Profile

I was born in North London, raised in Milton Keynes, and have now lived in Edinburgh since 2009. I attended Heriot-Watt University and completed my four year undergraduate Master’s degree in June 2013. I then started my PhD at Heriot-Watt University (as part of the Scottish Centre for Doctoral Training in Condensed Matter) in September 2013, and I’m due to finish in March 2018. I’m looking forward to it – 22 years is a long time to stay in school!

Outside of work I enjoy binging on Netflix, playing computer games, rock climbing, and cycling really far!

So, Quantum Physics, capital ‘Q’ capital ‘P’. Quantum Physics is Hard. Capital ‘H’, which means it’s not just hard for people, but computers too. How so? If I want to describe three particles, which are either where I expect them to be, or not, in Classical Physics I can use three numbers. Easy, great. If I want to describe three particles in Quantum Physics, I need at least eight numbers. Problem.

Why does that happen? Well in Quantum Physics particles can exist in a superposition of states, in some mixture of all possible combinations, so it’s not enough to only say whether each of the three particles individually is there or not. You must save space to store the probability of every combination from no particles at all (|000>), to all three particles (|111>).

This means the scaling is exponential. Three particles means 2^3 = 8 numbers. Four particles means 2^4 = 16 numbers. What if I want to do 20 particles? Or 100?! This is where I come in. I write code which compresses the quantum state, in the same way digital photos are compressed, allowing us to simulate much larger systems than would otherwise be possible.

I mean it still uses a lot of memory, but it uses less, so I’m happy. My thesis title, incidentally, is Stationary States of Driven Dissipative Many-Body Quantum Systems via Matrix Product States. Aren’t you glad I didn’t put that up top?

Wake up late, rush around to get ready, then hop on my bike to get in to work for nine. Nine…ish. Once I’m in, making coffee for the day is my number one priority, followed by checking e-mails, followed by checking facebook the issue tracker on my code, and my lab book to decide on what I’ll work on today. My work is quite varied, which I love, so it might be I’ll spend the day coding, or it might be it’ll be spent writing a presentation – I react to what needs done!

I leave around half-5/6 generally, and spend my evening relaxing (or sometimes rock-climbing).