Author: dabacon

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On the Turing Away

“The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.”
– E. P. Wigner

Our universe, or at least our understanding of the universe, appears to allow us to see its naked underbelly only through the use of mathematical reasoning. As Wigner says about this state of affairs, we neither understand nor deserve this. On the other hand, I’ve come to believe, this observation can also be a huge aid in describing the world of theoretical computer science. There is no doubt in most people’s opinion that theoretical computer science is mathematics of a highly sophisticated nature (or, well, sophisticated to this lowly physicist.) But theoretical computer science, unlike pure mathematics unfettered in its abstract glory, at its core must be concerned with the practical applicability of its reasoning. Here by practical I do not mean contributing to the better good of software development (though this may be important for the well being, read salary, of the practioners) but that at its core theoretical computer science must be about computers that exist in the real world. On the one hand, this observation leads direction to quantum computing. To paraphrase Feynman: the universe is quantum, damnit, so we better make our models of computing quantum. But it also should influence even our most basic classical computational models. In this vein, then, I would like to attack one of the most sacred holy cows of computer science, the holy mother cow of them all, the Turing machine.
Continue reading “On the Turing Away”

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QIP 2010 Coming Up

As you can imagine, due to extenuating circumstances, I won’t be able to attend QIP in Zurich. Luckily my collaborator Steve Flammia will be there to give the talk on our recent work on adiabatic protocols (arXiv:0905.0901 and arXiv:0912.2098.) I know there will probably be a few bloggers attending QIP, but if anyone is interested in making guest posts here on the Pontiff about the conference (anonymously, using your real name, or any combination thereof) please send me an email (see contact tab above).
Anyone know if the conference talks will be taped? Enjoy Zurich all, but make sure to bring enough money 🙂

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Quantum Cartoons

Richard, a long while back (yes, I’m cleaning my inbox!), sent me some cartoons that were apparently floating around in the 70s when he did his BS in Chemistry that are quite amusing:

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Everday Orthogonality

Another one from Michael, who spotted an article about one of my favorite mathematical words to use in everyday speech (much the chagrin of non-scientists) used in the Supereme Court of the United States:

Supreme Court justices deal in words, and they are always on the lookout for new ones.
University of Michigan law professor Richard D. Friedman discovered that Monday when he answered a question from Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, but added that it was “entirely orthogonal” to the argument he was making in Briscoe v. Virginia.
Friedman attempted to move on, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stopped him.
“I’m sorry,” Roberts said. “Entirely what?”
“Orthogonal,” Friedman repeated, and then defined the word: “Right angle. Unrelated. Irrelevant.”
“Oh,” Roberts replied.
…
“What was that adjective?” Scalia asked Monday. “I liked that.”
“Orthogonal,” Friedman said.
“Orthogonal,” Roberts said.
“Orthogonal,” Scalia said. “Ooh.”
Friedman seemed to start to regret the whole thing, saying the use of the word was “a bit of professorship creeping in, I suppose,” but Scalia was happy.
“I think we should use that in the opinion,” he said.
“Or the dissent,” added Roberts, who in this case was in rare disagreement with Scalia.

Of course last time I commented on using mathematical words outside of their natural habitat it spawned a comment thread with over 2000 comments.
Other favorites that I like to sneak into casual conversation are “canonical”, “dual”, and “asymptotic.” Other good scientific / math words that you like to use in everyday conversation?

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Childish QKD

Michael sends along an entry in the best title ever competition, this time a special baby Bacon edition:

The pulse wave arrival time (QKd interval) in normal children
The Journal of Pediatrics, Volume 95, Issue 5, Pages 716-721
B. Bercu, R. Haupt, R. Johnsonbaugh, D. Rodbard

“In this household, young man, we will keep our quantum key distribution pulses above the rate of 1000 keys per second!”

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More Human Than a Human

A while back I posted a short, hopefully jocular, note about the machine learning algorithm for catching card counters at blackjack. Here is a more substantial article about the system. I wonder if systems like these will find use outside of gambling: anywhere an employee performs a repeated physical task (think a grocery store clerk?) and the company want to catch the errors. Boy those jobs are going to stink it up kind of rotten: “Johnny, if you make one more computer detected error tomorrow at the check stand, we’re going to have to let you go!” Is it better to be fired by a computer or by a human?

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In Praise of Junk – Or Where's My Quantum Computer

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. – Thomas Edison

As a theorist who was in the second generation of quantum computing graduate students (the first generation of graduate students arose following Shor’s 1994 invention: prior generations of graduate students are negative generations a.k.a. bloody brave pioneers) one of the most fru

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We are stardust. We Are Bacon.

Katherine passes along an amusing article about Bacon:

As America’s bacon-frenzy illustrates, when culture, technology and economy allow mankind the option of unlimited bacon — for bacon to fill every moment and aspect of its life — Mankind will hit the “Bacon Me” button like an unhinged mandrill. In David Lynch’s Dune, when Kyle gnomically insisted: “The spice is the worm! The worm is the spice!” we can see, now, that both worm and spice were, in fact, bacon. Bacon is the Dark Matter that holds together the Universe. Richard Bacon has just taken over from Simon Mayo on BBC 5 Live*. We are stardust. We are bacon.

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About the UBC Talk

About that talk at UBC which I posted about on Sunday…

Q: How’d the talk in Vancouver go Monday, Dave?
D: The slides were awesome and the animations dazzling.
Q: So the talk went well?
D: Don’t know. I didn’t give the talk.
Q: Didn’t give the talk? Why not?
D: Well at the time I was supposed to be giving the talk I was on the US / Canada border.
Q: Oh so you were late for your talk …due to being stuck at the border crossing?
D: Actually I was heading back into the US at the time.
Q: Huh? Why were you heading the wrong direction?
D: Well because the fireman called.
Q: The fireman? Why did the fireman call you?!?
D: Well he called me to tell me I needed to call my wife.
Q: Why in earth would the fireman call you to tell you to call your wife?
D: Well he called to tell me to pick up my wife’s call. Oh and he called on account of the mess in the bathroom.
Q: Mess what mess?
D: Oh well the mess was from the boy.
Q: Boy? Your little boy made a mess in the bathroom and the fireman had to call you?
D: Well the boy himself really didn’t make a mess, because well he wasn’t quite mobile at the time.
Q: Not mobile? But how was he involved in the mess?
D: Well he was the one who made my wife call the fireman on account of deciding to be born today.
Q: Born today! Well I’ll be…. So the talk went well?

Mrs. Pontiff and Baby Bacon are both doing well and soon we will be heading home from the hospital (bringing home the Bacon, so to speak.) This sleep deprivation brings back fond memories of handing in my homework(s!) after an all nighter at Caltech. But at Caltech only a few of my fellow techers spit up quite this much.

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Talk at UBC Monday

Late notice, but I’m giving the theory seminar at UBC tomorrow, January 4, 2010 at noon:

Title: Adiabatic Cluster State Quantum Computing
Location: Hennings 318
Abstract:
Models of quantum computation are important because they change the physical requirements for achieving universal quantum computation. For example, one-way quantum computing requires the preparation of an entangled state followed by adaptive measurement on this state, a set of requirements which is different from the standard quantum circuit model. Here we introduce a model based on one-way quantum computing but without measurements (except for the final readout), instead using adiabatic deformation of a Hamiltonian whose initial ground state is the cluster state. This opens the possibility to use the copious results from one-way quantum computing to build more feasible adiabatic schemes. In this talk I will discuss this and other new adiabatic quantum computing protocols. This is joint work with Steve Flammia (Perimeter Institute).

Always great to visit Vancouver, let’s just hope this time I come back with my passport!