Whittle Laboratory

Whittle Laboratory, University of Cambridge

[Whittle Laboratory @whittlelab]

‘Windows of opportunity’ for global leadership in key emerging technologies: The case for ‘disruptive innovation labs’ working at the interface of scientific discovery and tech development. Paper submitted to Nurse Review - @Rob__Miller @DrEoinOSullivan
https://t.co/MUFHsl6biA

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

Can we imagine AI-powered autonomous labs developing aerospace, energy and defence technologies 10–100× faster?
Yes. The experiment now moves at the speed of AI. The decision still moves at the speed of institutions.
One is physics. The other is choice. Watch 👇
#ActionThisDay

[Mitsubishi Heavy Industries @MHI_Group]

Our longstanding partners at @WhittleLab have opened world-leading facilities to accelerate #turbomachinery development, taking ideas to testing from years to weeks – which we hope to harness to advance the #energytransition. Learn more:https://t.co/IlZ8DndADD
#MHIGroup #Spectra

[Mitsubishi Heavy Industries @MHI_Group]

Innovation happens faster when industry and academia collaborate.
We are proud to work with @whittlelab and @Cambridge_Uni. Our President and CEO Dr. Eisaku Ito attended the opening of the New Whittle Laboratory, which will accelerate new technologies.
Some footage: @TheSMI

[Energy IRC @EnergyCambridge]

@Rob__Miller, Net-zero aviation pioneer and director of the @whittlelab @Cambridge_Uni and other leading aircraft engineers discuss their trailblazing work https://t.co/WMJQzYEnXw

[Type One Energy @typeoneenergy]

Congratulations to the team at the @whittlelab at the University of Cambridge on its new facility! Our CEO, Chris Mowry, joined His Majesty King Charles III and fellow members of the Sustainable Markets Initiative.

The event also marked the announcement of @Barclays support for the UK Infinity Fusion Consortium, which Type One Energy co-founded alongside @TokamakEnergy and @AECOM.

Collaboration across industry, academia and government is key to accelerating commercial fusion.

[Mousumi Bakshi 📣 @mo_bakshi]

I do think ystrdy was quite remarkable for a man of 77, even given how fit he is

The King receiving a departing Prime Minister, a new-in Prime Minister, heading to
@CambCentMosque for an impromptu walkabout then on to @whittlelab for its official opening & an unscheduled speech

[Ben Johnson @ersatzben]

Today @Lyan82 and I launch SCIENCE WORKS – a new policy and research studio for accelerating progress in British science and tech.

The UK is fundamentally a scientific nation. Our place in the world was built on our creativity and imagination.

[Cambridge University @Cambridge_Uni]

A new kind of engineering capability has arrived in the UK ⚙️

A 60-tonne pressure vessel delivered to @WhittleLab is part of a 4MW rapid test facility – bringing Formula-1-style iteration to aerospace, energy and defence.

We also took delivery of a @RollsRoyce Trent XWB.

Read the full story 👉 https://t.co/z5uEegIEAw
#ActionThisDay

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

Action this day. The old @whittlelab is being dismantled — and a new era of UK technological ambition has risen beside it — the objective, to ensure the UK can once again builds the industries of the future in energy, defence and aerospace @BILCambridge @Cambridge_Uni

[Bartosz Naskręcki @nasqret]

I have personally crossed a line, and I am a bit in awe.

This is my first fully automated, LLM-generated and auto-formalized proof of a new mathematical theorem.

Let me set up the problem: we have three rotating circles with six positions each, all three intersecting in a total of six points.

Prove that the group of motions they generate is the full symmetric group S_{12}.

This is a problem I originally noticed in a lovely puzzle in the game Machinarium by Amanita Design.

The task is not extremely hard, but it apparently has two proofs:

1. A brute-force search over conjugacy classes to represent all transpositions (I did this many years ago but never published it).
2. An LLM-generated proof (in this case produced about three months ago by GPT-5-Pro), or actually two proofs, both using in a brilliant way a theorem of Jordan about primitive groups (or a closely related variant that is even more direct). (https://t.co/yZHj98o0an)

What I was missing until tonight was a tool to auto-formalize this proof.
Thanks to @HarmonicMath , I gained access to their remarkable software, Aristotle. In summary, here is what I did:

A. Auto-generated the proof with an LLM (and ran it multiple times to obtain a much improved version).
B. Trimmed the proof to the bare mathematical text—definitions, propositions, lemmas, theorems—with proofs supplied by the LLM.
C. Ran the Aristotle system overnight (via API). This morning I received a fully formalized version in Lean (about 700 lines of code).

The code compiles, so I now have a certificate confirming that the LLM-generated proof indeed led to a correct solution. Moreover, I got a conceptual proof, better than my own brute-force. I am planning to push it further to more broad class of such algebra problems.

It is a small project, but for me personally it marks a milestone. I now have tools which, with my orchestration, can genuinely help me discover, formalize, and study proofs of mathematical theorems. This is non-trivial.

Questions:

1. How will this scale in the future?
2. How much training will be necessary to be successful on such tasks?
3. How should we treat authorship of such proofs?
4. What is the deeper role of mathematicians?

[James W. Phillips @AnEmergentI]

It's out :) Our paper from TBI laying out the argument & foundations for a new applied metascience inspired national lab network in the UK.

Well done lead authors Laura and Alvin. Please amplify/share Laura's thread if you're sympathetic to this agenda.

More to come.

[Bennett Innovation Lab @BILCambridge]

The engineering teams at Rolls-Royce were the driving force behind the turbojet engine for the Concorde. The engine’s core was a British-designed development of the Olympus engine used in the Vulcan.

...

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

The Whittle Laboratory refines jet engines, and it is very good at it. But the business model of aerospace firms means risky ideas can take decades to turn a profit, if they work at all https://t.co/YK80onPMgy

[Environmental Audit Committee @CommonsEAC]

Yesterday we heard from Professor Rob Miller, @Rob__Miller at @whittlelab, who spoke about the exciting opportunities opening up for a 'Tesla moment' in aviation and it's potential for building new industries in the UK.

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

🚀 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗱𝘂𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗣𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗔 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗛𝘆𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗲𝗻 𝗝𝗲𝘁 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲✈️- 20% reductions in flight energy are possible - If you want to help make history 📷https://t.co/yjEqbU8vy3
@whittlelab

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

Honoured to join the Jet Zero Taskforce Plenary Group at its first meeting today. Together, the UK can lead the transition to sustainable aviation✈️🌍— from rapidly scaling SAF to removing the climate impact of contrails. @aiazero @whittlelab @cisl @transportgovuk

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

🌎✈️"We do not know yet if we’re going to have to solve the problem with Sustainable Aviation Fuels alone, or if a technology is going to come in like Tesla did with electric cars." 🎧 to my interview about the 2030 Sustainable Aviation Goals 👇@aiazero https://t.co/uBo9ILxsBj

[Economic Times @EconomicTimes]

#ETEvoke | Rob Miller, Chair in Aerothermal Technology, Cambridge University, speaking to Srijana Mitra Das, discusses ‘moonshots’ — and more — for sustainable flying
Read: https://t.co/6AOTmlrttr
@Rob__Miller @whittlelab @AIAZero @Cambridge_Uni @srijanapiya17

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

From Ambition to Action—that's precisely what net-zero aviation needs. After great reception to our report #ClimateWeekNYC it was an honour to present it to The King at Buckingham Palace on the eve of #COP29. Read more https://t.co/ta1SC46HOS @TheSMI @whittlelab @cisl_cambridge✈️

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

1/8
✈️ BBC just covered our session on contrails #COP29Baku ! Understand more on the chain below or read our report https://t.co/RVAlHOVOMn
@AIAZero @MattMcGrathBBC @Cambridge_Uni @cisl_cambridge @Breakthrough @TheSMI @whittlelab
https://t.co/I8F8byCkVb