Hawking set the ball rolling

Until grade ten, he spent his school years at a boarding school outside Kathmandu, tells Kiran. "Internet was not allowed, but we were allowed to watch TV for an hour every day". They mostly watched science documentaries, the 27-year-old recalls. "There was a documentary by Hawking in which he talked about black holes and other things." He and his schoolmates were very fascinated by this documentary. As they had no opportunity to do further research and the teachers were not up to every astrophysical question, they began to spin their own thoughts. "We discussed about it almost every day." About black holes, the expanding universe... "Or time travel," Kiran adds with a smile. "Our ideas were driven by curiosity, but very romantic," he laughs, thinking back now as a studied physicist. Eleventh and twelfth grade he spent in Kathmandu. Back in the city, he immediately went to a bookshop and bought "A Brief History of Time" by Hawking. "That was the first thing I did after boarding school. I read the book and then I knew that I really wanted to do physics." At this point, Kiran also knew that he wanted to become a theoretical physicist. "Then I took it seriously," he recalls. Now he could search the internet for materials and borrow as many books as he wanted.

But even though Kiran obviously enjoyed finally having access to all this knowledge after boarding school, the "romantic" discussions with his boarding-school classmates, pursuing their own ideas, seem to have laid a good foundation. Even today, the physicist does not want to be guided too much by existing knowledge or guidelines, but prefers to pursue and develop his own ideas, whether they be new applications for quantum networks, creative methods to solve specific mathematical problems, or unconventional or controversial research approaches. Kiran opens a program on his computer that he uses for to-dos and other notes. One can see several lists sorted into different subject areas:  holography & quantum gravity, quantum advantage, fundamentals, distributed quantum computing. The list entries are highlighted in different colors and each entry allows one to open a new drop-down menu. "Every time, I have an idea, I list it here and then it goes through some process," the theorist explains. There seem to be a lot of ideas. The young doctoral student clicks on a few of the entries, the sub-items appear and the list gets longer and longer. Some of his ideas would just pop into his mind, often quite suddenly, for example while he is cooking or eating dinner, or right after he wakes up, Kiran says. He also has an app on his phone for his note-taking program. This allows him to note down his ideas anytime and anywhere.

Getting inspired by other fields of physics

Six to eleven in the morning Kiran reserves for creative things, thinking about his ideas, trying out calculations. "My head is very clear at that time, so I try to get up very early." The afternoon he uses to read in papers and books. Reading also inspires many of his ideas, the physicist says. He also continues to read regularly about quantum gravity. Although it is not his MQV topic, it is his personal interest and he wants to stay informed. Besides, one field can certainly provide inspiration for the other. "When that happens that's the most exciting part." This was also the case with his last paper.

The doctoral student also combines his personal interest in quantum gravity with his social engagement. With a grant from ICTP Physics Without Frontiers, he set up a research journal club on the topic of "Quantum Information in Spacetime and Matter" for Bachelor's and Master's students in Nepal. This December, the journal club will enter a new round. For the weekly sessions, Kiran invites international experts as speakers, organizes tutorials or provides information on possible career paths in science. With some guidance from him, some of the students who participated in last year's journal club also wrote a paper, he tells proudly.  Helping others and getting involved has always been a matter of course for the physicist. When asked about his motivation, he shrugs: "It feels that this is what we should do". After high school, he visited a remote community in the mountains that had no access to electricity. He helped the villagers install thermoelectric converters in their homes to power LEDs using the heat from cooking fires. "My mother knew the village from working there as a nurse. And we had some equipment, so it was quite natural to do it.”