Daniel Carney
@four_form
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theoretical physics. measurement at the limits of quantum mechanics and gravity (and sometimes both).
Berkeley, CA
Joined June 2009
I am getting in-n-out in Waco, TX right now. This feels sacrilegious in a way I can’t quite describe.
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It's wild how badly people are thinking about the "student/postdoc/professor vs AI" thing. Yeah, an AI might be better than a student if you equip the student with a pencil and paper. But you know what's even better? An AI being run by a good student.
AI can already do social science research better than most professors with PhDs. And, for the first time in my life, I really have no idea what happens in five years. Things are changing already, we just need to wake up.
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Sam Altman is such an incredible backstabber, liar and traitor. While your competitor is taking a heroic and principled stand, you swoop in to make your deal. Imagine working for this guy - is there a greater shame? This should lead to a mass exodus from OpenAI.
Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network. In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome. AI safety and wide distribution of
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didn’t realize “American Dynamism” meant “AI companies better suck up to the military, do whatever they say and do illegal surveillance on Americans” but, hey, i guess that’s why i’m not a partner at a16z
We’ve seen this movie before. When the dust settles, a lot of patriotic founders will point to this exact moment as the match that lit the fire in them. 🇺🇸
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EVERY warm blooded American should be opposed to mass domestic surveillance.
A statement from Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, on our discussions with the Department of War. https://t.co/rM77LJejuk
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Testing quantum gravity "micro-workshop" at Berkeley Pic by Kai-Isaak Ellers!
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Now we are actually going to do it. https://t.co/14dUSTCzpP
We’re going to make radioactive dust, trap it in an optical tweezer, and use it to look for invisible particles like heavy neutrinos (maybe axions too?). Thanks @APSphysics for the write up!
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Not that I have any doubts that it can do such a thing, fundamentally. But so far I would rank this as morally equivalent to solving a math olympiad problem or whatever (albeit much more computationally difficult)...
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Nice example of clear use for LLM-based AI: crazy throughput symbolic manipulation/pattern search to get results that are not in reach of humans. But, this is formal manipulation within a defined model. I'll be more impressed when it forms a new model of the real world...
GPT-5.2 derived a new result in theoretical physics. We’re releasing the result in a preprint with researchers from @the_IAS, @VanderbiltU, @Cambridge_Uni, and @Harvard. It shows that a gluon interaction many physicists expected would not occur can arise under specific
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Lindsey Vonn got hurt doing what she loves. She took a risk on her final ride and it didn’t work out. I don’t think she should have any regrets. I don’t even think her knee caused the crash. More people should take risks like she did. Live your life.
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@alz_zyd_ Hugo Duminil-Copin, French mathematician and 2022 Field Medalist told me he never participated in math competition and was very bad at it. Innovative mathematics requires creativity, intuition, intense concentration, and long reflections, sometimes spread over several years. Good
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Does Nature publish anything besides clickbait anymore? In an era where the truth is increasingly under attack on all sides, a supposedly premier science publication doing stuff like this is really unhelpful
Does AI already have human-level general intelligence (AGI)? Our answer in @Nature today: Yes, AGI has arrived. The evidence is clear. https://t.co/mPZXopnNAG
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"Lots" of examples of sub-SQL sensing with mechanics in one dimension now exist. For many applications though, you need 3d sensing. Here's one simple way to do it with levitated systems: https://t.co/pgHBaIn7kc. A very straightforward generalization of recent 1d demonstrations
arxiv.org
We propose a protocol to measure impulses beyond the standard quantum limit. The protocol reduces noise in all three spatial dimensions and consists of squeezing a mechanical system's state via a...
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(4 K ambient helium atom ~ 4 GeV mass and thus ~ few keV momentum, hitting sphere with ~10^9 GeV mass. Cf ~mg scale fly hitting 10^3 kg truck.) Paper:
arxiv.org
The sensitivity of a mechanical transducer is ultimately limited by its inherent quantum fluctuations. Here, we use an optically levitated nanoparticle to measure impulsive forces smaller than the...
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Very nice. First demonstration of impulse sensing below vacuum noise (“sub-SQL”) with a mechanical sensor. For scale, this is roughly like detecting the recoil of a truck after it is struck by a fly.
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