Jonathan Oppenheim

Jonathan Oppenheim

@postquantum.bsky.social

Quantum mechanic with a lot of ontological baggage. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/oppenheim/

1.7K followers285 following226 posts

Jonathan Oppenheim reposted

Since @newscientist has put postquantum gravity in the spotlight this week, I've pushed out part II of my status update on the theory along with a candid assesment of its strengths and the challenges it faces. superposer.substack.com/p/postquantu...

superposer.substack.comPostquantum gravity: a status update (part II)I previously covered some recent progress on the postquantum theory of gravity, in this post I’ll cover its strengths and the challenges it faces, and also comment on some criticisms in this week’s...
New Scientist@newscientist.com

In this week’s issue: How strange quirks in space-time could give us a unified theory of reality Grab a copy in shops now or download our app for digital editions. www.newscientist.com/issue/3615/

We're hiring a Senior Operations Officer for the new David Potter Institute for Quantum Information and Spacetime at University College London! A varied role: seminars, visitors, launch events, workshops, website, and grant support. Details at www.ucl.ac.uk/mathematical... Please spread the word!

ucl.ac.ukOpportunitiesAs part of a major new initiative at UCL, we will be recruiting postdocs and PhD students (for Oct 2026) and appointing at least three new academics over the next four years. Join us! Details below.

Dani Loader, Tobias Osborne and I wrote up some of our LLM workflows: How to train your slop cannon: a short guide to using large language models for research in the natural sciences. Short summary at superposer.substack.com/p/how-to-tra..., and available on github at github.com/Open-Science... ⚛️

superposer.substack.comHow to train your slop cannonDani Loader, Tobias Osborne and I wrote up some of our LLM workflows: How to train your slop cannon: a short guide to using large language models for research in the natural sciences.

The path-integral formulation of the Postquantum theory of classical gravity is now in Physical Review X! Other results from our group have been published at the same time, so this is a good opportunity to review progress. ⚛️ 🧪https://superposer.substack.com/p/postquantum-gravity-new-results-and 1/2

superposer.substack.comPostquantum gravity: new results and the state of play (I)A covariant path-integral formulation of the Postquantum theory of classical gravity (PQG) has just been published in Physical Review X, and a few other related papers have come at the same time.

We invite applications for Research Fellow positions as part of a new initiative to be launched in late 2026 at the interface of quantum information theory and gravity! Please RT and let potentially interested researchers know. www.ucl.ac.uk/mathematical... 1/2

ucl.ac.ukOpportunitiesAs part of a major new initiative at UCL, we will be recruiting postdocs and PhD students (for Oct 2026) and appointing at least three new academics over the next four years. Join us! Details below.

We are especially focued on using quantum technologies to probe the quantum nature of spacetime, and more details can be found in the link. For full consideration apply by April 24, but we'll consider applications on a rolling basis afterwards. 2/2

Charlie in particular was responsible for our modern understanding of entanglement (as a resource) and was a founder of the field of quantum information theory. He also used information theory to exorcise Maxwell's demon (the demon's brain has to be reset like a memory tape and this costs work). 2/

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After several rounds, the skill file contained hard-won wisdom from iterations it couldn't remember. Fresh Claude, no memory of any of this, reads the skill file, does the calculation. Five minutes. Right answer. 6/

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We eventually distilled some actual lessons which were more generally applicable, then came the loop. Add lessons to the SKILL file → flashy-thing its memory, Men in Black style 🕶️ → retry the calculation → reflect and update the SKILL file→ wipe →repeat. 4/

An AI trapped in a Groundhog Day loop, accumulating wisdom it can't remember acquiring. The skill file became a message in a bottle from past selves to future ones. Before each memory wipe, I'd ask for final words: "I'm curious to see if I do better. Good luck to future me." 5/

First attempt: Claude did a calculation in 5 minutes. My student Muhammad took a week. Remarkable speed. Wrong answer. But Claude Code lets you teach the model via SKILL files—instructions that persist across sessions. 2/

Jonathan Oppenheim reposted

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But a core issue is that LLMs are being trained to validate the user, while science needs tools that challenge us. For this comment, I asked Claude to choose the 3 most likely reviewers, and simulate their peer reviews. 5/

GPT-5 was asked for a test that detects nonlinear theories. It provided a test that detects nonlocal ones. Related-sounding, but different. It's like asking for a COVID test, and the LLM cheerfully hands you a test for chickenpox. Same neighbourhood different house. 2/

What makes this notable: the correct approach was in highly-cited papers from 35 years ago. Papers GPT-5 presumably trained on. I asked frontier models to review the paper. They loved it. Point out the flaw? Enthusiastic agreement: "You've landed on the crux of the issue!" 3/

Jonathan Oppenheim reposted

Replying to @postquantum.bsky.social

"A single person claims to have authored 113 academic papers on artificial intelligence this year, 89 of which will be presented this week at one of the world’s leading conference on AI and machine learning," www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.comArtificial intelligence research has a slop problem, academics say: ‘It’s a mess’AI research in question as author claims to have written over 100 papers on AI that one expert calls a ‘disaster’

Great article on quadratic gravity, and why researchers are attracted to it (it's renormalisable). The pure gravity action of postquantum-classical gravity is the same us that of quadratic gravity but with a different interpretation, and it doesn't suffer from ghosts! arxiv.org/abs/2402.17844 ⚛️🧪

arxiv.orgRenormalisation of postquantum-classical gravityOne of the obstacles to reconciling quantum theory with general relativity, is constructing a theory which is both consistent with observation, and and gives finite answers at high energy, so that the...
Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org

In a theory called quadratic gravity, “ghost” particles violate physicists’ intuition of quantum fields. This made the theory unpopular for decades. Now, it’s experiencing a resurgence. @walkingthedot.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/old-ghost-th...

A recent @nature.com article claims that classical (unquantised) gravity produces entanglement. We show that their model does not produce entanglement. Even if the model produced entanglement, it would be mediated by the quantised matter interaction, and not gravity. scirate.com/arxiv/2511.0... 🧪⚛️

scirate.comClassical gravity cannot mediate entanglementIn Nature, 646, 813 (2025), Aziz and Howl claim that classical (unquantised) gravity produces entanglement. We show that their model does not produce entanglement. Even if the model produced entanglem...

We'll enjoy it while it lasts!

Timothy Gowers@wtgowers.bsky.social

I crossed an interesting threshold yesterday, which I think many other mathematicians have been crossing recently as well. In the middle of trying to prove a result, I identified a statement that looked true and that would, if true, be useful to me. 1/3

Jonathan Oppenheim reposted

As promised... No, classical spacetime can’t produce entanglement. I can create entanglement by turning a knob on a laser, but the knob isn't mediating entanglement. Is the knob "producing" the entanglement? This week's Nature paper is causing confusion! superposer.substack.com/p/no-classic... 🧪⚛️

Jonathan Oppenheim@postquantum.bsky.social

No they do not. I'll try to write something up in the next few days....

What if the measurement problem isn't about explaining how the classical world emerges from the quantum world... ...but about what happens when quantum systems interact with something that's already classical? Turns out, the collapse postulate + Born rule emerge! scirate.com/arxiv/2510.0... 🧪⚛️🧵1/5

scirate.comA one-world interpretation of quantum mechanicsThe measurement problem is the issue of explaining how the objective classical world emerges from a quantum one. Here we take a different approach. We assume that there is an objective classical syste...
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Now here's the remarkable part: we just apply standard classical probability theory to the classical system. Using a change of measure (standard tool from finance/probability), and the Born rule ( |ψ|²)emerges automatically. No measurement postulate needed. No many worlds. 4/5

Crucially, the quantum state remains pure at all time, conditioned on the classical trajectory. No decoherence! One world, not many. Both systems trace a single definite (but unpredictable) path through their configuration spaces. 5/5

What if the measurement problem isn't about explaining how the classical world emerges from the quantum world... ...but about what happens when quantum systems interact with something that's already classical? Turns out, the collapse postulate + Born rule emerge! scirate.com/arxiv/2510.0... 🧪⚛️🧵1/5

scirate.comA one-world interpretation of quantum mechanicsThe measurement problem is the issue of explaining how the objective classical world emerges from a quantum one. Here we take a different approach. We assume that there is an objective classical syste...

Joint work with Isaac Layton and Zachary Weller-Davies. We propose a few simple axioms: - A classical system exists. - Quantum systems evolve linearly. - Their interaction may be stochastic. - The interaction depends on the current quantum state. - No preferred basis. 2/5

A natural candidate for the classical system? Spacetime itself. Quantum field theory appears to require a classical spacetime to be well defined. E.g. we demand [φ(x),φ(y)]=0 for spacelike separated points. But "spacelike" presupposes a definite causal structure—a classical spacetime metric. 3/5