Author: dabacon

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A Many Worlds Puzzle of a Different Kind

Fortune has put out its list of the top 100 companies to work for. The Google Monster is number one. Washington state does pretty good, as it is in a tie for fourth in the total number of companies on the list with headquarters in the state. (Per capita it comes in third, losing to Delaware and D.C.)
Looking through their article on “10 fascinating Googlers” I found Wei-Hwa Huang. Hey, he was in my class at Caltech! Indeed Wei-Hwa was responsible for one of my favorite stories about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. Huh?
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Pseudonyms in Science?

A while ago a message from Kris Krogh appeared on Scirate.com about ariXiv:0712.3934 stating Kris’ belief that the paper appeared under a pseudonym (the comment contains the contents of the link which was sent to the arxiv’s administrator.) Today I checked with the arxiv and found that the paper had been removed:

This submission has been removed because ‘G.Forst’ is a pseudonym of a physicist based in Italy who is unwilling to submit articles under his own name. This is in explicit violation of arXiv policies.
Roughly similar content, contrasting the relative merits of the LAGEOS and GP-B measurements of the frame-dragging effect, can be found in pp. 43–45 of: this http URL

Humorously (I guess) while the statement goes to pains to not name the Italian physicist, the link is to a Nature article…by an Italian physicist.
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Craig Barrett: You're Subsidizing the Wrong Seed Corn

Craig Barrett, the chairman of Intel has a scathing op-ed in the San Fransisco Chronicle on the recent spending omnibus and its effect on science funding (via Computing Research Policy Blog):

What are they thinking? When will they wake up? It may already be too late; but I genuinely think the citizenry of this country wants the United States to compete. If only our elected leaders weren’t holding us back.

Of course, I can hear the cries already: typical liberal west coaster spouting more government spending. But, oh. Doh. Okay, well what can basic science research possibly lead to anyway.

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Villa Sophia 2007 "Gruccia"

This weekend was “bottling weekend.” Here is one of the final products:
That’s right, the Villa Sophia, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon “Gruccia” has found its way, with a little labor on my part, out of the carboys and into the bottle. This year’s wine is called “gruccia.” You see at one point during the winemaking a bung made its way into the carboy, and well, you can guess how I got it out, can’t you?

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Second Life Banks

Second Life, the virtual community, bans banks which aren’t banks in the real world.

Since the collapse of Ginko Financial in August 2007, Linden Lab has received complaints about several in-world “banks” defaulting on their promises. These banks often promise unusually high rates of L$ return, reaching 20, 40, or even 60 percent annualized.

Second Life imitating the first?

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The Contextuality of Quantum Theory in Ten Minutes

Through my computer science “information is king” eyeglasses, there are really only two notions which thoroughly distinguish quantum theory from classical theories of how the world works: the nonlocal nature of quantum correlations as exemplified by Bell’s theorem and the much less well known contextual nature of quantum measurements as exemplified by the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem. While the former is well known (and hence, to paraphrase Gell-Mann, what you’ve heard about it is mostly wrong), the later is less well known. Is that because it is a complicated idea? I don’t think so! Indeed I think you can learn what quantum contextuality means in less than ten minutes. Yep, it’s another edition of “explain quantum theory in ten minutes!”
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