Gerard McCaul

Loose Canon

I'm a theoretical physicist. My work covers quantum dynamics, open systems, and the curious regularity that every quantitative theory built by throwing away irrelevant detail ends up looking thermodynamic. I also write unbearably wordy essays, and compose music that makes people wince.

Scholar ORCID ResearchGate GitHub CV
Gerard McCaul Sketch

Playing chess in Carrollton Station.
Sketch by Toni Carlone

The Work
Physics →
The published record: quantum control, open systems, superoscillations, reservoir computing. Driven Imposters showed one quantum material can be made to mimic the optical response of another; superoscillating waveforms delivered a 100-fold enhancement in spectroscopic contrast.
25+ papers · PRL 2020 (featured in Quanta Magazine) · PRL 2023
Talks →
Slides from seminars and colloquia — dynamics, computation, and the laws of learning — kept where a talk outlives its hour.
/talks/
Writing →
Essays on physics, machine intelligence, and the occasionally unbearable nature of modern theory, at The Little Learning Machine; prize-winning pieces elsewhere.
FQxI essay, 2nd place · Substack
Music →
Songs and such. Bad in a way only the autodidactic can be.