

Hey! Group alum making waves (or particles) ! www.nist.gov/blogs/taking... #WorldQuantumDay #Quantum #EntangledPhotons

I was apprehensive about big airlines moving their routing to #QuantumComputers so early, but here we go... Lufthansa has inaugurated their new double-slit service! (It feels like we landed safely, but that may just be because of that eavesdropping observer in the background.)

You know you have achieved peak fringe when someone publishes an April Fool's joke and you're disappointed they didn't cite your earlier work...;) home.cern/news/news/ph...

Belatedly sharing the great news that my colleague Joseph Thywissen has been named a Fellow of @OpticaWorldwide ! Congratulations to a jolly good one! cqiqc.physics.utoronto.ca/news/recent-... @CQIQC_Toronto @uoftphysics

Congrats to Melanie Woodin, U of T's next President! (Should say in passing that it seems to me she'll be our 1st female president, and it's especially heartening that this can happen without any one [until me, apologies- maybe one step of meta will excuse me] feeling that needs to be emphasized.)

Kyle doing a masterful job of motivating and explaining our work on atomic excitation times in his #CQIQC seminar: www.physics.utoronto.ca/research/qua... [to appear on CQIQC youtube channel]

Oh, another one! They kept some of my "Holland Tunnel" analogy, and then segué'd into Emily Adlam on retrocausality... Have only skimmed so far... how'd they do? Better than the rest so far, I trust? #NegativeTime #FoundationsOfQM www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Ok, something to remember the next time we're complaining about our "publish or perish" culture... #AcademicChatter

Stop slurping at Microsoft's trough, and read about something interesting instead, like our old group member Luciano's efforts to measure the onset of reality (or sth like that -- I still have to read the paper 😉 arxiv.org/abs/2502.13932

Hmm. Came back from a few weeks out of the loop to run into this headline, and must just say: At least they're honest enough to put it on the "Business" page instead of "Science" ;) [Honestly, good luck to them. I'll be thrilled if this time they're telling the truth. ;} ]

The pigeons have come home to roost, at long last! Congrats to Noah, Aharon, & the rest – just out in PNAS: how strong & weak quantum measurements compare in regards to sum rules and other desiderata, by using the seeming violation of the "pigeonhole principle." www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Looking forward to #Time and #Quantum Theory! tiqt2025.quantummechanics.it

I think the in-flight PA announcement just said we could purchase any of our favorite atoms from duty-free, and I am really hoping to get a good deal on some Francium.

Nice, & odd, to visit a uni and realize that the postdoc I used to know at UofT is now chair of Physics here, but esp to have him claim that auditing my course waybackwhen has had lasting influence on his career. In general, lots of friendly & creative people here I haven't seen in too long.

Congrats, Joseph! twitter.com/cqiqc_toront...

Another one... still quite a few misunderstandings, but they're *different* to those in previous articles, so maybe that's progress? #QuantumOptics #NegativeTime #FastLight www.nationalgeographic.fr/espace/physi...

Merry Christmas!

Bonnes Fêtes !

Great pic of Daniela in this latest shot at explaining what we mean by negative time (unfortunately, we're a bit delayed getting our own explainer up there)... phys.org/news/2024-12... #Quantum #QuantumOptics #NegativeTime

Happy Festivus, every one! #Quantum #Physics #FeynmanQuotes

Towards continued cooperation between Xanadu and the University of Toronto! #QuantumComputing #Photonics

My former student (@lundeen.bsky.social ) and one of my [100-odd, tbf] academic uncles (Bob Boyd) team up to throw some shade: (CBC interview – sorry, only found the fb link so far) www.facebook.com/36817412/vid...

It looks like the @cern.bsky.social hitmen still haven't gotten their target, @hossenfelder.bsky.social, & 2 more yrs on she keeps making veiled threats! ("your future looks bleak"!) [In 2022, I couldn't resist asking Chat-GPT to start a Dan Brown novel about them... how d'you think it did?]

REMINDER! @uoftphysics is hiring a Prof in Theoretical #QuantumOptics – only 10 days left, so please do spread the word to top candidates on the market! jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-... @UofTArtSci @CQIQC_Toronto #QuantumOptics #AMOPhysics #QuantumInformation #FoundationsOfQM

I am a failure as a standards-nerd; never before had I noticed, nor had any one pointed out to me (wtf?!), the single remaining undisturbed example of an original (1796-7) mètre, sitting calmly across the street from the Jardin de Luxembourg. (1/3) #SI #Standards #Metre #Metrology #Science #Physics

I guess Christian chose to play up his (welterweight) MMA look in keeping with that annoying "punch about its weight" idiom... #Quantum #Xanadu

Apropos of nothing, this remains my Favorite #Art Installation of All Time... Do click for vid... www.facebook.com/share/v/j9ag...

I guess if I'm going to be posting about strides towards fault-tolerant quantum computing, I should also share this dramatic-sounding paper from a few months ago, wherein Google Quantum AI seem to have demonstrated that they're below threshold, [1/2] arxiv.org/abs/2408.13687

Pretty f’ing impressive, if taken at their word. "Logical computation demonstrated with a neutral atom quantum processor” [claiming up to 28 logical qubits in 256 physical, implementing real error-corrected algorithms] arxiv.org/abs/2411.11822 #Quantum #Science #QuantumComputing #AtomComputing

Toronto friends – all reports make this sound like a fascinating book, and I'd expect no less from Patchen. I'll be too far away to attend the launch, but check it out! #ImpossibleMan #RogerPenrose @patchenbarss.bsky.social #Physics #Science #Math

Daniela's busily showing off her thesis work at #PolytechniqueMontreal ... apologies for cross-platform link: twitter.com/polyquantiqu...

Canada’s flagship #quantum conference is coming to Toronto! 📆 Feb 19-21, 2025 📍 @UofT #QuantumDays2025, co-organized by @DeepTechCanada & @CQIQC_Toronto, promises cutting-edge insights & networking opportunities 🔗 Register: 2025.quantumdays.ca

Hey, all! Please share/ReBleep/apply! The Uni of Toronto has a faculty opening in Theoretical Quantum Optics (broadly construed). See jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-... #Quantum #QuantumOptics #Optics #QuantumInformation