Author: dabacon

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The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant!

Okay, not quite as memorable, but the fan going nuts below is how I felt with my SF Giants going to the World Series:

I think I learned some of my first swear words in Candlestick park, growing up with Jeffrey Leonard, Jose Uribe, Will “the Thrill” Clark, and friends. The Bonds years were interesting, but I’m glad to see this new bunch of Giants. Brian Wilson is, as far as I can tell, absolutely crazy. Buster Posey has no idea he should be scared to death. And man, this team is completely and totally CLUTCH.
Go Giants!!!!

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Vegas Quantum Conference

Ever wondered if entanglement helps for beating the casinos?  Well you might not find out the answer to this question at ITNG 2011, but you might learn some quantum computing at the Special Track.  Deadline Oct 30, 2010:

Call for Papers
Special Track on Quantum Information Computing and Communications (STQICC)






Part of ITNG 2011
April 11-13, 2011, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
www.itng.info
(Proceedings to be published by the IEEE Computer Society-CPS)
Theme:
A special track on Quantum Information Computing and Communication will be organized within the ITNG2011. This is the second annual meeting on quality research oriented papers focusing on the latest research, and development in quantum information science. The objective of this special track is to provide the opportunity for research discussion, and collaborations between scientists, faculties, graduate students, and researchers.
The Special Track will feature the following topics:
1.         Quantum Information Theory
2.         Quantum Computing
3.         Quantum Communications
4.         Quantum Cryptography
5.         Developing and implementing quantum information
6.         Topological quantum computing
7.         Modeling and simulation of quantum computing
Paper Submission:
Papers must represent high quality and previously unpublished work, not currently under review by another conference, workshop, or journal. Your submission should include the author names, complete mailing addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and the email addresses of the authors. Interested authors should email a 6-page summary of their original and unpublished work including 5 keywords in the IEEE format through https://www.softconf.com/b/itng2011/. You can also email your paper to track chair with the subject line set as “ITNG 2011/STQICC”.
Evaluation Process:
Papers will be evaluated for originality, significance, clarity, and soundness. Per ITNG policy, except for invited papers, all papers will be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers. Accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings published by the Conference Publishing Services-CPS and available on the IEEE digital library.
Best Student Paper:
The Best Student Paper will be awarded at the conference. To be eligible, the student must be the sole author of the paper, or the first author and primary contributor. (The winner of the award will present the paper in a plenary session at the conference). A cover letter to the General Chair/Track Chair must identify the paper as a candidate for this competition at the time of submission.
Track Chair:
Mehrdad S. Sharbaf, Loyola Marymount University, Adjunct Professor,
Chair IEEE Computer Society Coastal Los Angeles Chapter
Track Steering Committee:
Dr. Daniel Lidar, USC, Director and co-founding member of the USC Center for Quantum Information Science & Technology
Dr. Sanders Barry, University of Calgary, iCORE Chair of Quantum Information Science
Dr. Anton Zavriyev, MagiQ Technology, Director of R & D
Dr. Todd Brun, USC, Deputy Director USC Center for Quantum Information Science & Technology
Dr. Myungshik Kim, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK, Chair in Theoretical Physics, School of Mathematics and Physics
Dr.Kae Nemoto, Associate Professor, National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Important Dates:
Submission Deadline: October 30, 2010
Author Notification by: November 26, 2010
Camera Ready Due: February 4, 2011

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Radio Free Albemuth, the Film

Fans of Philip K. Dick delight!  “Radio Free Albemuth”, the film, premiered on October 7th at the Gotham Screen International Film Festival.  For those who don’t know, Radio Free Albemuth (RFA) is one of Dick’s last novels, and was basically a warm up exercise or first version of his strange and incomparable gnostic hallucination known as Valis. For some reason RFA, Valis, and my favorite PKD novel, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, are often considered the Valis Trilogy, but I don’t think there is any evidence PKD thought of these in these terms about these three novels.
It seems that the film is currently just being screened at film festivals, and I can’t quite back up from the website whether or when it is destined for wider release.  Come on Holywood, you know PKD is worth some dollars!  By the way, Alanis Morrssette plays the character Sylvia in the movie.
In other PKD news there are rumors that Ridley Scott is producing a miniseries of PKD’s The Man in the High Castle.

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On the Road Again

Next week, Wed-Fri, I’ll be at University of Maryland for a workshop titled “From Quantum Information and Complexity to Post Quantum Information Security” sponsored by the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), NIST, and the University of Maryland.  This should be a lot of fun: my talk is titled “Help!  There is a Computer in My Physical System!” and the program looks to have some fun talks as well.  And…here is the important part…it looks like I will have about three extra hours to spend in downtown D.C. (I’m flying out of DCA).  This is amazing because, while I fly in to Washington D.C. a lot, I never ever seem to have any extra time in my schedule when visiting.  So, if you had three hours in Washington D.C. what would you do?  (Cue Libertarian jokes about destroying the government in 3,2,1…)

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John Stewart Bell Prize 2011 Nominations

John Bell Prize nominations:
REQUEST FOR NOMINATIONS FOR THE JOHN STEWART BELL PRIZE 2011 FOR RESEARCH ON FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES IN QUANTUM MECHANICS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS
Dear friends and colleagues:
We are pleased to announce John Stewart Bell Prize 2011, and ask for your assistance in identifying candidates for the award.
The John Stewart Bell Prize for Research on Fundamental Issues in Quantum Mechanics and their Applications (short form: “Bell Prize”) will be awarded every other year, in particular again in 2011, for significant contributions first published in the 6 years preceding January 1st of the award year.  The award is meant to recognize major advances relating to the foundations of quantum mechanics and to the applications of these principles – this covers, but is not limited to, quantum information theory, quantum computation, quantum foundations, quantum cryptography, and quantum control.  The award is not intended as a “lifetime achievement” award, but rather to highlight the continuing rapid pace of research in these areas.  It is intended to cover even-handedly theoretical and experimental research, both fundamental and applied.
The award is funded and managed by the University of Toronto, Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC), but the award selection will be handled by an arms-length selection committee.  The membership of the 2011 committee is
Alain Aspect
Nicolas Gisin (winner of the inaugural Bell Prize 2009)
Aephraim Steinberg, ex officio vice-chair
John Preskill
Peter Zoller chair
The award will be presented as part of the biennial CQIQC conference, during which the awardee will be invited to deliver a prize lecture.
To nominate a candidate for this award, please email your nomination to Anna Ho, CQIQC administrative assistant, at aho [atatat] chem.utoronto.ca.  The nomination should include the name and affiliation of the nominee, a 1-2 paragraph statement of the importance of the contribution on the basis of which you are making the nomination and the principal literature citations to this work (which must have been published between January 2005 and December 2010). Self-nomination is prohibited.
All nominations received prior to December 25, 2010 will be considered (although the committee will not be bound to restrict itself to these nominations).
Thank you in advance for your assistance,
Peter Zoller
on behalf of the Bell Prize selection committee
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Hoisted From the Comments: Funded Research

A while back Michael Nielsen posted a comment in one of my blog posts that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately:

Re your last two paragraphs: a few years ago I wrote down a list of the ten papers I most admired in quantum computing. So far as I know, not a single one of them was funded, except in the broadest possible sense (e.g., undirected fellowship money, that kind of thing). Yet the great majority of work on quantum computing is funded projects, often well funded. My conclusion was that if you’re doing something fundable, then it’s probably not very interesting. (This applies less so to experimental work.)

This, of course, is quite a depressing idea: that the best work is funded at best indirectly by the powers that be.  But it hadn’t occurred to me until much more recently that I, as someone who regularly applies for funding can do something about this problem:  “My good ideas (all two of them)?  Sorry Mr. Funding Agency, I’m not going to let you fund them!”  And there is a bonus that if you submit something to an agency and they won’t fund it: well you can live under the illusion that you are doing might make the list of really important research.
Actually I’ve very proud of one research proposal I wrote that got rejected.  The reviewers said “this work raises interesting questions” and then “but it’s just too crazy for us.”  I mean it sucks to get rejected, but if you’re getting rejected because you’re just too crazy, well then at least you’re eccentric!  (A similar story was my dream of becoming a ski bum after getting my Ph.D. in theoretical physics.  I mean anyone can be a liftie, but a liftie with a degree in physics?  Now that would set you apart!  Lifties with Ph.D.s in physics please leave a note in the comment section of this blog 🙂 )

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Mandelbrot 1924-2010

Benoît B. Mandelbrot, a mathematical maverick and curmudgeon extraordinaire has passed away at the age of 85 (NYTimes obit.)  Mandelbrot is most well known for coining the word “fractal” and studying the set which now bears his name, but was also one of the first people to recognize that price changes empirically are not well described by a Gaussian distribution.  Mandlebrot’s middle initial was self-assigned and, apparently, didn’t stand for anything.  However, I’ve always like to imagine that, actually, the “B” stood for “Benoît B. Mandelbrot”.
Like many I’m sure my first encounter with the Mandelbrot set was through a Scientific American by  A.K. Dewdney (who, I’m sad to report, is now a 9/11 doubter.)  For many years, the Mandelbrot set was the first program I’d write when encountering a new computer or was learning a new programming language.   One could get an idea of the speed of the computer by doing this in a few short lines of code, but also you got to test out the number of colors on the new machine (which included things like figuring out how to cycle the Apple IIGS palette so as to achieve 256 colors…all at the same time!)  Raise your hand if you’ve ever written a Mandelbrot set program for a programmable calculator 🙂
A less well known Mandelbrot story is the one that occurred in the journal Science.  There, David Avnir, Ofer Biham, Daniel Lidar (who I wrote a bunch of papers with in a grad school in a galaxy far far away), and Ofer Malcai wrote a Perspective titled Is the Geometry of Nature Fractal? (sorry pay-walled for those not involved in the racket that is scientific publishing.)  These authors did a survey of fractals presented in the Physical Review journals and looked at how many decades the claimed fractals spanned.  The results, let’s just say, were not very positive for those who wrote books called The Fractal Geometry of Nature.  This invoked a spirited response from Mandelbrot and Peter Pfeifer.  In the annals of catty responses, these documents surely are up there among the top ever written.  My favorite part is where Mandelbrot implies that one of the authors of the original Perspective must implicitly be withdrawing his own work on fractals over a small amount of size by writing the Perspective itself.  Ha, curmudgeon indeed!
Another fact I find fun about Mandelbrot is that he obtained his first tenured position at age 75.  Take that anyone complaining about the modern oligarchy known as academia!

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QI Positions, Postdocs, Oh My

Well, someday this blog will turn back into a blog where I complain about the awful state of quantum computing (haha), cus you know I’m all about the negative stuff, but in the mean time here are new job postings. First up is a school that was crazy enough to admit me as an undergrad (legacy admit), Caltech:

INSTITUTE FOR QUANTUM INFORMATION
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Postdoctoral Research Positions
The Institute for Quantum Information at the California Institute of
Technology will have postdoctoral scholar positions available beginning
in September 2011. Researchers interested in all aspects of quantum
information science are invited to apply. The appointment is contingent
upon completion of a Ph.D.
Please apply on-line at http://www.iqi.caltech.edu/postdoc_opening.html.
Electronic copies of your curriculum vitae, publication list, statement
of research interests, and three letters of recommendation are required.
The deadline for receipt of all application materials is December 1,
2010.
The California Institute of Technology is an Equal
Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Women, Minorities, Veterans and
Disabled Persons are encouraged to apply.

Great postdocs if you get them, I mean you can even use them to work on crazy things like time travel. Okay, maybe I blew the limit on that topic, but maybe you could do a postdoc at the IQI and figure out how to use the black hole information paradox to solve problems in PSPACE.
Next up is a job in beautiful Malibu, California. Need I say more?! The job was sent to me by Jim Harrington, who can be reached for information at the job at his email address jim.harrington[this-is-an-at-sign]gmail.com The posting is at this link:

RESEARCH STAFF – Quantum Information Science
Job Type: Full-Time
Location: Malibu, CA
Post Date: 10/12/2010
Job Description:
EDUCATION DESIRED:
Ph.D. in Physics, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, or Electrical Engineering
ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:
Analyze and design algorithms, protocols, architectures, and fault tolerance techniques for quantum information science applications. Present ideas and results in effective technical presentations, write technical papers, reports and proposals. Work effectively in a collaborative environment.
EXPERIENCE DESIRED:
Demonstrated research experience in quantum information science, the development and analysis of fault-tolerant quantum and classical error correction codes, and design and analysis of classical and quantum algorithms.
KNOWLEDGE DESIRED:
In depth understanding of multiple areas of quantum information science. Coursework or experience in theoretical computer science. Analysis and/or development of efficient approximation algorithms. Knowledge of discrete mathematics, numerical analysis and scientific computing techniques.
ESSENTIAL PHYSICAL/MENTAL REQUIREMENTS:
Excellent written and verbal communications skills, excellent problem solving skills, ability to work in team environment and to sit for long periods of time at a computer monitor, Ability to travel.
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS (e.g. driver’s license, special tools or restrictions): U.S. citizenship. Ability to obtain Interim and/or Final Clearances (Post Start); Active DoD Security Clearance is a plus.
We are proud to be an EEO/AA employer M/F/D/V. We maintain a drug-free workplace and perform pre-employment substance abuse testing.

Also postdocs at the IQC in Waterloo that I don’t think I’ve posted:

We are pleased to announce that a number of openings for Postdoctoral Fellowships are available at the Institute for Quantum Computing (www.iqc.ca), a leading-edge research centre at the University of Waterloo, Canada.
Please share the information below with students or postdocs interested in pursuing theoretical or experimental research in quantum information.
Positions Available
IQC Postdoctoral Fellowships:
Successful applicants will join a world-leading team of 17 faculty members and approximately 100 students and postdocs pursuing all aspects of quantum information research, from fundamental theory to implementations. We seek exceptional candidates to help advance understanding of the foundations of quantum information, to develop new quantum applications and algorithms, to implement these ideas in laboratory experiments and engineered systems, and to transfer this knowledge to industry. IQC faculty and students span academic disciplines including Applied Mathematics, Chemistry, Combinatorics and Optimization, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Physics and Astronomy.
Candidates must have a PhD and proven research abilities, or strong potential for excellence in research. Interested researchers can learn more about these positions and apply online here: http://new.iqc.ca/welcome/positions.
New — Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships:
In addition to IQC’s regular Postdoctoral Fellow positions, we are also seeking applicants for the prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships Program, recently created by the Canadian government, which provides $70,000 per year for two years. To indicate an interest in pursuing a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at IQC, please contact us no later than Oct. 15, 2010 by submitting an online pre-application here: https://service.iqc.ca/applications/positions/postdoctoral-fellowships/
Deadlines
Applications received by November 15, 2010, will be given priority.
Note: Applicants interested in the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship should contact IQC immediately, given its earlier deadline.
For more information, please contact Wendy Reibel at wendy.reibel [here is an at sign] uwaterloo.ca

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Morphing Science News?

Yesterday I noted that the New York Times article on the Nobel prize award for graphene said that the paper had been rejected by Nature and accepted by Science. Interestingly, today I got an email from a science journalist who noted that this statement doesn’t appear anywhere in the article. And the journalist is right! Since the New York Times isn’t cached by Google I have no way to verify the original statement. Anyone else remember that line from the article? And why does the New York Times not allow access to all versions of an article (like the arXiv!) or at least make a statement that the article has been modified from its original form. Inquiring minds want to know 🙂
Update: Of course, not to be a hypocrite, shouldn’t my blog also have access to all versions, including the ones where I spelled graphene “graphine” and the one where there isn’t this update? Is there a plugin that does this? And also I would like to know if I hallucinated this entire episode (i.e. the last sentences above only make sense if it was my own hallucination 🙂 )

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Nobel Prize in Physics 2010

The Nobel prize in physics for 2010 goes to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for their discovery of a method for obtaining samples of graphene, a single atom thick layer of carbon atoms. In case you hadn’t noticed, studying the unusual properties of graphene has taken over large portions of condensed matter physics 🙂 Today, somewhere out there, there is a very very very proud hamster (via Michael and NPR.) Oh, and look at the age of Konstantin Novoselov. Score one for the young’uns!
Oh and note that the original paper describing the method was rejected by Nature but accepted by Science (according to the NYTimes.) I wrote that last sentence only because I find it funny for something to be rejected by nature but accepted by science 🙂