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Victor V. Albert

@vva.bsky.social
787 followers 372 following 91 posts

Theoretical physicist @NIST, QuICS Fellow, Zookeeper @eczoo.bsky.social. Views my own.

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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
"We are witnessing a general threat to intellectual work, with misalignment between the outcome of the use of AI and its initial purpose." mathandai.org
mathandai.org
Declaration — Math and AI
Read the declaration and add your name.
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Reposted by Victor V. Albert
Error Correction Zoo @eczoo.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
We quantified how much closer OpenAI's improvement over MRRW brings us to GV lower bound: at most 2%. Gain over MRRW: at most ~1%.
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I know we're all excited and scared, but there is room not only for the fancy open problems. github.com/valbert4/two...
github.com
GitHub - valbert4/two-fold-transversal: Repository for arXiv:2608.05688
Repository for arXiv:2608.05688. Contribute to valbert4/two-fold-transversal development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Before this talk becomes obsolete: some thoughts on where we're headed. online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/aiqma...
online.kitp.ucsb.edu
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Giving a talk tomorrow. What do you think? A artificial scarcity, money problems, compute constraints → higher prices, restrictive APIs B future models cheaper, current models already good enough, tasks routed efficiently → lower prices
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
We're at a strange, specific moment. Takes range from "publications are dead by fall" to "I tried LLMs in November, they were bad." If you have an LLM-assisted paper, take full responsibility as usual. Do everything: arXiv, GitHub, website, and integrate with databases if appropriate.
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
After extensive experiments with AI agents, the [72,36,16] extremal code remains elusive—and possibly more intractable than we expected. This isn’t your average Erdős puzzle; it’s full-stack math + compute. We’re opening the search to the community: take a shot. valbert4.github.io/selfdual_site/
valbert4.github.io
Searching for a [72,36,16] extremal code
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Great overview talk by Tobias Osborne for anyone trying to be aware of the LLM craze. Corroborates that we should raise standards for scientific results and that, for appropriate math, formalization should be a requirement to publish. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtJU...
youtube.com
Tobias Osborne: Large Language Models - A Physicist's Perspective
YouTube video by Quantum Information & Spacetime
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Five years of work in the making: manual marathon followed by an AI-assisted verification sprint. Thank you @phfaist.bsky.social for being a steadfast and attentive architect! Suggestions on where to go from here very welcome.
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Vibe-classified all subgroups of the 4-qubit symplectic group Sp(8,2), up to conjugacy. 657007 classes vs 1369 for 3-qbit, 56 for 2. AFAIK, this is the simple group with the largest classified subgroups [cf arXiv:1306.4820]. Would not be possible without agents. github.com/valbert4/sp8
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Dom Williamson @domwilliamson.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Excited to share our new work led by fantastic undergraduate research student Cassie Hopkin. We show that many translation invariant qLDPC codes can be viewed as compactifications of a single parent fracton code that is local in a higher dimension. arxiv.org/abs/2605.19298 @vva.bsky.social
arxiv.org
Translation-invariant quantum low-density parity-check codes from compactified fracton models
Quantum error-correcting codes with translation symmetry and local checks have been studied extensively, leading to a wide variety of fracton codes in three or more dimensions which lack a complete un...
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Prompts are becoming a new currency. Prompt libraries are popping up. I find myself asking others for their prompts. App installs can now be prompted (cf @karpathy.bsky.social's talk). Hearing discussions on giving agents a skill file instead of writing a scientific paper. Any others?
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
"we found that Mythos Preview is capable of identifying and then exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser" red.anthropic.com/2026/mythos-...
red.anthropic.com
Claude Mythos Preview \ red.anthropic.com
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Error Correction Zoo @eczoo.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
The forward-looking Oratomic time-efficient architecture claims to "potentially enable runtimes of 10 days for ECC–256 with ≈26,000 qubits, and 97 days for RSA–2048 with ≈102,000." This is based on stitching together several gadgets and plausibly assuming they can work together on an atom platform.
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
"our most time-efficient architectures can potentially enable runtimes of 10 days for ECC–256 with ≈ 26,000 qubits, and 97 days for RSA–2048 with ≈ 102,000 qubits" arxiv.org/pdf/2603.28627
arxiv.org
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Google Quantum AI now a two-platform company. blog.google/innovation-a...
blog.google
Building superconducting and neutral atom quantum computers
An overview of Google Quantum AI’s work on superconducting and neutral atom quantum computers.
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
March Meeting 2026
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
It's official: @preskill.bsky.social now at Oratomic, a new Rydberg atom startup led by Dolev Bluvstein and joined by @roberthuang.bsky.social. Exciting times!
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Exciting, scary, and thoughtful session on the future of AI at #apsmarch and possible breakdown of peer review. Matthew D. Schwartz: "AI will keep getting better and better at physics. We will not."
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Exciting, scary, and thoughtful session on the future of AI at #apsmarch and possible breakdown of peer review. Matthew D. Schwartz: "AI will keep getting better and better at physics. We will not."
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Exciting, scary, and thoughtful session on the future of AI at #apsmarch and possible breakdown of peer review. Matthew D. Schwartz: "AI will keep getting better and better at physics. We will not."
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Lots of good pointers on how to go a good project, by Nicholas Carlini. nicholas.carlini.com/writing/2026...
nicholas.carlini.com
How to win a best paper award (or, an opinionated take on how to do important research)
An opinionated perspective on how to do important research that makes a difference (and sometimes win awards).
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Here are videos and slides of my 6 hour overview of QEC, slightly updated from my @qip2025.bsky.social tutorial. Thanks goes to Kishor Bharti and Atul Arora for letting me give this at the Quantum Meets! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... zenodo.org/records/1874...
youtube.com
Quantum Tutorials | 2026 - YouTube
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
"the progress of civilization is ultimately grounded in people who believe in their own moral imagination, while retaining humility. We're going to need many such people to help develop ideas and institutions to navigate any possible posthuman transition" michaelnotebook.com/whichfuture/...
michaelnotebook.com
Which Future?
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
New many-body postdoc offering at @UMDscience; come join us! umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UMCP/job/Uni...
umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Postdoctoral Researcher, Quantum Many-Body Theory and Quantum Computation
Job Description Summary Organization's Summary Statement: This position is available within the University of Maryland’s Division of Information Technology (DIT). The National Quantum Laboratory (QLab...
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Nice account of someone who didn't think it was all about the CV. www.ams.org/journals/not...
ams.org
American Mathematical Society
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John Preskill @preskill.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Encouraging news. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/s...
nytimes.com
Congress Is Reversing Trump’s Steep Budget Cuts to Science
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
Heard many good things about these 52-chapter intro quantum mechanics notes by Robert Littlejohn. Should be useful for those interested in quantum simulation. bohr.physics.berkeley.edu/classes/221/...
bohr.physics.berkeley.edu
Physics 221AB, 2021-22 Home Page
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Participated in my first NSF panel: wide variety of excellent proposals, from basic-science to practical. Thank you to the other panelists and program directors for upholding high standards and competitiveness!
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
Dario Gil kicks off 12 parallel roundtable discussions @fermilab.bsky.social quantum symposium by the SQMC center.
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Recommendation letters for the Hartree are due on Dec. 8th. Please verify with your writers that your letters are uploaded!
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Reposted by Victor V. Albert
Error Correction Zoo @eczoo.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Peter Shor: we haven't found many new quantum algorithms, in part, because we need larger quantum devices for testing our heuristics. He gives several examples of algorithms that were discovered computationally, including turbo codes, @fermilab.bsky.social quantum symposium by the SQMS center.
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
A short talk on continuous-variable (CV) codes and designs, aimed for a math audience. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
doi.org
Quantum theory of molecular orientation
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Music has some pretty serious underlying geometry and category theory! media.ed.ac.uk/media/Beyond...
media.ed.ac.uk
Beyond the Geometry of Music
Higgs Centre Colloquium - Dmitri Tymoczko
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Error detection and correction at @umdscience.bsky.social has a long history: the guy who invented the barcode is an alum! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_...
en.wikipedia.org
George Laurer - Wikipedia
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
"Even for the fastest qubit modalities, such as superconducting qubits, it will be challenging to achieve the required logical clock speeds. ...in the long term, the best quantum computer may be the one that runs the fastest." arxiv.org/abs/2510.26078
arxiv.org
The Fast for the Curious: How to accelerate fault-tolerant quantum applications
We evaluate strategies for reducing the run time of fault-tolerant quantum computations, targeting practical utility in scientific or industrial workflows. Delivering a technology with broad impact re...
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
QuICS Hartree fellowship application is out! A competitive and completely free-range postdoc. Anyone interested in quantum science and technology topics is encouraged to apply, preferably by Dec. 1. umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UMCP/j...
umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
QuICS Hartree Postdoctoral Fellow
Job Description Summary The Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS, http://quics.umd.edu) is seeking exceptional candidates for the QuICS Hartree Postdoctoral Fellowships in ...
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
"Quantum hardware platforms are advancing steadily, but no one knows when quantum computers will run applications that broadly benefit society."
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
2025 UMD Quantum postdoc job thread. We start with the Quantum Optics Fellowship, intended for AMO and QI. Anyone who would have applied for the JQI Fellowship should apply to this one. academicjobsonline.org/ajo/fellowsh...
academicjobsonline.org
University of Maryland, Joint Quantum Institute/Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science
Job #AJO30633, University of Maryland Theoretical Quantum Optics Fellowship, Joint Quantum Institute/Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park, ...
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Impressive span of group theory here, covering Schur-Weyl, Peter-Weyl, bosonic systems, modular qudits, Galois qudits, designs, MUBs, and more. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
link.springer.com
Group Representation for Quantum Theory
This book explains the group representation theory for quantum theory in the language of quantum theory. As is well known, group representation theory is very strong tool for quantum theory, in partic...
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Every time I interact with Michel, he has some deep insight that I understand only years later. Maybe it is not completely fleshed out technically but it is always on point. It reminded me of other winners in the past. Well deserved!
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
A new proposal imposes significant restrictions on F-1 and J-1 visas, which would sharply curtail foreign talent flow to US grad schools. Both UMD Physics and umiacs are urging faculty to comment, so please consider. Comment period expires Sept 29. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...
federalregister.gov
Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Media
Unlike most nonimmigrant classifications, which are admitted for a fixed time period, aliens in the F (academic student), J (exchange visitor), and most I (representatives of foreign information media...
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anthony-leverrier.bsky.social @anthony-leverrier.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
This is interesting and surprising: some Clifford gates cannot be implemented arbitrarily well on arbitrarily good approximate GKP states with Gaussian operations! Nice work by Brenner, Diaz and Koenig arxiv.org/abs/2509.14658 Cat qubits (and generalizations) for the win, I guess ;-)
arxiv.org
Composable logical gate error in approximate quantum error correction: reexamining gate implementations in Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill codes
Quantifying the accuracy of logical gates is paramount in approximate error correction, where perfect implementations are often unachievable with the available set of physical operations. To this end,...
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
David Gross (Cologne) talks about SDP based quantum algorithms. Take home: hidden constants matter. Even if there is an asymptotic speedup in your favorite use case, it may still not be in the parameter regime that is relevant to the problem size you're interested in.
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Bob Coecke @coecke.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Nobel Prize Laureate Roger Penrose, Yvette Fuentes, and myself, request your help in order to save an archive of incredible scientific and historical value. Please raise awareness by *sharing*, or *contribute*: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/roger-penr...
crowdfunder.co.uk
Roger Penrose & Friends Appeal for Unique Archive
To digitise and restore the worlds largest collection of audio and visual recordings within the scientific community, spanning over 50 years
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
I had another fun opportunity to talk about our quantum formulation of the space of molecular orientations at Sorbonne University. Great workshop! Organized by Ugo Boscain, Christiane Koch, Mario Sigalotti, and Dominique Sugny. zenodo.org/records/1705...
zenodo.org
Quantum theory of molecular orientation
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
@ox.ac.uk debate by Simon Benjamin & Bálint Koczor, host @mariaviolaris.bsky.social. Motion: "quantum computers will have a greater impact on our lives than conventional ones." Terry Rudolph, Nathan Wiebe, Elham Kashefi vs @jenseisert.bsky.social, @graemesmith.bsky.social, me. Motion defeated 94-72.
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Victor V. Albert @vva.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
"Every American taxpayer is a silent shareholder in that success. If we walk away now, we lose not just future breakthroughs but also what we have already earned." thehill.com/opinion/tech...
thehill.com
Congress wants to cut the smartest investment taxpayers ever made
Virtually every smartphone on the planet runs on a chip paid for by American taxpayers — a chip that I helped invent. Now Congress is moving to cut funding for the National Science Foundation that …
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Error Correction Zoo @eczoo.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
We are now at 999 codes. What should be our 1000th? If we pick yours, we will feature you in a post about the code. Comment, reply, message, and spread the word.
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John Watrous @johnwatrous.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
After 3 1/2 years of work my course on quantum computing is finally finished — the "Director's Cut" of Understanding Quantum Information and Computation is now available. arxiv.org/abs/2507.11536
arxiv.org
Understanding Quantum Information and Computation
This is a course on the theory of quantum computing. It consists of 16 lessons, each with a video and written component, covering the basics of quantum information, quantum algorithms (including query...
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