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Sam Jaques

@sejaques.bsky.social

274 followers 116 following 121 posts

Assistant prof at U Waterloo. Aspiring full-stack cryptographer. Loves math, plants, flashcards. Opinions reflect those of all past, present, and future employers.

Posts Replies Media

Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Genuinely why are Europeans so scared of air conditioning? This is in a hotel in England. The thing on the wall is undeniably an air conditioner.

Note in the hotel room that says: "Note that our rooms are equipped with an Air Climate Control system (not air conditioning) which is linked to the outside temperature. We understand it may not suit all our guests so portable heaters or fans are available on request."

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Whatever prankster set this up is my hero: scholar.google.com/citations?us...

Screenshot of google scholar showing Lov Grover, with only one paper: the paper that introduced Grover search, with 15,542 citations.

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Wow, that's... something

Screenshot of the final stanza of the poem, ending in "by machines of loving grace. Below that is: "Analysis (ai): The poem presents a utopian vision where technology and nature coexist seamlessly, suggesting..."

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Screenshot of the Atlantic. Headline: I found it: the best free restaurant bread in America

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Overdue quantum landscape update: sam-jaques.appspot.com/quantum_land... A 2d chart can only say so much. tl;dr new results are still overhyped, but definitely worth taking seriously. This chart is based on surface codes and a big question now is whether new codes can be practical (=>useless chart)

A cluttered and complicated chart relating qubit counts to qubit error rates, comparing today's devices to cryptographic attacks.

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

Photo memory: a bootleg version of settlers of Catan I made from memory during summer fieldwork in 2012

Photo of a piece of cardboard with a hexagonal grid, rules handwritten on looseleaf, cardboard pieces, and a box of mini wheats labelled "Settlers of Catan"

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Screenshot of comments in code. They say: Dear programmer: when I wrote this code, only God and I know how it worked. Now, only God knows it! Therefore, if you are trying to optimize this routine and it fails (most surely), please increase this counter as a warning for the next person. Total hours wasted here = 254

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

I wouldn't say steady: arxiv.org/abs/2009.05045 tries to extrapolate and the data looks really noisy. E.g., fig. 8. If we put today's devices on this, the best would maybe on the orange line

Graph of physical qubits vs. year. There is a cluster of points in the middle, with 3 lines trying to extrapolate forward, but with wide error margins.

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Craig Gidney's work tackles that question: arxiv.org/abs/2505.159.... Check out the figures in the appendix: the physical qubits are used quite densely!

Figure 14 from Gidney's paper showing a dense 3-d pipe diagram of a surface code layout of a lookup. Most of the 3-d space is used in some way.

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

An out-of-schedule update to my quantum landscape chart: sam-jaques.appspot.com/quantum_land..., prompted by @craiggidney.bsky.social 's new paper: arxiv.org/abs/2505.15917. A startling jump (20x) in how easy quantum factoring can be! Also: much improved web design!

A chart for quantum computers, of number of qubits versus error rate, on a logarithmic scale. Broadly it shows a large gap between current quantum computers in the bottom left, and a curve in the top right of the resources they need to break RSA.

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Dang, AI is really making the Internet suck

Screenshot of "tenderhomeassist.com". It reads "Using a steamer app: There are also several steamer apps available for smartphones and tablets. These apps emit a stream of hot air that can be used to steam iron clothes. Simply download the app and follow the instructions to use it"

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Fishing hat embroidered with "couches what me, popes fear me"

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

uh oh

Screenshot of "have I been pwned" with "Pete.hegseth@foxnews.com" showing that he has been pwned

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Opsec level: underfunded provincial museum

A mouse on a table with a paper sign "please use this mouse to control the map screen". The mouse cable leads into a dark room behind a door which is slightly ajar

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

2024 update for my chart on the landscape of quantum computing: sam-jaques.appspot.com/quantum_land... Not much visible on the chart, but Google's result (the one with the recent press attention) is a pretty big deal

A chart of quantum computing comparing number of qubits to error rate. This is a very visual chart and is better explained in text on my website.

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Props to Google for putting their RCS result at the absolute bottom of the "usefulness" axis:

Graph from Google's blog post about Willow, a graph of difficulty versus usefulness, with random circuit sampling right near zero usefulness

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 24/10/2024

Cryptographers last week:

Gif of Hans Moleman from the Simpsons during the attack of birds, saying "I need the biggest prime number you have. No, that's too big"

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 28/08/2024

Second, this graph! This shows that they have clearly passed the threshold of the surface code. Compare to the graph on the right, which was a *simulation* of surface codes published in 2012. Amazing to see the theory be realized, 11 years on.

Graph from the new google paper showing the physical error rate (approximated by "mean detection probability") versus the logical error rate, showing that at higher distances, the logical error rate is lower, but only if the physical error rate is below a threshold.

A graph that looks nearly identical to the Google result, but with more distances, and from a paper 11 years ago.

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Sam Jaques @sejaques.bsky.social · 28/08/2024

First, the main result: Look at this error suppression! Especially compared to their result from 2 years ago. Higher distance clearly gives lower error rates, and they've shot past their physical error rates. They made a real logical qubit.

A graph showing what's described in the tweet: it shows the probability of logical error in each surface code cycle. All of these are increasing lines, but the line for distance 5 grows much slower than distance 3, and distance 7 grows much slower than distance 5.

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