For a long time now I have thought about writing a quantum blog. In graduate school, I even attempted one but somehow things never went beyond the very first post. Older and wiser, I still haven’t completely abandoned the idea, so here I am, ready to have a go at it again. Much of the writing that I do is academic and an unfortunate corollary of that is that it sometimes tends to suffer from a laziness that Orwell warned of (in political writing, but it applies more generally), where

…prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.

Politics and the English Language, George Orwell

Reading the introductory section of any contemporary research article in quantum information will give you the impression that many phrases are indeed “tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house” (or “Ikea-ed” together, perhaps?), mostly to appeal to a “general reader”. I am guilty of this too.

What I hope to do in these posts is, firstly, write clearly about all things quantum (and otherwise) that I feel inclined to share. Secondly, I hope to use this blog as a means to fine-tune my writing style to suit the intelligent lay reader. I have struggled enough with choosing the right words to communicate what I do to friends and strangers in everyday situations that I think it’s time to force myself to write about it. Finally, through this exercise, I hope to clarify my thoughts to myself and maybe even learn to think more clearly. Maybe some of it will trickle into my scientific writing too, to the delight (or not) of Reviewer 2 😉