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Jesko Sirker

@jeskosirker.bsky.social
109 followers 268 following 23 posts

Theoretical Physicist at the University of Manitoba, Canada: Theory of strongly correlated quantum systems, non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics

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Reposted by Jesko Sirker
Alex Usher @alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
International student visa applications and approvals, Canada 2022-2025. We're down 90% on where we were three years ago. Given that intl student fees brought in about $14B at their peak, we're looking at the potential loss by 2028 of $12B of PSE income (or about 16% of the total).
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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Yesterday, 56 of our fab colleagues at the Physics & Astronomy dept in Nottingham, received “at risk of redundancy” letters. The Uni is planning to reduce the size of the Physics dept by almost a third.🧪⚛️🔭 Sign this petition to show them your support ✍️: nottinghamphysics.github.io/Open_Letter/
Petition statement

We, the undersigned, call on the University of Nottingham to reverse its plans to impose compulsory redundancies on its staff in the School of Physics and Astronomy.

The University threatens to cut twenty members of staff out of the seventy one currently in the School. On 12 May, fifty six of those members of staff received letters notifying them that they were at risk of redundancy. This affects academic and technical staff at all levels, from Research Fellows to Professors.
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The Onion @theonion.com · 10/12/2025
White House Begins Christmas Season With Ceremonial Lighting Of Cross
White House Begins Christmas Season With Ceremonial Lighting Of Cross
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Presidential budget is out. Here's NSF. Biggest cut, by amount, is $1 billion, or 66.8%, from MPS (Physics & Math directorate). nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...
MPS budget
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
As a physics journalist, it is fairly wild to see the names of the PIs with terminated grants: Misha Lukin, Philip Kim, Lisa Randall, Subir Sachdev, John Doyle... bsky.app/profile/benn...
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David Frum @davidfrum.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
To the extent that Trump / Vance have a strategic vision for the US-UK relationship, it is not to strengthen the UK. The vision is to weaken Europe by severing UK from the continent. Trump-Vance true "special relationship" is with Russia. Russia desperately fears UK-EU unity 2/x
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
3/4. If we accept the idea that moving a person from one place to another undoes rights and disempowers the judiciary, we are endorsing the basic Nazism practice that enabled the killing of millions.
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Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Happy to stand, partially, corrected. After Harvard's initial response seemed to imply that they bend the knee just as Columbia has done, they now make it clear that they will not accept interference with their core responsibilities. Hopefully other universities will follow this example.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
The hope that universities nowadays are more than financial institutions with an attached educational/research department and that there might even be university leaders with some spine is, unfortunately, just not very realistic: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/o...
nytimes.com
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Dulwich Quantum Computing @dulwichquantum.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
2025 Trump inauguration ceremony vs 2025 Breakthrough Prize ceremony www.youtube.com/watch?v=on5L... According to quantum mechanics, it is perfectly fine to put scientists on the pedestal and simultaneously also throw them under the bus.
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Dulwich Quantum Computing @dulwichquantum.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
BREAKING: First direct experimental observation of closed timelike curves! The team behind this effort is guaranteed to get both the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics as well as Economy. data-and-politics.ghost.io/70-million-i...
data-and-politics.ghost.io
$70 Million in 60 Seconds: How Insider Information Helped Someone 28x Their Money
On April 9, 2025, someone risked about $2.5 million—and walked away with more than $70 million in under an hour. The trade was simple, but bold: buy a specific kind of option tied to SPY, the exchang...
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Johann van de Bron @johann-v-d-bron.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
"Die Europäer müssen verstehen: Das ist das Ende der Affäre. Amerika geht unter. Lasst euch nicht von uns mit in den Abgrund ziehen. Ihr müsst euch mobilisieren. Das Schicksal der Welt – ganz buchstäblich – hängt davon ab."
faz.net
Historikerin Marci Shore verlässt Yale: „Amerika geht unter"
Droht in den USA ein Bürgerkrieg? Die Osteuropahistorikerin Marci Shore und ihr Mann Timothy Snyder verlassen ihre Universität Yale und die USA. Ein Gespräch über die alltägliche Gewalt und die Rolle ...
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
theatlantic.com
America’s Future Is Hungary
MAGA conservatives love Viktor Orbán. But he’s left his country corrupt, stagnant, and impoverished.
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Chris Wiebe @chriswiebe.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
U of W talk of possible financial crisis alarms faculty www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews...
winnipegfreepress.com
U of W talk of possible financial crisis alarms faculty
Early discussions at the University of Winnipeg about “financial exigency” — a crisis that, if declared, could lead to tenured academic layoffs — are causing further unease on the cash-strapped campus...
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Chris Wiebe @chriswiebe.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
The University of Winnipeg is looking at a serious financial situation. Here is a news story about it. With an inflation increase of 2.7%, a 2% increase in prov funding is effectively a cut. Strike 1. But this is only part of the story. 🧵 (1/7) #mbpoli news.uwinnipeg.ca/budget-updat...
news.uwinnipeg.ca
Budget update: UWinnipeg’s 2025-2026 provincial grant allocation | University of Winnipeg News
The University of Winnipeg has received the details of its provincial grant allocation for the upcoming fiscal year.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Perhaps it is hard to get these numbers but there seemed to be more researchers than in the past who submitted an abstract but ultimately decided not to attend. Of course, I only looked at a few sessions so my impressions might be wrong based on small sample size but APS surely knows.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Anything known already about the attendance numbers at the recent APS meeting? Apart from the issues mentioned in the article I would imagine that scientists from countries constantly attacked by the current administration are souring on traveling to the US anyways.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
An absolutely crazy story. One would hope that people put into these roles are capable to learn at least the very basics about how to perform their jobs. What an embarrassment.
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Olexandr Isayev 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @olexandr.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
So true… in today’s @newyorker.com #academicsky #chemsky
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Dulwich Quantum Computing @dulwichquantum.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
BREAKING: In an unprecedented move, the Nobel Prize committee has preemptively awarded the 2025 Physics prize to Microsoft! Read the full citation below. 👇
A parody Nobel Prize announcement with an AI-generated portrait of Satya Nadella and a citation reading “For the potential future experiments Microsoft might conduct with devices they have not built yet, but might be able to build in the near future.”
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
An important, excellent speech. One can only hope that Europe finally comes to its senses.
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Winnipeg Free Press @winnipegfreepress.com · 09/03/2025
Students at the University of Manitoba will be going to classes next week after a potential strike by academic staff was averted early Saturday morning.
winnipegfreepress.com
U of M classes to continue as strike by academic staff averted
Students at the University of Manitoba will be going to classes next week after a potential strike by academic staff was averted early Saturday morning.
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Microsoft's extraordinary claim last month—to have created a bonafide topological qubit—was met with caution by many experts. Now, a physicist is raising specific and substantive concerns about a key test that underlies Microsoft's approach. My reporting: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Microsoft quantum computing 'breakthrough' faces fresh challenge
Analysis pokes holes in protocol that underpins Microsoft’s claim to have created the first topological qubits.
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Ruprecht Polenz @polenz.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
FAZ 05.03.2025
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Yes. That’s what I meant. You don’t see what you expect from basic Majorana theory simply by looking at the data. It seems to me that the TGP is put on top just to distract from what is obvious. Smoke and mirrors …
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Phillips OBrien @phillipspobrien.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Ok. Once and for all. Trump is anti Ukraine, anti Democracy, anti Europe and, above all, pro Putin. There can be no more doubt—it’s just a disaster it’s taken so long for people to understand it.
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Minna Ålander 🌻 @alanderminna.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland’s then-president Niinistö said that the masks had fallen. If anyone was still clinging onto some kind of hope of Trump coming around on Ukraine, this disgrace of a press conference should make everything clear now. Trump is anti-Ukraine. Pro-Russia.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
the detailed analysis - which I appreciate - this looked like coincidences from the start, not like Majorana physics. The apparent inconsistencies in applying the TGP make it even worse but in my view there was never a strong case, even assuming that the analysis was done diligently, to begin with.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Thanks for hosting the zoom meeting today. What I meant is not a qualitative agreement between theory and experiment. Rather, as you also mentioned today, the experimental data are dominated by impurity physics and the 'top. regions' are just random pixels. There is no structure. So even without ...
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Good to see a detailed analysis but who really believed in stable topological regions after seeing these figures which looked nothing like one would expect theoretically?
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
The chaos and confusion of the Trump administration's science policy is taking its toll on early career researchers. Some prospective PhD students I spoke with have had informal offers rescinded as universities reduce or outright halt their programs. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
US universities curtail PhD admissions amid Trump science funding cuts
Nature talks to prospective students left in limbo as some institutes withdraw offers and put applications on hold.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
I am convinced that a paper with these kind of reviews would have never been published if it would have been submitted by regular researchers. Looks like Nature wants to profit from the hype and press coverage they know Microsoft will generate; Science be damned.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
"On Wednesday, Microsoft’s scientists said they had built what is known as a “topological qubit” ..." The Nature editors should have forced the authors to put such a statement into the abstract of the published paper. Sad to see yet another Nature paper being the basis for unsubstantiated claims.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Nature hiding their reservations about the latest Microsoft paper in the review file: "The editorial team wishes to point out that the results in this manuscript do not represent evidence for the presence of Majorana zero modes in the reported devices." worked really well, see the NYT article:
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Non-hermitian Hamiltonians are used to describe open quantum systems. As in Hermitian systems, topologically protected modes can exist. However, there has been considerable confusion about which modes are protected. We provide clarification in a recent paper in Phys. Rev. Lett. shorturl.at/jdegf
shorturl.at
Hidden Zero Modes and Topology of Multiband Non-Hermitian Systems
In a finite one-dimensional non-Hermitian system, the number of zero modes does not necessarily reflect the topology of the system. This is known as the breakdown of the bulk-boundary correspondence a...
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Alex Usher @alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
In 2016, we could console ourselves that however big a disaster Trump was, at least Canada could profit by offering an attractive landing spot for international S&T talent. We sure as hell aren’t saying that in 2024. Lack of science investment and a disastrous housing market have consequences.
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Oliver @oliverasis.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Change is possible. Don't say it isn't. #infrastructure
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
International grad students hardly register in the total of all international students yet these are the people who drive innovation and who will significantly contribute to the Canadian economy as academics and entrepreneurs.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
We work in Quantum Science into which the Canadian government has invested considerably in recent years. Why now cut us off from international collaborations and make it difficult or perhaps even impossible to attract top international talent?
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
No competitive student will wait. For example, we have set up a very successful Cotutelle (joined PHD) program with German universities allowing Canadian students to experience international research and German students to come to Canada. Such programs are likely dead now.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
We compete for international talent and even if there are sufficiently many PALs there will now be a long bureaucratic process (university plus province) likely increasing the time between informal to formal acceptance from a week to several months.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Very concerned about the cap on international grad students. Research is international and Canada's competitiveness relies on student exchange and the influx of international talent. This is counterproductive.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
The only item in Winnipeg which comes in year after year below what was budgeted is snow removal on sidewalks and multi-use paths. These savings are pennies compared to the amounts the city is willing to spend on an ever increasing car traffic.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Seems that Winnipeg is moving backwards under Gillingham. The 'master plan' seems to be to make transit and active transportation unusable and get every last Winnipegger to take the car. Then we have more megalomaniac road projects all paid for by further raising the yearly property tax increase.
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Jesko Sirker @jeskosirker.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
@cityofwinnipeg.bsky.social Send a service request last Thursday about walking/cycling paths along Waverley from Taylor all the way South. Still have not received a reply. The paths have not been plowed at all so far and snow drifts are a foot or more. Unusable.
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Michael Freeman @afreeparticle.com · 02/12/2024
#MathSky #iTeachMath
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Chad Orzel @orzelc.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
I'm sure this will be greeted with the calm dignity that characterizes high-level academic discourse... www.chronicle.com/article/we-a...
chronicle.com
Opinion | We Asked for It
The politicization of research, hiring, and teaching made professors sitting ducks.
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