science

What geckos have to do with quantum computing

When my brother and I were little, we sometimes played video games on weekend mornings, before our parents woke up. We owned a 3DO console, which ran the game Gex. Gex is named after its main character, a gecko. Stepping into Gex’s shoes—or toe pads—a player can clamber up walls and across ceilings...

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Explorations in Quantum TiqTaqToe

Several years ago, while scrolling through YouTube, I came across a video of Paul Rudd playing something called “Quantum Chess.” I had no idea what it was, nor did I know that it would become one of...

science / science - 3 months ago

The power of awe

Mid-afternoon, one Saturday late in September, I forgot where I was. I forgot that I was visiting Seattle for the second time; I forgot that I’d just finished co-organizing a workshop partially about...

science / science - 3 months ago

May I have this dance?

This July, I came upon a museum called the Haus der Musik in one of Vienna’s former palaces. The museum contains a room dedicated to Johann Strauss II, king of the waltz. The room, dimly lit, resembl...

science / science - 5 months ago

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The Book of Mark, Chapter 2

Late in the summer of 2021, I visited a physics paradise in a physical paradise: the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP). The KITP sits at the edge of the University of California, Santa Barbara like a bougainvillea bush at the edge of a yard. I was eating lunch outside the KITP one afte...

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