I am an ICREA Research Professor at Departament d'Enginyeria of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. I am also the PI of this group at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Innsbruck (Austria).

I work on trying to understand the reach of universality & unreachability across disciplines. A good entry point to this topic may be this TEDx talk or this invitation to our framework for universality. This line of thought made us see local hamiltonians as grammars and classify spin models as languages in the Chomsky hierarchy. We have also examined notions of universality in natural languages. One kind of universality we understand well is that of spin models. Our best understanding of the topic can be found in Tobias Reinhart's PhD Thesis.

Some have argued that, because we humans seem to be able to make sense of paradoxes that computers or formal systems can't, our mind is more powerful; we argue that the answer should be more nuanced here.

I believe that considerations about the lack of ultimate closure [cf. Priest's Beyond the limits of thought] bear consequences on what should be considered fundamental in quantum physics, as I argued in a recent chapter of a book edited by M. Cuffaro and S. Hartmann (to appear in Oxford University Press). Such tension between transcendence and closure also shines an unorthodox yet profound (I believe) light through science and culture, as I have argued in Being human: The wound of infinity. An intimate encounter of science and culture, a chapter in In an Open Field. Contemporary Cultural Practices (in English), and in Catalan in Ser humà: La ferida de l'infinit. Una trobada íntima de ciència i cultura, in A camp obert. Pràctiques culturals contemporànies.

The world from inside can look different from the world from outside -- we derive an epistemic horizon here.

I have worked on mathematical quantum physics mainly with Tim Netzer, investigating the rich relation between parts and wholes in quantum theory, that is, the interaction between positivity and the multiplicity of systems, with approximations, their border ranks, in the hyperreals, their computational complexity and their implications for distributional semantics. We also studied quantum magic squares, which cannot be purified -- see this invitation in The Science Breaker. Our latest work is a framework to go beyond operator systems, where we ask for tensor products which are uniform in the dimension of the system. Here you can find Andreas Klingler's PhD Thesis and Mirte van der Eyden's PhD Thesis. A good entry point to this topic may be this invitation paper. You can also find more info in the research site of our group and our Youtube channel, where we post video abstracts of our works.

The three most influential books for my research in recent years have been Gödel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, The beginning of infinity by David Deutsch and Beyond the limits of thought by Graham Priest. Other books that I recently found impressive are The infinite by A. W. Moore, Leibniz (A very short introduction) by Maria Rosa Antognazza, and various introductions to metaphysics.

I have writen a book which narrates an existential and poetic journey through science, philosophy and language. It is entitled Les cremalleres de la realitat and it will hopefully be published soon.

Tanja Traxler recently wrote an article in Der Standard about my research, the Uni Innsbruck wrote this portrait, and the ÖPG these lines (all in German).

(My former name is Gemma De las Cuevas)

(Photo by Miki Bosch at the Biblioteca Gabriel García Márquez, in Barcelona)