“Jumper” is a new movie about a man (okay, Hayden Christensen, aka Anakin Skywalker) who can teleport himself anywhere just by thinking about it. Quantum teleportation is a procedure where quantum information can be transported using entanglement and a few bits of classical communication. The distance between these two is, *ahem*, rather large. The New York Times today has an article about an event at MIT (that other institute of technology) which brought together the director of Jumper, star Hayden Christensen, and MIT professors Ed Farhi and Max Tegmark.
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MSR Awarded Fifteen Armies
Microsoft, which to me is that big collection of buildings across the lake where I yell when Vista bogs down my laptop, has announced a new Research Lab to be located in Cambridge, MA. It will be run by mathematical physicist turned comptuer scientist Jennifer Tour Chayes who was the manager for Mathematics, Theoretical Computer Science and Cryptography at Microsoft Research in Redmond.
For some strange reason I get the feeling that Microsoft and Google are playing a large game of Risk with the pieces being replaced by offices, and the countries being replaced by top teir university towns.
ACM Turing Award 2007
The Turing Award, the Nobel Prize of computing (but really how can we fault Nobel for not having a computing prize when computers for Nobel would have been people), has been won by Edmund Clarke (CMU), E. Allen Emerson (UT at Austin) and Joseh Sifakis (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/CARNOT Institute) for research on Model Checking. The citation reads
For their role in developing Model-Checking into a highly effective
verification technology, widely adopted in the hardware and software
industries.
The winners will share a $250,000 prize ($150,000 more this year due to the sponser ship of the Googlemonster.)
Group Page Wikified
Behold: my new research group webpage! This answers part of the question “what do academics do while watching the Super Bowl?”
Happenings in the Quantum World: February 1,2008
Colorado State scores Keck money, D-Wave scores venture money, QICIQ 2008, Reversible computation tutorial, and a review of “Quantum Hoops.”
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Apolo Anton Ohno's Got Competition
Dancing with the Profs. I bet on the CS prof for the “Quickstep.”
Measuring Reviewers
I enjoy reviewing papers even knowing it sucks up too much of my time. I mean what better way is there to get out any inner angst than to take it out on the writers of a sub par paper? (That’s a joke people.) Reading Michael Nielsen’s post taking on the h-index (Michael’s posting more these days!), reminded me of a problem I’ve always wondered about for reviewing.
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Searching For Feynman
Blue Monday, which was January 21, of this year, is supposedly (and I say supposedly when I might have better said, erroneously) the most depressing day of the year. Now there are plenty of reasons given for this: you finally realized your New Year’s resolutions aren’t going to happen, you’ve just gotten your credit card bill for all that rampant consumerism you participated in over the holidays, etc. But, if you’re in academia, you know the real reason to be depressed during this time of the year. That’s right: it faculty search season. Since everyone else is talking about it and bringing me down, I thought I’d do my duty and continue the painful depressing discussion.
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8.7 Percent Less Likely
The CRA Policy Blog has the latest info on the impact of the underfunding of science in the budget. In particular
NSF will likely fund 1,000 fewer research grants in FY 08 than planned and the average award size will be smaller.
Sweet! Data to update my probability of employment. Oh wait. (Note for those playing along at home, I think the relevant total number of NSF grants is on the order of 11500.)
Beginnings…
What will it become?