Visiting the Centre for Quantum Technologies at Singapore

I suspect that the national bird of Singapore is the Construction Crane. I also suspect that this place must have the highest number of tables at restaurants per capita in the world. Food in restaurants is simply amazing, and everyone goes to eat out. And the plants and weather are very familiar for this Puerto Rican: this place is nice, weird and familiar all at the same time.

I’m having a very good time visiting CQT. I’ve met a lot of people both from Andreas Winter’s and Vlatko Vedral’s group, and have had some very stimulating quantum discussions.

XXXIX Winter Meeting on Statistical Mechanics

If X and I are symbols for the corresponding Pauli spin matrices, then XXXIX=I.

I’ve been invited to give a talk at The Winter Meeting on Statistical Mechanics in Taxco, Mexico. The meeting will last from January 5th to the 8th of 2010. I hear Taxco is a small cute city in the mountains, a few hours away from Mexico City. I’m very excited about this trip.

You should come too! I promise you will never meet such a fun crowd of Stat Mech Physicists in your life. Make sure you register before November 16th.


Not all ghosts are of living things. This roll of sticky tape, for instance, is a ghost, and so is this van.
-Look Around You

DOE Office of Science Graduate Fellowship

Steve Chu announced a new graduate fellowship to:

to support outstanding students to pursue graduate training in basic research in areas of physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computational sciences, and environmental sciences relevant to the Office of Science and to encourage the development of the next generation scientific and technical talent in the U.S.

It pays quite well too.

Tell all the graduate students you know about it.


“On shuttle missions we often see mosquitoes…They seem very confused and die very quickly.”
-A space-station astronaut comments on creatures that are unwittingly launched into space.