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Quantum Computers Look Like Chandeliers. This is Why.

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · 14d

Basically every style guide I've ever read says the first one, but I just can't stop myself using the second one. The first one simply feels wrong somehow (even though I think it looks nicer!)

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Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · 14d

The plot of Silksong can be a bit confusing for newcomers, but I think I've cracked what it's about:

🧵Thread

Reposted by Tom Rivlin

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · 15d

Does our Research Unit endorse the view expressed by our employee here that "so much quantum tech is way over-hyped"? 🤔🤔🤔🤔

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · 15d

New from me at @scishow.bsky.social! In news stories, why do quantum computers look like a 'steampunk chandelier'? Well, turns out: that's not the computer!

(But that's all just setup for my rant at the end about how so much quantum tech is way over-hyped 👀👀👀)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhou...

Quantum Computers Look Like Chandeliers. This is Why.

www.youtube.com

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Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · 15d

New from me at @scishow.bsky.social! In news stories, why do quantum computers look like a 'steampunk chandelier'? Well, turns out: that's not the computer!

(But that's all just setup for my rant at the end about how so much quantum tech is way over-hyped 👀👀👀)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhou...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

www.youtube.com

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Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · 19d

Looks like the Literature prize this year went to "The late Dr. William B. Bean, for persistently recording and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails over a period of 35 years." Which, okay, that's pretty fun, too

improbable.com/ig/winners/#...

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Oct 9

Given the two AI-related Nobels this year, surely the Ig Nobel committee now have to do the funniest thing ever and award their next Literature prize to ChatGPT

Reposted by Tom Rivlin

Rebekah White @rebekahwhite.bsky.social · 20d

This year at the Ig Nobels it's affirming to see empirical confirmation of a personal research project: that alcohol demonstrably improves my ability to speak a foreign language.

The sample size is a bit small but I'd volunteer for anyone's replication attempt: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

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Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · 22d

One of my all time favourite things on the internet just got an incredible makeover www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3g6...

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The It's My Book They'll Walk If I Tell Them Too (ANIMATED)

YouTube video by Tom Cardy

www.youtube.com

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Sep 4

Silksong good

UK gets first female Astronomer Royal in 350 years

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Aug 19

I'm going to record myself starting the first episode and immediately skipping to the end credits of the last episode, then I'm going to upload the footage as a WR any% speedrun attempt

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 30

Congrats to Professor Michele Dougherty on being my Differential Equations lecturer in second year undergrad in 2012.

Oh, and maybe some other more recent achievement of hers IDK www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Prof Michele Dougherty is the first woman to be appointed to the influential post.

www.bbc.co.uk

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 30

Next, huge thanks to my co-authors Veronika and Sophie, the former a world-class WF expert who agreed to work with me on this (and patiently explain how WF actually works), and the latter a maths and coding whiz who helped a lot with the numerics. Check it all out here:

arxiv.org/abs/2507.21221

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 30

Some credits: First, it wouldn't be a Wigner's Friend paper without a cute cartoon showing W and F looking at stuff, and for our work I'm super grateful to the curliest of qubits himself, Jake Xuereb @curlyqubit.bsky.social, for providing gorgeous sketches, as seen above.

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Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 30

Next, we all have that one friend who's just a small collection of qubits, right? Well here we numerically studied what happens to the WF effects as the friend increases in size, finding a form of 'emegence of classicality' as the WF effects faded away.

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 30

We also applied our model to the fancy Extended Wigner's Friend Scenarios that everyone's talking about, likewise finding that the model obfuscates genuine effects like the famous Local Friendliness violations.

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 30

We found our model produces a new type of Wigner's Friend disagreement (or 'paradox') using coherence between the friend and the environment. But this new effect is hard to tell apart from some more mundane sources of error that arise when complicating the WF setup.

Emergence of Classicality in Wigner's Friend Scenarios

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 30

New preprint! Really excited about this. It's some of my best work ever, IMO: an analytic and numerical study of the Wigner's Friend problem(s) with a specific model of the measurement process and a decohering environment.

arxiv.org/abs/2507.21221

The Wigner's Friend (WF) thought experiment concerns quantum measurements by a 'superobserver' of an observer measuring a quantum system. Variations on the setup and its extended versions have seen a ...

arxiv.org

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Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 25

Ha, this is fun. Four years ago I wrote a SciShow that mentioned the famous unsolved "Moving Sofa" problem. But last year someone claimed to have finally solved it. So now, SciShow made a new video about it!

New video:
youtu.be/GeJEJXqf2XI?...

My older video:
youtu.be/3b6zvcqbNa0?...

What’s the Largest Sofa You Can Move Around a Corner?

4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 10

Great article
www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...

In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system.

www.newyorker.com

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jun 19

Oh and it's also the second episode in a row of mine that hinged on the definition of Shannon entropy in linguistics!

bsky.app/profile/tomr...

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · May 14

New SciShow! Really pleased with this one. Had a lot of fun researching and writing it. It turns out that basically every language has almost the exact same bit rate. What's up with that? Find out here:
youtu.be/suEm3uFJA2s?...

What’s The Fastest Language?

These Scrolls Got Destroyed by a Volcano, But It’s Fine

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jun 19

Between this episode and last year's Vesuvius scrolls episode, SciShow has got me writing lots about the really cool science behind deciphering ancient texts. Super fun stuff!

youtu.be/qjmhtHYa2aQ?...

This Famous Medieval Book May Be a Hoax

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Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jun 19

New @scishow.bsky.social

This was a really fun one. We wrote about the real science behind an ancient tome said to hold alchemical secrets... And just what does Shannon entropy have to do with it?

youtu.be/K0wVcFXNXLw?...