iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 22h

I started the class with a scenario where the students explore a variant of Conway's Game of Life --- the cellular automaton where pixels on a grid are updated according to simple rules, developing complex patterns. The trick of this exercise is that, as the […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Screenshot of a wiki, with individual blue boxes containing short descriptions and text by students, describing their latest findings.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

Blog (from my Mastodon posts): fmarqua.pages.gwdg.de/blog Today I just had Claude help me generate a blog website from my Mastodon posts (it runs a python script that fetches posts and reformats them nicely, pulling together subsequent posts in a […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

Partial #eclipse in the Swiss mountains near Leukerbad. Phantom image of the eclipsed sun from some optical effect in the iphone camera lens system (anyone understand the raster pattern in the little green phantom image?)

Sun barely above mountain, slightly eclipsed. Green reverted phantom image of same sun below.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2026

Our #SciExplorer article is now out ! This #AI agent can explore physical systems from scratch, generating hypotheses, running (numerical) experiments and eventually converging on a model. We tested it on several domains, including mechanical dynamical […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Image of a head with a neural network inside and pictures of scientific plots arranged around it.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2026

Sneak preview: We have not yet announced this publicly in a big way, but you can have a first look at "Safe Lab Agents". Run AI agents safely inside a sandbox and let them interact with your experiment. Easy setup, plus automatic electronic lab notebook […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

A robot inside a bubble, interfacing to an experiment, represented by an oscilloscope.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 02/07/2026

@Marekgluza Great to be at this conference in Aalborg/Denmark and glad we met here and discussed mastodon!

A white seagull is flying above a metal sign reading "REDNINGSPOST," situated near the Aalborg waterfront. The background features a clear blue sky and industrial buildings along the shore.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 08/03/2026

@ModernePhysik Den Irrtum zu überwinden ist ein Hauptziel der Wissenschaft. Wir hatten als Mittel dazu schon die Skepsis erwähnt. Eine weitere sehr wichtige Idee ist diese: 2. "Halte alles so einfach wie möglich" Einfache Ansätze sind eher fehlerfrei zu […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Links: Historische Skizze von William of Ockham. Rechts: William of Ockham (c.1287–1347) ""For nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture." -- Also: halte die Erklärungen so einfach wie möglich!

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 01/03/2026

@ModernePhysik In der Wissenschaft gehört der Irrtum zum Alltag. Deshalb ist es wichtig, die Fähigkeit zu besitzen, Fehler schnell zu erkennen, und die Bereitschaft, Fehler schnell (sich selbst und vor anderen) einzugestehen. Dazu gehört auch, kein negatives […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Bild und Zitat von René Descartes: "Le premier était de ne recevoir jamais aucune chose pour vraie que je ne la connusse évidemment être telle; c'est-à-dire, d'éviter soigneusement la précipitation et la prévention, …" Discours de la méthode, 1637

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 22/02/2026

@ModernePhysik Jeder Mensch, der Wissenschaft betreibt, kennt die zahlreichen Arten von Irrtümern, die praktisch täglich passieren (Rechenfehler, Logikfehler, falsche Grundannahmen, Fehler im Aufbau und in der Interpretation von Experimenten, ...). Meistens […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Titelseite des Buches "Rayons N" von R. Blondlot, 1904.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 21/02/2026

Viele Menschen denken bei Wissenschaft an komplizierte Apparate, Formeln, oder Leute in Reinraumanzügen. Aber das sind nur oberflächliche Aspekte. Die eigentliche Essenz der Wissenschaft ist eine Reihe von Methoden, den Irrtum zu vermeiden und damit zu […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Menschen in Laborkitteln vor einem Quantencomputeraufbau, mit Formeln überlagert.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 16/02/2026

Mein Vortrag über 'wissenschaftliches Denken' -- wie die Menschheit über Jahrhunderte immer besser gelernt hat, den Irrtum zu vermeiden, und was uns das auch im Alltag helfen kann. Hier auf Video (vom 31. Januar 2026) […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Eine Bildergallerie aus dem Vortrag: Gittarensaiten, Seifenblase, Teilchenbeschleuniger, Jaguar und Fruchtfliege, Sternenhimmel, Zusammenfassung wichtiger Aspekte des wissenschaftlichen Denkens ("Irren ist menschlich, Skepsis, So einfach wie möglich, Beobachtungen, Systematik und Präzision, Vorhersagekraft, Statistisches Denken")

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 25/12/2025

Happy holidays, everyone! In this year's Christmas picture, I illustrate some aspect of #AI, but I made the picture itself without AI (rather, inkscape)... It is entitled "Attention / ... red apple under the tree is ..." Experts might figure it out... @MPI_ScienceOfLight

An abstract picture with 6 grey vertical bars that seem connected with grey branches. Colorful streams of triangles pass through the bars and the branches. These streams start as a single color each, but as they get connected, they mix colors.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 24/12/2025

Book recommendation: Autobiography by Katalin Karikó, the Hungarian-born biochemist who provided the foundations for modern mRNA based vaccines and treatments. Her breakthrough paper together with Drew Weissman was rejected by Nature as 'only an incremental […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Title page, book by Katalin Karikó, showing the DNA double helix and some photos

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/12/2025

Das Wurmloch über Erlangen ist dank Quantencomputer und Quantensatellit abgewehrt worden...

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/12/2025

Surface Code Quantenfehlerkorrektur in der 'Weihnachtsvorlesung' der Erlanger Physik

Farbige Formen auf einem Gitter aus LEDs

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 13/12/2025

@MPI_ScienceOfLight One slide from the lecture, introducing text generation via transformers.

Slide showing a schematic of text generation using a transformer neural network (predicting the next word).

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 29/10/2025

In Waterloo, Ontario, you find a hotel restaurant called 'proof'. :-)

A square mat for a cup that looks like a blackboard full of math

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2025

I just finished reading the great book by @timbl Tim Berners-Lee, 'This is for Everyone' -- describing the history of the web and how we can get back data sovereignty. Great insights, several honourable mentions of #Mastodon and an explanation why his Solid […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2025

Scientific discovery relies on a cycle of observations, analysis, and coming up with new hypotheses. Can a computer mimic that cycle and explore an unknown system in this way? We introduce #SciExplorer, which for the first time employs agentic behaviour in […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Stylized image of a head containing a neural network, overlaying a gallery of images from scientific exploration (plots of curves and wave fields).

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2025

Great panel discussion right now at the 100 Years of Quantum Mechanics conference on Helgoland. (left to right: Liang Jiang, Birgitta Whaley, Rob Schoelkopf, Michelle Simmons, Charles Bennett) #quantum #quantumcomputing @MPI_ScienceOfLight

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 17/05/2025

Spektren (wie hier von einer Natriumflamme) waren entscheidend für die Entwicklung der #Quantenmechanik. Niels Bohr fand 1913 seine Theorie des Wasserstoffatoms, um die Frequenzen der Linien zu deuten. Beim Versuch, die Intensitäten der Linien zu verstehen […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 17/05/2025

Hier bei der #BlaueNacht in #nurnberg im #Zukunftsmuseum sind wir vom Max-Planck-Institut für die Physik des Lichts @MPI_PhysikDesLichts und @FAU heute abend mit Infos zur #Quantenkommunikation mit Satelliten vertreten!

Experimenteller Aufbau und Monitor mit Film über Satellit

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 15/05/2025

Diesen Freitag sind wir vom Max-Planck-Institut für die Physik des Lichts @MPI_PhysikDesLichts in #Erlangen in der Innenstadt am Hugenottenplatz, ab 12:00, zum #TagDesLichts und internationalen Quantenjahr 2025, mit Kurzvorträgen -- und abends dann in unserem […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Oberlicht mit Schattenspiel auf der Wand

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/04/2025

@SeanPLynch And here is the transmission data from the original paper (creative commons license): iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/… New Constraints on DMS and DMDS in the Atmosphere of K2-18 b from JWST MIRI Nikku Madhusudhan […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

spectrum, with features highlighted as DMS, DMDS

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 06/04/2025

@maxplanckgesellschaft @MPI_ScienceOfLight In June 1925 a 23-year-old Werner Heisenberg made a crucial step in his discovery of the modern form of quantum theory. He went to the island because he was suffering from hay fever.

Famous 'Lange Anna' - isolated sandstone rock.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 06/04/2025

Today I am returning from my scouting trip to the island of #Helgoland , where we will be organizing our conference 100 Years of Quantum Mechanics in June. The island in the North Sea is a beautiful spot! The ferry ride from Hamburg takes almost four hours […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Red sandstone cliffs overlooking the sea

Birds breeding on the cliffs. Blue sea. Sunny skies.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 21/03/2025

The #Quantum NanoScience Center in South Korea apparently has annual art contest with really high-level entries like dance performances and art installations. I learned this today at a session entitled Art and Science at the APS Global Summit in Anaheim […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 19/03/2025

1980s video arcade machines at the #americanphysicalsociety #APSSummit25 ... next to the booths of the quantum companies...

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 16/03/2025

Just arrived in Anaheim, California, for the American Physical Society #APSGlobalSummit2025, the largest physics meeting in the world (this time combining all branches of physics). I am curious to see how the mood is among my US colleagues […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/02/2025

#History of #Science: It is amazing how quick people were in writing scientific articles in the past. Hahn and Strassmann had done their final crucial control experiment on what would be called nuclear fission on December 17, 1939. In the calendar entry […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Two pages, handwritten diary of Otto Hahn

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 26/02/2025

History of Science Oddity: Today the Max Planck Society is composed of about 80 Max Planck Institutes. It was founded after the war as successor to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Science. However, today I learned there is one curious case of a building from […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Building with attached label Max Planck Institut

Small inscription next to the door: Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Physik

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/02/2025

#Helgoland2025 Please share: If you are interested in the foundations of Quantum Mechanics, there are now again a few slots open in our upcoming conference on the island of Helgoland, in June 2025. Celebrating 100 years of Quantum Mechanics! General […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Abstract image of an eye on a triangle, with some other shapes nearby. Evokes the mystery of quantum mechanics.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 16/02/2025

A famous example of #AutomatedScientificDiscovery is "Adam the Robot Scientist". This is a machine, introduced in 2004 by Ross King and others, that can do biochemistry experiments on its own and smartly pick the next experiment to do. More precisely, it is […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 13/02/2025

Pink Fridge: Today I visited the labs of Natalia Ares in #Oxford. She has the only pink dilution fridge in the world. These are the kind of machines that help produce the lowest temperatures, slightly above absolute zero. This is important for #quantum […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Smiling scientists in front of a large pink metal tube

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/01/2025

iphone/Safari/search: I just noticed you can easily select another search engine in the iOS settings for Safari, including the privacy-conscious, non-Google DuckDuckGo. #searchengine #iOS #Safari

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/01/2025

Automated Scientific Discovery aims to make computers capable of aiding scientific progress even in those aspects that go beyond mere number crunching and conceptually simple data analysis, extending into domains that require more creativity and heuristics […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

A mass spectrum on top of a picture of Mars.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 19/01/2025

Today I watched a fascinating documentary movie, #TracingLight. It approaches light through a mix of scientists in their labs and artists and their installations, and it brings the scientists and artists together (filmed mostly in the UK and Germany). As one […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

A 2m diameter sphere, black in one half, white in the other.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/01/2025

Just returning from Stockholm, where I was teaching an eager crowd of physics students some aspects of artificial intelligence for scientific discovery. If you ever visit #Stockholm, visit the #Vasa museum, showing off this gigantic ship that sank […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

giant 17th century shipwreck in a museum

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 21/12/2024

(continuing my exploration of #claude ) I am also quite impressed by Claude's ability to produce interactive little web programs based on the user's prompts, and re-adjust them when needed during the conversation. Here is a simple example, starting with […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

A plot of a sine curve on dark background. On top, a text field where one can enter the function to be plotted.

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 04/08/2024

Beautiful animation of solutions to the three-body problem on Wikipedia (credit: Perosello). upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm…

An array of pictures of three colored planets circling around each other with a variety of complicated trajectories

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 29/07/2024

'Draw a photon!' Here is a picture drawn by participants at our conference last week in Ottawa. What would you draw? #MaxPlanckCentre @MPI_ScienceOfLight @maxplanckgesellschaft

Pictures of photons, like wavy lines and wave packets

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Florian Marquardt @fmarquardtgroup.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 16/07/2024

For friends of #neuromorphicComputing, we are happy that our new idea, spearheaded by Clara Wanjura, is now published in #NaturePhysics. It shows how to take a linear optical device and turn it into a fully nonlinear neuromorphic device which can be trained […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

A brain with optical waveguides, symbolizing optical neuromorphic devices.

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