David Wineland, laser cooling god and ion trap quantum computer builder extraordinaire, has been awarded the National Medal of Science. Much awesomeness.
Also winning the medal this year is a name familiar to computer scientists and engineers worldwide, or simply who have spent time at USC: Andrew Viterbi, inventor of the Viterbi algorithm and cofounder of Qualcom, among other notable achievements.
London Eye Is Falling Down Illusion
The London Eye is a gigantic tourist trap rotating wheel, which you can ride to get a great view of London. The trip takes about 30 minutes. While riding it the other day, I noticed an odd illusion. The London Eye is made up of pods which are attached to the wheel in such a way that each pod is always horizontal. What I noticed was that if you were going up on Eye and looked up and toward the top of the Eye, it felt as if the entire contraption was falling over (i.e. the top of the wheel seemed as if it was falling over.) Anyone have any idea what causes this disorienting effect?
(I suspect it must be related to the similar effect you get when staring up at the spotlight at the Luxor in Las Vegas. The spotlight goes straight up, but from below, looking up at night, it seems as if the beam of the light bends.)
Back! From Outer Space! Without That Sad Look Upon My Face
Ironically, of all the posts I scheduled to run while I was away on vacation last week, the only one which didn’t get automatically posted was the one saying that I’d be away and that the next weeks posts would be scheduled. Doh. So yeah, I was away.
For your viewing pleasure, Greek boats
and a Greek church
Bonus points for anyone who can identify this Greek town:
Self-Correcting Quantum Computers, Part IV
Quantum error correction and quantum hard drives in four dimension. Part IV of my attempt to explain one of my main research interests in quantum computing:
Prior parts: Part I, Part II, Part III.
Continue reading “Self-Correcting Quantum Computers, Part IV”
Self-Correcting Quantum Computers, Part III
The physics of classical information storage. Why is it that your hard drive works? A modern miracle, I tell you! Part III of my attempt to explain one of my main research interests in quantum computing: “self-correcting quantum computers.” Prior parts: Part I, Part II
Continue reading “Self-Correcting Quantum Computers, Part III”
Self-Correcting Quantum Computers, Part II
Why is classical computing possible at all? A silly question, but one which never ceases to amaze me. Part II of my attempt to explain one of my main research interests in quantum computing: “self-correcting quantum computers.” Prior parts: Part I
Continue reading “Self-Correcting Quantum Computers, Part II”
Self-Correcting Quantum Computers, Part I
Quantum computing is hair-brained, but then again so is classical probabilistic computing. Part I of my attempt to explain one of my main research interests in quantum computing: “self-correcting quantum computers.”
Continue reading “Self-Correcting Quantum Computers, Part I”
QCMC 2008 Comment Thread
NSF Expeditions Awarded
“Expeditions in Computing awards” are ten million dollar NSF grants from the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering to pursue long-term research agendas. My favorite kinds of projects: high risk, high reward, and long term. Today the first four award winners have been announced. The winning programs are
- Open Programmable Mobile Internet 2020
- The Molecular Programming Project
- Understanding, Coping with and Benefiting from Intractibility
- Computational Sustainability: Computational Methods for a Sustainable Environment, Economy and Society
Of note for the theoretical computer science crowd is the third of these, won by a Princeton area team (lead by Sanjeev Arora), which is going to establish a “Center for Intractability” at Princeton. Very cool. And now I know where to go if I ever need a traveling salesman.
We Don't Need Another Hero
I knew there was a reason I called this blog “The Quantum Pontiff.” Amazon-ing my name: