This list is incomplete, but aspires to be a list of my public
projects. Projects in bold are more substantive. Note that some
items in the list are the work of just a few hours – quick notes,
Twitter threads, interviews I like, and so on – while others are
the work of years.
Believing
in Moral Imagination (podcast) 2026-01-22Rough
note: why "it can't all 'just' be matter" is so wrong. Hints of
transcendence in the material viewpoint (Michael Nielsen)
2025-11-29Rough
note: On creativity, unselfing, and the diminishment of the
selfish impulse (Michael Nielsen) 2025-11-17The
Sacrifices We Choose to Make Could
Powerful AI Break Our Fragile World? (Future of Life Institute
podcast) 2025-06-06Notes on
deep atheism (Michael Nielsen) 2025-05-19ASI
existential risk: reconsidering alignment as a goal (Michael
Nielsen) 2025-04-18Pale
Blue Dot Redux 2025-04-08Michael
Nielsen on being a wise optimist about science and technology
(Into the Bytecode podcast) 2025-03-27Notes on
the Tao Te Ching 2024-12-02How to be a
wise optimist about science and technology? The
trouble with 'big-picture' books: avoiding the curse of the
generalist 2024-07-04Notes on
the persistence of the four largest ancient religions
2024-06-18Notes
on the adhan 2024-06-02Michael
Nielsen on Collaboration, Quantum Computing, and Civilization's
Fragility (Conversations with Tyler, episode 213)
2024-05-29Questions
for Podcasts 2024-02-11Notes on
Differential Technological Development (Michael Nielsen)
2024-01-13Notes on
the Vulnerable World Hypothesis (Michael Nielsen)
2023-12-16Using
memory systems to memorize text passages 2023-12-05Notes on
Vitalik Buterin's techno-optimism 2023-11-29Brief
remarks on some of my creative interests 2023-11-26Notes on
Existential Risk from Artificial Superintelligence Prefatory
remarks on 'Oppenheimer' 2023-08-30How I
use memory systems 2023-07-20Quick
thoughts on research 2023-07-20How is
AI impacting science? 2023-05-14On
the status of Occam's razor 2023-04-04How to
make memory systems widespread? 2023-02-13Notes on
Commandments to live by 2023-01-15Reflections
on diminishing returns in science (Twitter thread)
2023-01-09Discovery
fiction 2023-01-03Exploratory
notes: Community as the unit of scientific contribution
2022-12-09Michael
Nielsen on Metascience (on the Jim Rutt Show) (Michael Nielsen
and Jim Rutt) 2022-12-05Myth and
religion, 'social technology', and deeply held belief
2022-12-01Interview
with David Zierler for the Caltech Heritage Project (Michael
Nielsen and David Zierler) 2022-11-25Building
a better memory system 2022-11-22Michael
Nielsen: Metascience, How To Improve Science, Open Science
(Benjamin Yeoh's podcast) (Michael Nielsen and Benjamin Yeoh)
2022-11-16A Vision
of Metascience: An Engine of Improvement for the Social Processes
of Science Conversation
with Ajeya Cotra and Spencer Greenberg about Effective
Altruism (Ajeya Cotra, Spencer Greenberg, and Michael Nielsen)
2022-08-19Notes
on creative context 2022-08-04Email
thoughts on metascience 2022-07-18Quick
notes on the Las Vegas Strip 2022-07-07Notes
on Effective Altruism On
the role of design in science (Twitter thread) 2022-05-28Working
notes on the role of vision papers in basic science
2022-05-28Cosmos:
working notes, 1 The
trouble in comparing different approaches to science
funding Workshop
template 2022-02-04In what
sense is the science of science a science? 2022-01-13Surprising
things believed by extraordinary scientists 2022-01-01Working
notes on the Dirac equation 2021-11-19How to
use a personal website to enhance your ability to think and
create? 2021-10-11Sporadica
2021-10-01Rough
working notes on the Alcubierre 'warp drive' spacetime
2021-09-30Reflections on
'The Bitter Lesson' 2021-07-22What's
more fundamental than the laws of physics? (Twitter thread)
2021-04-01Maps of
Matter How do scanning
tunnelling microscopes work? 2021-02-01Spencer
Greenberg: Scientific Progress and Political Feedback Loops with
Michael Nielsen 2020-11-25Slow
2020-02-04The impact of
direct air carbon capture on climate change 2019-11-21How can
we develop transformative tools for thought? Scattered
notes on writing I 2019-09-26Discovery
fiction for Hindu-Arabic numerals 2019-09-18Discovery
fiction for quantum teleportation 2019-05-24Erik
Torenberg: What Michael Nielsen Thinks About Basically
Everything 2019-04-25Quantum
Country Using
spaced repetition systems to see through a piece of
mathematics 2019-01-12What
does the quantum state mean? 2018-12-13In what
sense is quantum computing a science? 2018-12-12Science
is getting less bang for its buck On the units
of bipartite entanglement: Is sixteen ounces of entanglement
always equal to one pound? 2018-10-29Twitter
thread on the velocity of discovery 2018-10-16What
if we had oracles for common machine learning problems?
2018-09-30The varieties of
material existence 2018-09-18David
Perell: Michael Nielsen: Tools for Thought 2018-07-09Augmenting
Long-term Memory Twitter
thread on spaced repetition memory systems 2018-01-28Using
Artificial Intelligence to Augment Human Intelligence Thought as a
Technology RMNIST
with annealing and ensembling 2017-11-26Reduced MNIST:
how well can machines learn from small data? 2017-11-15Magic
Paper Working
notes on Chalktalk 2017-09-01Volitional
Philanthropy 2017-04-11How
much do our elite know about human progress? 2016-12-28The
trouble with definitions 2016-12-02Making
invisible understanding visible 2016-04-01Is
AlphaGo Really Such a Big Deal? 2016-03-29Striking
user interfaces 2016-03-01Notes on
the Dynabook 2016-03-01Toward an
Exploratory Medium for Mathematics The
Physical Origin of Universal Computing 2015-10-27Engelbart:
"Augmenting Human Intellect" 2015-08-10The
Rise of Computer-Aided Explanation 2015-07-23Reinventing
Explanation How
the Bitcoin protocol actually works 2013-12-06Neural Networks
and Deep Learning The
Artist and the Machine Why
Bloom filters work the way they do 2012-09-26How
to crawl a quarter billion webpages in 40 hours
2012-08-10Lisp
as the Maxwell's equations of software How
changing the structure of the web changes PageRank
2012-03-05How
to combine multiple notions of relevance in search?
2012-02-04If
correlation doesn't imply causation, then what does? Open
Access: a Short Summary 2011-11-30Open
science now! 2011-11-01The
New Einsteins Will be Scientists Who Share (short op-ed)
2011-10-29Reinventing
Discovery: the New Era of Networked Science Documents
as geometric objects: how to rank documents for full-text
search 2011-07-07Quantum
computing for the determined (video series) 2011-06-10The
Mismeasurement of Science 2010-11-29Introduction
to the Polymath project and `density Hales-Jewett and Moser
numbers' 2010-01-01A guide to
the day of big data 2009-12-09Massively
collaborative mathematics Is
Scientific Publishing About to Be Disrupted? Doing
Science Online Three
Myths about Scientific Peer Review 2009-01-08The
economics of scientific collaboration 2008-12-29The
Economics of Scientific Collaboration 2008-12-29The
Google Technology Stack 2008-12-02Why
Augmenting Collective Intelligence is Easier than Augmenting
Individual Intelligence 2008-10-24Suppress
innovation, but claim the credit 2008-10-22Science
Beyond Individual Understanding 2008-09-24Science
beyond individual understanding 2008-09-24More really is
different (Mile Gu, Christian Weedbrook, Alvaro Perales, and
Michael A. Nielsen) 2008-08-31Quantum
Computing for Everyone 2008-08-28Quantum control via
geometry: An explicit example (Mile Gu, Andrew Doherty, and
Michael A. Nielsen) 2008-08-23Why
the World Needs Quantum Mechanics 2008-08-04Shirky's
Law and why (most) social software fails 2008-07-24The
future of science Notes
on Andrew Odlyzko's "The Economics of Electronic Journals"
2008-05-29Rough
notes on the Budapest Open Access Initiative 2008-05-29Science
and Wikipedia 2008-05-21Open
Science 2008-05-13Interrupting
Google Search 2008-04-26Investing
in undervalued human capital: the Y Combinator model
2008-03-13The
curse of busy-ness 2008-03-13Creative
collaboration: ideals and reality 2008-03-11Criticism
is overrated 2008-02-27Why
isn't University free? 2008-02-25Why
the h-index is little use 2008-01-31The
tension between information creators and information
organizers 2008-01-24APIs
and the art of building powerful programs 2008-01-14Non-abelian
money 2007-08-25Kasparov
versus the World 2007-08-21Micropublication
and open source research 2007-08-16The
Research Funding "Crisis" 2007-08-14Open
Source Google 2007-08-08An
introduction to Yang-Mills theories 2007-05-09The
geometry of quantum computation Limits
to collective decision making: Arrow's theorem 2006-06-30Universal
quantum computation with continuous-variable cluster states
(Nicolas C. Menicucci, Peter Van Loock, Mile Gu, Christian
Weedbrook, Timothy C. Ralph, and Michael A. Nielsen)
2006-05-23Quantum computation
as geometry Optimal control,
geometry, and quantum computing Noise
thresholds for optical cluster-state quantum
computation Noise
thresholds for optical quantum computers The
Fermionic canonical commutation relations and the Jordan-Wigner
transform Introduction
to expander graphs 2005-06-22Algebraic and
information-theoretic conditions for operator quantum error
correction Optimal
photons for quantum-information processing (Peter P. Rohde,
Timothy C. Ralph, and Michael A. Nielsen) 2005-05-19The
Solovay-Kitaev algorithm Journal
club on quantum gravity 2005-04-15Cluster-state
quantum computation A geometric
approach to quantum circuit lower bounds 2005-02-11A simple
proof of the strong subadditivity inequality (Michael A.
Nielsen and Denés Petz) 2004-08-20Quantum computing
and polynomial equations over the finite field
Z2 What's
Wrong with those Quantum Cryptosystems? 2004-08-17What's
wrong with those quantum cryptosystems 2004-08-17Distance measures to
compare real and ideal quantum processes Principles
of Effective Research 2004-07-27Operator
monotone and operator convex functions: a survey
2004-06-29Bloch's
theorem and Bravais lattices 2004-06-10Technical
notes on linear matrix equations 2004-06-06Fault-tolerant
quantum computation with cluster states Simulating
Hamiltonian dynamics using many-qudit Hamiltonians and local
unitary control Unified
derivations of measurement-based schemes for quantum
computation (Andrew M. Childs, Debbie W. Leung, and Michael A.
Nielsen) 2004-04-23Interesting
problems: The Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle Optical quantum
computation using cluster states Frustration,
interaction strength, and ground-state entanglement in complex
quantum systems (Christopher M. Dawson and Michael A. Nielsen)
2004-01-12The bits
that make up the Universe 2004-01-01Journal
club notes on the cluster-state model of quantum computation
2003-11-29Extreme
Thinking Entanglement,
correlations, and the energy gap in many-body quantum systems
(Henry L. Haselgrove, Michael A. Nielsen, and Tobias J. Osborne)
2003-08-14Lower bounds
on the complexity of simulating quantum gates (Andrew M.
Childs, Henry L. Haselgrove, and Michael A. Nielsen)
2003-07-25Fungible dynamics:
There are only two types of entangling multiple-qubit
interactions Practicality
of time-optimal two-qubit Hamiltonian simulation (Henry L.
Haselgrove, Michael A. Nielsen, and Tobias J. Osborne)
2003-03-11Ancilla-assisted
quantum process tomography (Joseph B. Altepeter, David
Branning, Evan Jeffrey, T. C. Wei, Paul G. Kwiat, Robert T. Thew,
Jeremy L. O'Brien, Michael A. Nielsen, Andrew G. White)
2003-03-07Quantum
states far from the energy eigenstates of any local
Hamiltonian (Henry L. Haselgrove, Michael A. Nielsen, and
Tobias J. Osborne) 2003-03-04Robustness of
quantum gates in the presence of noise (Aram W. Harrow and
Michael A. Nielsen) 2003-01-21Summer
School Lectures on Quantum Information and Computation
2003-01-02Simple
Rules for a Complex Quantum World An
introduction to majorization and its applications to quantum
mechanics (draft of a book) Quantum
information science and complex quantum systems
2002-10-01Quantum
dynamics as a physical resource (Michael A. Nielsen,
Christopher M. Dawson, Jennifer L. Dodd, Alexei Gilchrist, Duncan
Mortimer, Tobias J. Osborne, Michael J. Bremner, Aram W. Harrow,
and Andrew Hines) 2002-08-13Quantum
information science as an approach to complex quantum systems
2002-08-13Practical
scheme for quantum computation with any two-qubit entangling
gate (Michael J. Bremner, Christopher M. Dawson, Jennifer L.
Dodd, Alexei Gilchrist, Aram W. Harrow, Duncan Mortimer, Michael
A. Nielsen, and Tobias J. Osborne) 2002-07-12Universal simulation
of Hamiltonian dynamics for quantum systems with
finite-dimensional state spaces A simple
formula for the average gate fidelity of a quantum dynamical
operation 2002-05-07Entanglement
in a simple quantum phase transition (Tobias J. Osborne and
Michael A. Nielsen) 2002-02-27Entanglement
monotone derived from Grover’s algorithm (Ofer Biham, Michael
A. Nielsen, and Tobias J. Osborne) 2001-12-17A simple
operational interpretation of the fidelity (Jennifer L. Dodd
and Michael A. Nielsen) 2001-11-08Entanglement,
quantum phase transitions, and density matrix
renormalization Quantum
computation by measurement and quantum memory 2001-08-06ROM-based
computation: quantum versus classical (Benjamin C.
Travaglione, Michael A. Nielsen, Howard M. Wiseman, and Andris
Ambainis) 2001-08-04Causal and
localizable quantum operations (David Beckman, Daniel
Gottesman, Michael A. Nielsen, and John Preskill) 2001-06-14Universal quantum
computation and simulation using any entangling Hamiltonian and
local unitaries Majorization
and the interconversion of bipartite states Separable states are
more disordered globally than locally Introduction
to quantum information theory 2000-11-15Quantum
information processing (E. H. Nielsen and M. A. Nielsen)
2000-10-17Theory of
quantum computation (E. H. Knill and M. A. Nielsen)
2000-10-17Quantum
Computation and Quantum Information Characterizing
mixing and measurement in quantum mechanics Approximate
transformations and robust manipulation of bipartite pure-state
entanglement (Guifré Vidal, Daniel Jonathan, and M. A.
Nielsen) 1999-10-23Probability
distributions consistent with a mixed state 1999-09-06Continuity
bounds for entanglement 1999-08-30Conditions for a
class of entanglement transformations Complete quantum
teleportation using nuclear magnetic resonance Quantum information
theory (PhD dissertation) On quantum
fidelities and channel capacities (Howard Barnum, Emanuel
Knill, and Michael A. Nielsen) 1998-08-04Quantum
entanglement and the communication complexity of the inner product
function (Richard Cleve, Wim van Dam, Michael Nielsen, and
Alain Tapp) 1997-08-11What
makes quantum computers powerful? (The Quantum Computation
Collective) 1997-07-10Information-theoretic
approach to quantum error correction and reversible
measurement (M. A. Nielsen, Carlton M. Caves, Benjamin
Schumacher, and Howard Barnum) 1997-06-30Computable
functions, quantum measurements, and quantum dynamics
1997-06-03Approximate
quantum error correction can lead to better codes (D. W.
Leung, M. A. Nielsen, I. L. Chuang, and Y. Yamamoto)
1997-04-02Reversible
quantum operations and their application to teleportation (M.
A. Nielsen and Carlton M. Caves) 1997-04-01Programmable Quantum
Gate Arrays Information
transmission through a noisy quantum channel Prescription
for experimental determination of the dynamics of a quantum black
box (Isaac L. Chuang and Michael A. Nielsen) 1996-10-01Quantum
data processing and error correction Properties
of quantum trajectories for counting measurements
1996-08-01The
entanglement fidelity and quantum error correction
1996-06-13Chaos in the
quantum measurement record 1995-12-09
