Mark Mitchison

Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport.

The idiom "like a moth to the flame" dates to at least the 12th century, to Persian love poem "Layla and Majnun". Shakespeare references it in "Merchant of Venice." But here's the thing. Moths DON'T fly to flames. And we're just now understanding that. Let's talk about dorsal light response.

Academia was so much better before Woke. Sure, David Hume was never able to secure an academic job because he might have been an atheist. But at least no one made him use the singular "they"

I have PhD and postdoc positions available to join my group at ENS Paris, centered on designing algorithms for quantum computers in the early fault-tolerant era and sitting at the interface of theory and experiment. One position starts already in the fall of this year!

I actually know the answer to this and it's slightly insane. Google pulls from Wikipedia to determine if a place is a city, town, neighbourhood, whatever. Brighton's first line describes it as a "seaside resort" so Google Maps thinks it's a neighbourhood and doesn't display it in the "city" font.

Reading articles on the amounts HE has spent in APCs over the last 5-10 years, and slowly watching my blood pressure rise. Millions upon millions, on something WE CAN ABSOLUTELY DO OURSELVES FOR A FRACTION OF THE COST - what universities couldn't do with that kind of money now... 😠 And breathe...

I respect France's commitment to not working on a holiday.

On my way, Clacton.

At today's UKRI board meeting, the fate of UK particle physics and astronomy will likely be decided. Have we done enough to convince the powers-that-be to halt the proposed funding cuts? 🤞 Read Prof. Hiranya Peiris in Nature today eloquently explaining why these cuts are wrong.🧪🔭⚛️ 📖: rdcu.be/friwM

can’t believe a narcissist is being so publicly humiliated by a reflecting pool

Letter in today's Times by climate scientist Sir Brian Hoskins: "The discourse around net-zero is increasingly decoupled from…science and our changing weather. "Net-zero is not an arbitrary slogan, rather it is dictated by the laws of physics."

Banning children from social media?

When you see the story about how the world now has its first trillionaire, and when you see the story about how laboratories in Congo have run out of supplies to test for Ebola, it is important to understand that in many ways these are the same story.

"There was never an agreement to give the US sovereignty over the internet. We are still inside UK borders when we use the internet. The infrastructure is here. The revenue is made here. The internet is eminently governable."

What you see in the Sun, is the Chicago skyline from the Indiana Dunes beach, across Lake Michigan. You can see it from 50 miles of distance due to a form of superior mirage, because the skyline is seen above where it's actually located. [📷 wesskywalker]

This has now been published in PRA! journals.aps.org/pra/abstract...

🧾This open letter already collected more than 300 signatures and is going to be sent to policy makers on Monday🗓️. If you are a university student🎓 in physics 🧪🔭studying in the UK🇬🇧, you may consider signing it asap. Sign and share! ✍🏻🔄🌐 student-openletter-stfc.github.io

I'm not saying this because I particularly think he should stand for leader but it does feel Quite Interesting that Labour actually has this other mayor who's been successfully running a much bigger city for a longer period of time but for some reason no one's waiting for him to save the party

Very happy to see the last work of Sindre Brattegard’s PhD out on arXiv! 🥳 Around 2 years ago, during a (mostly non-scientific) visit by my friend Stephanie Matern to Dublin, we asked the question of how finite reservoirs could be useful for thermometry 👇 arxiv.org/abs/2604.28155

Minimal poster

"Photo 51" was the X-ray diffraction pattern that revealed the internal structure of DNA, produced by PhD student Raymond Gosling working under Rosalind Franklin's direction at King's College in London in 1952. Let's talk about how CORK & a PAPERCLIP played a central role in DNA's discovery.

Significant day for UK trade policy. With the announcement of the EU-Australia FTA the UK now only has an FTA where the EU doesn't with Malaysia and Brunei as part of CPTPP. The EU meanwhile has a deal with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay that the UK doesn't.

Something of a Friday 13th for the science department today - Chi Onwurah has lambasted Patrick Vallance over "wholly unacceptable" physics cuts - The NAO has reported a £5.6bn repair backlog to uni infrastructure - MPs have said regional growth is suffering from poor data on R&D spending 🧵 ...

Whoa, big news for the most significant scientific dissemination platform in human history! On the face of it, setting up @arxiv.bsky.social as an independent non-profit seems like a good idea to me.

I don't want to know what calls for quantum plumbing, but I guess I'm glad it's available if someone needs it.

The Qalypso School on Quantum Science in Malta returns for its 3rd edition Aug 31 - Sep 4 this year! 🏖️ We have a great line up of lecturers covering Quantum Optimisation, Quantum Thermodynamics and Quantum Gibbs Sampling. Pre-registrations opens today at forms.gle/3NkMJ3Br9V8b... Do Share!

Mathematician Georg Cantor was born #OTD in 1845. He is the founder of set theory and developed the concepts of cardinal and transfinite numbers. These shocking results led his former professor Kronecker to call him a "corrupter of youth." Image: Oberwolfach Photo Collection

I am disgusted by the British government’s proposals to betray these people, after years of contributing to our society. I have so often heard right-wing voices moaning about “British values” of decency and fairness being eroded by immigration. A hypocrisy now laid bare.

I am disgusted by the British government’s proposals to betray these people, after years of contributing to our society. I have so often heard right-leaning voices moaning about “British values” of decency and fairness being eroded by immigration — a hypocrisy now laid bare.

Very hard to believe that there was really no advance warning to certain parties, for a programme of this magnitude

#InvertebrateShitposting as per @joabaldwin.com's request

10 years after its founding, driven by the energy, enthusiasm, & dedication of the community @quantum-journal.bsky.social quietly published paper #2000 some days ago. At least I think this is a big deal, big shout out to the founders & all authors, reviewers, editors, board members & contributors!

What a great photo of Brazilian alpine skier Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, the first South American to ever win a medal at the Winter Olympic Games.

I am recruiting a #PhDstudent in Computational #Biophysics at @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social @kingslsm.bsky.social for October! Deadline February 28. Details 👉 www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Please share with interested students! #PhD #PhDposition #PhDSky #AcademicSky #computationalphysics 🧪⚛️

Hey quantum Bluesky! Allow us to reintroduce ourselves! You may know us as QuIT: Marcus Huber's Quantum Information and Thermodynamics group at TU Wien. But we're so much more than that, and it's time our name reflected it. So say hello to... 𝗤𝘂𝗢𝗜? quoi-theory.at

OOPS.

As someone who uses ChatGPT for zero things whatsoever, the fact that they're putting ads in it is extremely funny

Researchers uncover a fundamental, universal limit to how precisely time can be measured in noisy, fluctuating systems. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/cracking-t...

Our work modelling heat engines driven by finite reservoirs has been published in PRE! 
What I really like about this work is that the reservoir's entropic temperature takes centre stage to explain stochastic engines’ performance🔥 journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...

Merry Xmas BlueSky!! Breakfast today is chicken mappas and appam… They know how to celebrate in Kerala 🤩🎄

2025 Headline of the Year nominee (July)

Women made up 21% of faculty members in US physics departments in 2024, up from 16% a decade earlier. The percentage of women faculty members in the nation’s astronomy departments rose from 19% in 2014 to 25% in 2024. #academia #womeninscience #faculty

If we are banning cell phones for kids we need to be talking about banning chatbots for boomers www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...

Enough of this finite initial segment nonsense. A number is even if there is no remainder when divided by 2. \Aleph_0 = 2 \Aleph_0, so by cardinality, there is an even number of naturals *and* an even number of integers. And even if there was one more, that would still be an even number!