Astronomy, meet quantum computing. A recent demonstration at Harvard shows how entangled particles could help multiple optical telescopes, spaced far apart, combine their light to create better images.
physics.aps.org/articles/v19...
E-mail: schen311 at gmail, Signal in bio. Please reach out!
Bluesky hive mind: I'm writing a story for the American Physical Society about proposed changes in US student visas. I'm looking for international physics students willing to share how it's affected their decisionmaking. They can be anonymous.
Hi! Thanks for stopping by. FWIW, the article linked above isn't behind a paywall.
😶
Wrote a review for a movie from 6 decades ago.
Rewatching 2001 in 2026 made me consider the purpose of accurate science in movies. They're never completely accurate, and sometimes bad science makes better movies. But in 2001, the accuracy creates room for wonder.
www.aps.org/apsnews/2026...
I call this Schrödinger's chicken, where the chicken can come both before and after the egg.
(Check out my story on indefinite causal order.)
physics.aps.org/articles/v19...
Columbus, Ohio, where I live, is one of the fastest growing data center markets in the country. Capacity grew 18x, 2020-2025. Meta is building a gigawatt-scale facility in the area. It's confusing and chaotic, so the community met about it yesterday. I bore witness:
matternews.org/community/de...
Here's yet another weird analogue between nature and technology. New theory finds that bursts of gamma rays can form in an insulator like they do during a lightning storm in the atmosphere (which is itself, a type of insulator too).
Let's talk about neutrinos and the sun. Cheers to @thephysicsgirl.bsky.social and team, great to be working together again.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3m3...
Quantum computers are insanely hard to build, with commercial application timelines of a decade+. The space is overrun with hype.
Academic physicists in Canada are making an open-source quantum computer in a bid for more transparency.
physics.aps.org/articles/v19...
1/4 RIP Micius 🛰️
The world's first quantum satellite crashed into the Pacific last week (to the west of Ecuador) after an almost 10-year mission
Also known as Mozi (& QUESS) it was famously the first to teleport a photon to space (or at least its quantum state)
🧪⚛️
www.nature.com/articles/nat...
(n+1/n) Also it appears I can't count. Apologies for numbering these posts incorrectly, you know how it goes
(n/n) The article is behind a paywall, so just let me know if you'd like a pdf to read.
(5/n) Governments and companies need to step up to manage this before the e-waste deluge escalates further. Possible steps:
-companies need to disclose more about how much hardware they're using
-Governments need to regulate third-party recyclers so that they meet legal standards
(4/n) Some companies illegally export this waste to other countries. For example, a US-based company specializing in decommissioning data centers likely misdeclared waste and shipped it to Malaysia, a 2025 report from NGO Basel Action Network found. www.ban.org/reports/brok...
(4/n) Global recycling management infrastructure is broken. Data center companies commonly use third-party recyclers, and once they hand off their waste to companies, it's often unclear what happens it.
(3/n) But these efforts aren't enough. E-waste generation is rising five times faster than recycling rates. A 2024 estimate finds genAI could produce up to 2.5 million tons of e-waste/year by 2030, roughly comparable to every person on Earth discarding an iPhone. This is likely an underestimate.
(3/n) Also, data centers are centralized. Compared to consumer electronics (microwaves, radios, your old Furby from the 90's), it's easy to implement recycling innovations at scale at a data center.
(2/n) Reasons for hope: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and the US government all have some kind of reduce/reuse/recycle programs for their data centers.
Microsoft recently did a study on how to recycle rare earth elements, which are used in magnets in hard drives, but are incredibly polluting.
Companies' push to use generative AI means more chips, more servers, and data centers — and in a few years, a lot of garbage.
Here's my story about how countries plan to deal with the rising e-waste, and the challenges ahead.
www.nature.com/articles/s43...
(1/n)
Quantinuum's new trapped-ion quantum computer, Helios, has performed some intriguing simulations of high-temperature superconductors. But it's still much too small to perform the industry’s dream algorithms.
www.technologyreview.com/2025/11/05/1...
(2/2) New laureates Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi did their pioneering work in the 80's and 90's. Since then, chemists have created some very powerful applications with MOFs. In 2020, I covered a few of them in an article in Wired:
www.wired.com/story/this-c...
(1/2) Today's Chemistry Nobel went to metal-organic frameworks. These are a class of customizable molecules that I think of as cages, where you can trap chemicals of your choice and then efficiently perform controlled chemistry reactions within them.
(2/n) Enough about science. Let's talk about me. This is a rare opportunity to name drop a physicist I've hung out with and not be met 100% with blank stares. I partied with John Martinis in 2018 on an LA rooftop. The party was weird.
Receipts:
www.wired.com/story/google...
(1/n) Today's physics Nobel Prize went to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis for their work on quantum tunneling in superconducting circuits. This research laid the groundwork for the quantum computers in development today.
(2/n) The first: A Utah and Arizona-based company that uses generative AI to help people clear their criminal records through the process known as expungement.
gizmodo.com/ai-expunge-p...
In my latest for Gizmodo, I write about two cases of generative AI being used in legal settings. They're foils to each other: one that I believe presents a way to use the software responsibly, and one that doesn't.
I leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide which is which.
(1/n)
