Curious students
You got hooked on this physics and want time on the bench. ThermoSchool walks you from zero to a working p-bit. Then you enter ThermoJam on a mixed team.
Oxford · Dates TBD
Thermosynthesis
Awaken the Old Continent
Europe invented thermodynamics. For three days, students, scientists and entrepreneurs settle into a temporary collective ground state inside the ancient halls of Britain. This is the reawakening.
Return computing to equilibrium
01 — Manifesto
Europe sleeps in the science it invented.
Carnot’s cycles. Kelvin’s absolute scale. Maxwell’s demon. Boltzmann’s statistical mechanics. The old continent once defined the physics of energy, heat, fluctuation and equilibrium. Then the computational age migrated. Deterministic silicon empires rose elsewhere while the birthplace of the science grew quiet.
Thermosynthesis is the catalytic fluctuation that ends that dormancy. Thermodynamic computing computes with noise. Probabilistic bits take the place of brittle certainty. Thermal fluctuations become the native resource. Sampling becomes the fundamental operation. Energy landscapes take the place of brute-force search.
For three days, in one hall, we create a temporary attractor. A low-energy configuration where the old continent remembers its power.
P(s) ∝ exp(−E(s) / kT)
02 — Three days
Three days.
A thermodynamics school, two science panels, and a programming competition.
Day 1
- Keynote — to be announced
- ThermoSchool — from 0 to 1 in thermodynamic and probabilistic computing
- ThermoJam registration and team formation
Day 2
- Two science panels — to be announced
- ThermoJam — a thermodynamics programming competition
Day 3
- Posters and lightning presentations
- ThermoBattles
- Closing vision
03 — Who
Who is this for?
People who are already thermo-pilled. If energy landscapes, sampling, and p-bits are how you think, this weekend is for you.
Expert scientists
Your work already lives here: energy-based models, p-bits, TSUs, Active Inference, the Free Energy Principle. Come for the panels, the posters, and a full weekend with the same crowd.
Ambitious entrepreneurs
You are building companies and hardware around thermodynamic computing. Thermosynthesis puts you in a room with the researchers and students already in this field.
04 — The vessel
Historic Oxford.The old continent, in stone.
Colleges, Examination Schools, Bodleian Divinity School, Rhodes House. Dreaming spires as the vessel for waking the old continent. Host of the 2024 International Workshop on Active Inference. One hour from London.
05 — Key note
To be announced soon.
Key note
To be Announced Soon
Thermoschool theory pathways by Uncertain Systems. Mentors drawn from hardware, statistical physics, and Active Inference.
06 — Enter the attractor