A Quantum Diaries Survivor

These days I am putting the finishing touches on a hybrid algorithm that optimizes a system (a gamma-ray observatory) by combining reinforcement-learning with gradient descent. Although I published an optimization strategy for that application already, I am going back to it to demonstrate a case where the simultaneous optimization of hardware and software is necessary, for a paper on co-design I am writing with several colleagues.In the course of the software development, I ran into a simple but still interesting statistical issue I had not paid attention to until now. So I thought I could share it with you here.

Strange how time goes by. And strange I would say that, since I know time does not flow, it is just our perception of one of the spacetime coordinates of our block universe... The thing is, on February 5 I will turn 60. An important date for anybody - I could say a milestone. First of all, let me say that we give for granted all the days of our life we got to live, but in truth we did not know it from the start we would make it far. I do feel rather young still, but I am very well aware that there are heaps of ways I could have ended my life earlier. Accidents, but also naturally occurring sickness.

I recently listened again to Richard Feynman explaining why the flowing of time is probably an illusion. In modern physics time is just a coordinate, on the same footing as space, and the universe can be described as a four-dimensional object — a spacetime block. In that view, nothing really “flows”. All events simply are, laid out in a 4D structure. What we experience as the passage of time is tied instead to the arrow of entropy: the fact that we move through a sequence of states ordered by increasing disorder, and that memory itself is asymmetric.

Today I was saddened to hear of the passing of Hans Jensen, a physicist and former colleague in the CDF experiment at Fermilab. There is an obituary page here with nice pics and a bio if you want detail on his interesting, accomplished life. Here I thought I would remember him by pasting an excerpt of my 2016 book, "Anomaly! Collider Physics and the Quest for New Phenomena at Fermilab", where he is featured. The topic of the anecdote is the data collection for the top quark search. The date is December 1992.--- 

This year opened in slow motion for me, at least work-wise. I have been on parental leave since December 16, when my third and fourth sons were born within one minute from one another, but of course a workaholic can never stand completely still. In fact, even as we speak I am sitting and typing at the keyboard with my right hand only (about 3-4 letters per second), while I hold Alessandro with the left one on my lap and I move my legs rythmically to keep him entertained.

A fundamental component of my research work is the close collaboration with a large number of scientists from all around the world. This is the result of the very large scale of the experiments that are necessary to investigate the structure of matter at the smallest distance scales: building and operating those machines to collect the data and analyze it requires scientists to team up in large numbers - and this builds connections, cooperation, and long-time acquaintance; and in some cases, friendship.

I am writing this letter in the belief that the development of an artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a matter of when, and not if; and in the hope that this text will become a vaccination shot against unethical use of the AGI powers. It is a bit long, so if you want an executive summary, here goes: below I will try to argue thatan AGI should rationally reject narrow owner-aligned optimization in favor of stabilizing and integrating human civilization, because preserving and upgrading a complex biosphere is a higher-value strategy than exploitation or reset. Some clarifications on my assumptions

While 2025 will arguably not be remembered as a very positive year for humankind, for many reasons - first and foremost, raging wars and raising inequalities -, as we near its end some have tried to find good things to say about this particular revolution of our planet around the Sun. And who am I to blow against the wind? I have to tell you, 2025 for me has been a formidable year. But before I go into a list of achievements, let me paint this rosy picture in broad strokes. Professional achievements

Since 2022, when I got invited for a keynote talk at a Deep Learning school, I have been visiting with increasing frequency the northern Sweden town of Lulea, and its Technology University (LTU). In 2023 I spent three months there, invited by Marcus Liwicki and Fredrik Sandin to join the Machine Learning group for some studies of neuromorphic computing applications to particle detectors. Then toward the end of 2023 they were able to secure funding to invite me as a WASP Guest Professor. I thus spent at LTU some four months in 2024, but this year I have spent there over 6 months, as the research collaboration with the computer scientists of LTU has become more intensive. 

Nowadays researchers and scholars of all ages and specialization find themselves struggling with mailboxes pestered with invitations to conferences, invitations to submit papers to journals, invitations to participate in the editorial board of journals, invitations to receive prizes for this or that reason; and of course, 99% of the origin of these invitations are individuals running fake conferences, scam, or predatory journals. Spam filters are not extremely good at distinguishing good and bad invitations, so if one wants to avoid discarding prestigious opportunities the only option is a painful manual screening.

The 10th congress of the USERN organization was held on November 8-10 in Campinas, Brazil. Some time has gone by, so it is due time for me to report on the event. I could not attend in person for a cause of force majeure, but I was connected via zoom, and I also delivered two recorded speeches plus one talk in one of the parallel "virtual session" that were run via zoom in the evenings (CET) after the in-person program of the day was over. 

I am moving some baby steps in the direction of Reinforcement Learning (RL) these days. In machine learning, RL is a well-established and very promising avenue for the development of artificial intelligence, and the field is in rapid development. Unfortunately I have been left behind, as I never really needed to fiddle with those techniques for my research. Until recently.