From Lausanne

 I am at a workshop in Lausanne, Switzerland for three days, today being the middle day.  The workshop is called Quantum-Classical Quantum Simulation, concerning the use of quantum and/or classical algorithms to simulate quantum systems.  Since this one of the things I have been working on, I thought it reasonable to attend and to share my work - or at least the work of my PhD student Lance.   Yesterday I gave a talk, and I think it went down okay.  I certainly had a few questions, mainly about the nuclear physics content.  

Lausanne seems like a nice place.  It's not a huge city in terms of population, with around 140k people, which is the population of the borough of Guildford where I live, but it feels a lot more metropolitan.  Indeed, it has a metro, and is apparently the world's smallest city with a metro.  It's interesting being at a conference where there is a combination of people from different backgrounds in computer science, mathematics and physics.  Some of the talks have been pretty hard for me to understand, perhaps as a result of not having enough background in the area, but to be fair that includes some of the physics-heavy talks.  

Lausanne is also pretty.  I like the architecture, not least the EPFL campus.  Across the lake is a view of mountains including Mont Blanc - at least, there is a view when it is not too cloudy. The picture below is a view from the balcony of the conference site.  Perhaps not the pretties of the shots I've taken, but you can at least kinda see the mountains in the distance.