Evelyn Quant. A picture that is safe to spoil!I cannot spoil any more of my art from inside the room, so here is where it is located, Science Pavilion UZH Irchel.
Quantum Century Escape room is an outreach project at the University of Zürich (Irchel campus) which is a physical escape room. You have to solve riddles to uncover the secret of an old lab hidden in the basements of the university, but the time is running out, so be swift! The room is accessible to everyone, even non-physicists, and puzzles incorporate various physical phenomena.
In the centre of the story is Evelyn Quant – a quantum physicist working at the University of Zürich in 1920s. We aimed at making science playful and accessible audiences, as well as lift up prominent 20th century scientists from underrepresented groups.
The room was created as joint effort of Department of Physics UZH and Science Pavilion team, and required all of my management and design skills (most of the visuals and designs inside the room were created by yours truly). I invite all physics and escape room enthusiasts to try out the room and solve its mystery!
POSITION PAPER ON THE STATE OF QUANTUM TECHNOLOGIES IN SWITZERLAND (2024-2025)
The imperialism of high technocracy equals the old racist imperialism in its arrogance; to the technophile, people who aren’t in the know/in the net, who don’t have the right artifacts, don’t count. They’re proles, masses, faceless nonentities. Whether it’s fiction or history, the story isn’t about them. ― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
quantum superposition: like a coinquantum cryptography: by sharing a quantum state, the communication channels becomes more secure
A paper I have co-written and co-edited, evaluating the status and possible futures of quantum technologies and formulate recommendations which decisions need to be taken now – by industry, politics and in education – to be optimally prepared for these future scenarios and to promote the desirable ones. It is aimed at politicians, experts, policy makers – and ordinary people, as we all deserve to be “in the know” regarding the concepts and technologies that are hyped up and financed in our society.
Is time the wheel that turns, or the track it leaves behind? ― Robin Hobb, Fool’s Errand
What processes can we use to measure the passage of time?
The passage of time is measured by us via clocks. In a broader sense, any system in nature that changes in time can be regarded as one. A solar cycle; a lunar cycle; circadian rhythms, and so on and so on. What happens when quantum systems (systems that evolve according to the laws of quantum mechanics) are considered as clocks? When can we do so? What properties that entails? How good we can estimate the time passed based on different parameters of these systems? We try to answer these and related question in the research below.
Prech, K., Landi, G.T., Meier, F., NN, Potts, P.P., Silva, R., Mitchison, M.T. (2024). Optimal time estimation and the clock uncertainty relation for stochastic processes.preprint arXiv:2406.19450 .
NN, Silva, R., & Renner, R. (2024). Tomography of clock signals using the simplest possible reference. arxiv preprint arXiv:2406.12973 .
Silva, R., NN, & Wilming, H. (2023). Ticking clocks in quantum theory. arxiv preprint arXiv:2306.01829 .
A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LOGIC AND PHYSICAL THEORIES (2017-)
All things are strange which are worth knowing. ― Catherynne M. Valente, In the Cities of Coin and Spice
The map of my doctoral thesis: a land of paradoxes and theories.
This statement is a lie. Or is it? The next sentence is true. The previous one is false. These are examples of logical paradoxes, which have existed ever since the dawn of science. Are all physical theories paradox-foolproof? And if not, what aspects and assumptions at the base of the theory have to change? We attempt to investigate and answer these questions in this line of research.
NN, Vilasini, V. (2025) Any theory that admits a Wigner’s Friend type multi-agent paradox is logically contextual. arXiv:2502.03874
NN (2023). Multi-agent logical paradoxes in physical theories. PhD thesis, DOI:10.3929/ethz-b-000649851
NN, Mathis, S., del Rio, L., & Renner, R. (2022). Thought experiments in a quantum computer. arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.06236.
Hausmann, L., NN, & del Rio, L. (2022). Toys can’t play: physical agents in Spekkens’ theory. New J. Phys. 25 023018.
NN, & Renner, R. (2021). Testing quantum theory with thought experiments. Contemporary Physics, 1–24.
Fraser, P., NN, & del Rio, L. (2020). Fitch’s knowability axioms are incompatible with quantum theory. arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.00321.
Vilasini, V., NN, & del Rio, L. (2019). Multi-agent paradoxes beyond quantum theory.New Journal of Physics, 21(11), 113028.
NN, & del Rio, L. (2018). Inadequacy of modal logic in quantum settings. EPTCS 287, 2019, pp. 267-297.
WHAT BIG PORES YOU HAVE!
feat. geology, my mom and small cavities in big rocks
NN, & Nurgalieva, N. (2015). Cluster image processing technique for porosity estimation of carbonate rocks. ARPN JEAS, 10(4), 1668–1671.
