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George Cantwell

@gcant.bsky.social
712 followers 341 following 69 posts

Neural network interested in statistics, physics, and computing. Mostly network science. Asst prof @ Cambridge

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Reposted by George Cantwell
Alec Kirkley @captainkirk1041.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Excited for NetSci-X 2027 in Hong Kong! Send your abstracts by Oct 1st (possible deadline extension coming soon), and see netscix2027.github.io for more details.
netscix2027.github.io
NetSciX 2027 — International School and Conference on Network Science
NetSciX 2027 — International School and Conference on Network Science. January 24–27, 2027, Hong Kong SAR.
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Joshua Grochow @joshuagrochow.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
What if paperclips were just a metaphor for data centers all along. They have become the paperclip maximizers they claim to be so worried about.
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Rob Knight @root.guru · 24/09/2026
A 2x2 diagram, with "Careful Reasoning - Confusing Bullshit" on the X axis, and "Stuff that matters - Stuff that doesn't matter" on the Y axis.

Analytic philosophy is in the bottom left: both "Careful Reasoning" and "Stuff that doesn't matter", while continental philosophy is in the top right: "Stuff that matters" and "Confusing bullshit".
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 23/09/2026
Thinking back to the good old days when publishing a paper every three days required some human to be insecure enough to write up two ideas that didn't deserve to see the light of day every single week.
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Mattan S. Ben-Shachar @mattansb.msbstats.info · 24/09/2026
This quote by haunts me. From Wilcox's "Introduction to Robust Estimation and Hypothesis Testing" #stats
To begin, distributions are never normal. For some this seems obvious, hardly worth mentioning, but an aphorism given by Cram´er (1946) and attributed to the mathematician Poincar´e remains relevant: “Everyone believes in the [normal] law of errors, the experimenters because they think it is a mathematical theorem, the mathematicians because they think it is an experimental fact.”
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Tested an AI detector, it labelled my writing "idiosyncratic and blunt". Not long ago I might have been insulted... now I'm so proud to not be "modal and circuitous".
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tj mahr 🤘 @tjmahr.com · 21/09/2026
I get depressed when I review something and it seems AI-assisted (as in well written but shallow and making weird jumps in spots). Why am I wasting my time putting in thought that wasn’t given in the first place
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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Why is political science so adamant that the "issue space" is fixed??? It doesn't have to be, and it's not. This is a central assumption of the spatial voting theory frameworks, and people still cling onto it today. See Martin & Quinn and Poole & Rosenthal. 🧪🦋
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Johan Ugander @jugander.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
My Yale colleague Dan Spielman has started a substack, which I thought I'd signal boost since Dan is an outstanding thinker and communicator (and person!) but isn't on social media much. Here's his first substantive post from a month ago: mathadjacent.com/p/llms-testi...
mathadjacent.com
LLMs, Testing, Grade inflation, and Accommodations
Like every professor, I’ve been worrying about how AI systems will force us to change our teaching practices.
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Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A paper is finished when the embarrassment of submitting it becomes smaller than the embarrassment of still working on it
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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Young academics interested in democracy: check out the postdoc program at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins! @snfagora.bsky.social snfagora.jhu.edu/fellowships-...
snfagora.jhu.edu
Postdoctoral Fellows Program
Postdoctoral Fellows Program SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University
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Transactions on Machine Learning Research @tmlrorg.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
TMLR has faced a deluge of submissions, necessitating stricter desk rejection policies due to limited reviewer capacity Co-EiC Nihar Shah reached out to authors of 10 papers slated for desk reject. Could they answer questions about their *own* submission? medium.com/@TmlrOrg/ask...
medium.com
Asking Authors About Their Own Papers
By Nihar B. Shah
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Dan Larremore @danlarremore.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
What do we think the groupchat for all the Fields Medal winners was called? @jugander.bsky.social
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Also shows there is new physics to discover: a learned equation was more accurate than one derived by standard argument, so a better approximation *exists*. Now we just need to find it from first principles!
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
(deadline extended to September 13)
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Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
SFI is hiring a postdoctoral fellow to work with SFI Professor David Wolpert on the thermodynamic cost of distributed computation, from digital circuits to human brains. We are seeking a scholar with expertise in physics, computer science, or a related field. santafe.edu/about/jobs/p...
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I must have implemented simulated annealing 100 times. Here’s a vibe coded version w. MaxCut interface (the vibe was “mildly annoyed by comparisons to straw-man baselines”). github.com/gcant/anneal...
github.com
GitHub - gcant/annealMaxCut: Simulated annealing for MaxCut (and other Ising problems)
Simulated annealing for MaxCut (and other Ising problems) - gcant/annealMaxCut
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Laurent Hébert-Dufresne @lhd.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Interested in complex systems research in beautiful Vermont? Teams @vcsi.bsky.social hope to fill postdoctoral positions on very short notice. One position is at the intersection of cognitive and epidemiological modeling. DM for details or keep an eye out for postings on here.
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Joshua Grochow @joshuagrochow.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
"Puzzles reveal the limits of AI. The missing Aha! moments" by Cris Moore. Gift link 🎁. A more humanistic view on the value of solving problems ourselves. iai.tv/articles/puz... #MathSky 🧪
iai.tv
Puzzles reveal the limits of AI
<p><em>Puzzles compress the experience of insight into miniature, letting us watch understanding take shape in real time. Computer scientist <strong>Cristopher Moore</strong> argues that while AI can ...
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Iain Murray @imurray.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Sharing this postdoc opportunity at Imperial to develop and apply machine-learning and structural-bioinformatics methods for protein design, with focus on modern generative approaches such as protein diffusion models and flow-based models.
imperial.ac.uk
Description
Please note that job descriptions are not exhaustive, and you may be asked to take on additional duties that align with the key responsibilities ment...
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Steven Strogatz @stevenstrogatz.com · 23/06/2026
My new book! Written w my pal Alex Townsend, it's about the math behind enormous systems (medical scans, AI, etc.) and what happens when they outgrow our ability to understand them. Pre-order at @barnesandnoble.com for 25% off -> www.barnesandnoble.com/w/big-math-s... @littlebrown.bsky.social
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
At the end of the term I asked my college creative wriing students to submit anonymous thoughts on AI. No real surprises: Mood ranges from resignation to despair, capitulation from embittered erosion of standards to total, feelings of betrayal from deep to furious. 1/
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Now with a nice "Editors' Suggestion" badge! We have some further rigorous results (i.e., not approximations) to follow shortly.
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Ben Recht @beenwrekt.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
A report for university chancellors and presidents concerned about the state of academic scholarship: Statistical thinking is postmodern.
argmin.net
The Objective Pursuit of Knowledge
Why statistical thinking is postmodern.
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Alexandre Bovet @abovet.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Interested in network science, evolutionary biology, and animal behavior? I am seeking a PhD student to join the Quantitative Network Science group at the Department of Mathematical Modeling and Machine Learning of the University of Zurich. Info and application here: jobs.uzh.ch/job-vacancie...
jobs.uzh.ch
UZH: PhD in Network Science: Modeling of Animal Networks
We are seeking a highly motivated PhD student to join our Quantitative Network Science research group at the Department of Mathematical Modeling and Machine Learning at the University of Zurich. Wild ...
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Yourqueerprof @drcompton.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
I didnt know there were such dreams to live as a child!
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Artemy Kolchinsky @artemyte.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
We wrote a perspective piece on future directions & challenges for stochastic thermodynamics. Great collaboration with Jan Korbel, Sarah Loos, Gonzalo Manzano, Rosalba Garcia-Millan, Olga Movilla Miangolarra, Edgar Roldan arxiv.org/abs/2604.26601
arxiv.org
Quo vadis, stochastic thermodynamics?
Stochastic thermodynamics is a framework for describing non-equilibrium processes at the level of fluctuating trajectories, where the state of a system evolves as a stochastic time series,...
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Claude does not seem able to reliably answer: "how many cathedrals does the Church of England have?" What a weird blind spot.
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Thilo Gross @thilogross.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Next week, my course on Networks and Complexity is starting again, which is always taught online. We have some space left for international students. Lectures will be on mondays and thursdays 16:00-18:00 CEST. Starting 9th. 24 Lectures total. More info in the reply.
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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Journal publishing is bad now, but …this year is the 40th anniversary of my first published paper and the 43rd anniversary of it being accepted for publication.
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Tiago Peixoto @tiago.skewed.de · 08/12/2025
Can't get over the fact that in the ML literature the act of *sampling* from an inferred model is now called “inference.” We really are in the worst timeline.
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Luís M. Rocha @lmrocha.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
We are looking for a PhD student to work with us on network science methods for biomedicine. The student can be enrolled in any graduate program. #NetworkMedicine #ComplexSystems.
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Tiago Peixoto @tiago.skewed.de · 04/12/2025
I wrote a blog post about the often stated but never explained assumption that communities in graphs should always be connected. This is inconsistent with statistical significance and null models that underlie the most widely employed methods. skewed.de/lab/posts/co...
skewed.de
The perplexing “connected cluster axiom” – Inverse Complexity Lab
Research group on inverse problems in complex systems and network science.
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
A principled graph embedding that also appears to work well in practice: arxiv.org/abs/2512.02694
arxiv.org
Embedding networks with the random walk first return time distribution
We propose the first return time distribution (FRTD) of a random walk as an interpretable and mathematically grounded node embedding. The FRTD assigns a probability mass function to each node, allowin...
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Santo Fortunato @santof.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Our review on multilayer network science is out on the arXiv. Thanks to all collaborators of the AccelNet MultiNet project, great working with you all 🙏 @alexvespi.bsky.social @ymoreno.bsky.social @lordgrilo.bsky.social @anduviera.bsky.social @baronca.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2511.23371
arxiv.org
Multilayer network science: theory, methods, and applications
Multilayer network science has emerged as a central framework for analysing interconnected and interdependent complex systems. Its relevance has grown substantially with the increasing availability of...
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Tiago Peixoto @tiago.skewed.de · 08/11/2025
Very good post. I very much agree with the overall position.
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The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 30/09/2025
Excited to introduce Vibes from Meta. Eat your slop, piggies!
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arxiv cs.SI @arxiv-cs-si.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Message passing for epidemiological interventions on networks with loops arxiv.org/abs/2509.21596
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NetPlace @netplace.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Our fall seminar series begins this Thursday, Oct. 2 (4pm UTC+1/11am EDT) with a talk by Elena Candellone. She’ll be speaking about “Mapping extreme users through negative ties in online social interactions”, followed by a discussion on “the joy of planning scientific events”.
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Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
arXiv alert! 📄🚨 Robustness of small networks arxiv.org/abs/2509.23670 Great to dust off one of my favorite topics and get to collaborate with the legendary @aliceschwarze.bsky.social and Peter Mucha
arxiv.org
Robustness of 'small' networks
Modeling how networks change under structural perturbations can yield foundational insights into network robustness, which is critical in many real-world applications. The largest connected component ...
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Complexity Science Hub @csh.ac.at · 26/09/2025
#SpreadtheWord We are looking for #PhD candidates passionate about using large-scale data analysis, quantitative models, and complexity science to study the complex interactions within #epidemiology, #OneHealth, and #publichealthsystems. More info: csh.ac.at/education/gr...
csh.ac.at
Graduate Program * Complexity Science Hub
Courses are offered both by CSH and by our partner universities, one of which will serve as the degree-granting entity. Students will be guided to the
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
The Probabilistic Systems, Information, and Inference group at the University of Cambridge is seeking applicants for funded PhD positions. Anyone who wants to study networks/complex systems/statistical physics/inference can email me at gtc31@cam.ac.uk
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
We found a nice way to accurately solve the SIS model. Rather than expanding in space with ever larger moment closures (pairs, triples, ...), we expand in time. No more difficult than pair-approximations yet much more accurate. arxiv.org/abs/2509.11706
arxiv.org
The threshold and quasi-stationary distribution for the SIS model on networks
We study the Susceptible-Infectious-Susceptible (SIS) model on arbitrary networks. The well-established pair approximation treats neighboring pairs of nodes exactly while making a mean field approxima...
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greg_j_davis @gregorydavis.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Strong emergence
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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Postdoc job! I expect to have an opening at Johns Hopkins for a postdoctoral researcher working somewhere in the broad realms of physics, philosophy, and complexity. Apply at Academic Jobs Online: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30496
academicjobsonline.org
Johns Hopkins University, Physics and Astronomy
Job #AJO30496, Postdoctoral Fellow in Foundations of Physics, Complexity, and Emergence, Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, US
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Not sure how many scientists here have tried Claude Code or similar command line coding assistants. I had a complicated family property tax problem that was best solved by a brute force Monte Carlo simulation approach, so I spent a few days coding up and analyzing a model with Claude Code.
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Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Applications are open for SFI's 2026 Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships If you’ve recently earned a Ph.D. in any scientific field and want to pursue independent, transdisciplinary research, consider applying. Deadline: October 1, 2025 Apply here: santafe.edu/sfifellowship
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
beautiful location for statphys
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Eric De Giuli @ericdegiuli.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
My talk from @bioctrl.bsky.social about the physical origin of agency is uploaded here: youtube.com/watch?v=YY21... TLDR: noise equals control. Nature is constantly sampling control trajectories via noise
youtube.com
Eric De Giuli: Noise equals endogenous control
YouTube video by Biocontrol Seminars
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George Cantwell @gcant.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
New group name! We are now the "probabilistic systems, information and inference" aka Ψ²
sign for "Probabilistic Systems, Information and Inference lab"
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