The Quantum Pontiff

We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! from T.S. Elliot’s The Hollow Men

A question which I spend way to much time thinking about is what, exactly, is a qubit? Sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it. So let me explain. A qubit, of course, is the most basic unit of quantum information. It is a two dimensional quantum system. Pure states for a qubit are superpositions of |0> [...]

Goodbye QUBITS version 1.0 and hello QUBITS version 2.0 I will now do that sad thing where I mimic becoming a father, but for a car, and with ownership to boot: I am now the proud owner of a Subaru Impreza Outback Sport. That’s right, no more excuse for why I can’t drive cus I [...]

And now, coming to an arXiv site near you: Simulating Hamiltonian dynamics using many-qudit Hamiltonians and local unitary control Michael J. Bremner, Dave Bacon, and Michael A. Nielsen When can a quantum system of finite dimension be used to simulate another quantum system of finite dimension? What restricts the capacity of one system to simulate [...]

Happy Birthday to me! Rough year, that 28th: dad died, sister’s kidney is failing, family dog put to sleep, the list goes on and on. However, as anyone who has gambled knows my 29th year can’t be nearly as bad as my 28th. Oh wait…doh!

Often when I am thinking about the foundations of quantum theory, I am struck by the universality of the theory. Quantum theory (or its related cousin, quantum field theory) applies generically to all physical systems (disregarding the transition to some “classical” theory and of course, difficulties with both QCD and gravity.) Thus we apply quantum [...]

A formal deal ending the war is expected in the next few weeks, possibly sooner. Since President George Bush is widely seen as the architect of peace, he is perhaps more popular in southern Sudan than anywhere else on earth. At the Rumbek sub-chief’s election one young warrior called Thuapon leaps frenetically in the air, [...]

I hold that doubt is essential for the discovering and the understanding of the Truth…examine yourselves by that and scrutinize the very knowledge which you are supposed to have gained. For I tell you that orthodoxy is set up when the mind and heart are in decay…But when you invite doubt, it is as the [...]

Last week I attended a workshop sponsered by DARPA on “Scalable Quantum Information Processing via Error Control.” The idea behind the workshop was to bring together theorists who know something about error control with experimentalists who know all about different proposed quantum computing implementations and examine the feasibility of each of the different implementations in [...]

Last Thursday I went to a workshop in Chicago. Before the conference I found a cafe to work in on the campus of Loloya University Chicago. After working for a while I took a break to read a book. It was then that I realized that I was a theoretical physicist reading a book about [...]

5/1-5/7 issue of The Economist. Page 31, under the title “Our kind of Doh” we find: ‘Look at me. I’m reading The Economist. Did you know Indonesia is at a crossroads?’ While experiencing first-class travel for the first time, Homer Simpson lays out his credentials to succeed Colin Powell. The Simpsons, April 25th On page [...]