The arXiv is a game changer for how large portions of physics (and increasingly other fields) are done. Paul Ginsparg won a MacArthur award for his vision and stewardship of the arXiv (something other institutions might want to note when they decide that someone trying to change how science is done isn’t really doing work that will impact them.) So…Given: The arXiv is great. But there is something that’s always bothered me a bit about the arXiv: transparency.
(Note: those of you who wish to complain about the fact that you can’t get endorsed on the arXiv, this article is not for you. Here is a place where that discussion will probably flourish)
Continue reading “Can You Have Open Science in the Dark?”
arXiv.org Hacked?
Has the arXiv been hacked or is it offline? When I connect to arxiv.org it shoots me to mirror sites which haven’t been updated since Oct 08. Via @MartinQuantum. Also nanoscale views reports the arXiv down.
Since this is a blog we can easily spread rumors by including a link to an article today about cyberattacks going on right now possibly originating from North Korea.
Update 9:03 am PST: At lanl.arxiv.org you can now get papers greater than October 2008 by searching, but the “recents” and “new” isn’t working. Also the RSS feed seems to only have yesterdays posts. A comment on Secret Blogging Seminar got a response back on the problem: “technical difficulties”.
Update 8:31 pm PST: Full day of meetings, but before they started the arXiv got at least yesterday’s posts up (and I could run scirates scripts to download the day.) Anyone know if you can submit papers?
New DARPA Director
DARPA, you know the people who invented the internet (“100 geniuses connected by a travel agent”), has a new director:
The Department of Defense (DoD) today announced the appointment of Regina E. Dugan as the 19th director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is the principal agency within the DoD for research, development, and demonstration of concepts, devices, and systems that provide highly advanced military capabilities for the current and future combat force. In this role of developing high-risk, high-payoff projects, DARPA compliments and balances the overall science and technology program of the DoD.
Go MechE’s from Caltech! DARPA’s last director Tony Tether ruffled a lot of feathers as it was widely perceived that the agency was shifting to short term research at the expense of the kind of groundbreaking work that had been funded in the past (See Peter Lee for details and recommendations for changes at DARPA.) Hopefully Dr. Dugan will take a different tack. That would certainly make a lot of computer science researchers a lot happier.
ArXiview 1.2 for iPhone OS 3.0 Out
ArXiview, my arXiv browsing iPhone app, has been updated for the new iPhone OS 3.0. New features include:
- Search fields now accept boolean queries and exact phrase queries. Touch the little (i) icon to get info on this feature from the search page.
- Search by identifier has been added.
- There is now an in application emailer. So when you want to email yourself a reference the program doesn’t quit out of the app.
- Added the cond-mat category for quantum gases.
- The app now sorts resorts in reverse chronological order.
- A bunch of bug fixes (search by category in particular was acting buggy.) The bugs were mostly pointed out to me by Andrew. Thanks Andrew!
In the mean time, reviews of the app have appeared in a couple places. Over at MacWorld Kate Dohe reviews the app and pointed out the lack of boolean searching. This should now be all fixed up in the new version. The one feature that Kate requests that I have yet to find a good solution to is how to transfer the pdfs stored on the device to a local desktop. Next on my list.
Another review by Ian Douglas compared all three arXiv apps out there (one is $0.99 and the other is free or $0.99 depending on what the developer decided for that day. It’s a great way to boost up your meter on the store: switch between free and paid. Free will boost your popularity meter and then you can get more from the paid! Score! Look for a “arXiview free for a day” promotion coming to this blog soon 🙂 ) Ian puts my app on top:
Dave Bacon is the Quantum Pontiff of the quantum computing-themed blog of the same name. I like the blog very much and didn’t want to give his app a bad review, which is why it was a great relief when I found it was the best of the three by quite a long way.
Woot! I think I owe him a beer.
Here is a review in French. Science librarians have also taken note: Mobile Libraries, the science librarian at Drexel physics, Science Libraries in Transition, and the Biomedical and Physical Science library at Michigan State. To name but a few.
An on the ITunes store itself there is finally a review up by ebitnet: “Of the three arxiv apps, this one is the best…” Thanks ebitnet! Does the nickname stand for entangled bit network?
On a similar note, I highly recommend Life as a Physicist who discusses issues with reading pdfs on small mobile displays. I’ve been playing around with some ideas for how to fix this for arXiv docs…we will see if this gets anywhere.
Microsoft Surface Physics
Not sure what it’s good for, but heck I’d love to play with one 🙂
DaVinci (Microsoft Surface Physics Illustrator) from Razorfish – Emerging Experiences on Vimeo.
Quantum Times Spring 2009
The latest issue of the newsletter of the APS topical group on Quantum Information, the Quantum Times, is now available. Of particular note is the long article summarizing the Workshop on Quantum Information Science.
Theorist In a Box
When I was a postdoc, I made it a habit to try to spend at least one week a year visiting Isaac Chuang’s lab at MIT. There were many reason for this, including that Ike has been a collaborator of mine, and Ken Brown, another collaborator was working as a postdoc in the lab. But another reason was…it’s damn nice for a theorist to sit in a real experimental lab. Oh sure, you need to keep the theorists away from all the cords and knobs for fear that they might actually touch something. And don’t ever let a theorist chose the music being played in the lab or you’ll end up hearing some real wacky “music.” But as a theorist I got a lot out of simply being around the actual enactment of the ideas that otherwise exist for me only in a paper or in my head. Being in a lab is very inspiring for an aspiring theorist.
So now I could go and bother one of the physics people and ask them if I could work in their lab. But this is 2009, damnit, and that 2 in 2009 certainly stands for web 2.0 or science 2.0 or iTechnology 2.0. In other words I want the same effect of visiting an experimental lab without getting of my lazy bum and walking across campus. So…
Continue reading “Theorist In a Box”
IWODD, Would You?
The “International Workshop on Dynamical Decoupling (IWODD)” now has a web site with information on the conference Oct 5-6 in Boulder, CO:
Dynamical decoupling techniques show the potential to dramatically suppress errors in quantum information and quantum control systems. To date, research in this area has been scattered between magnetic resonance experimentalists and quantum information theorists. This workshop aims to foster new relationships between experimental and theoretical researchers in an effort to speed technical developments and to promote the adoption of dynamical decoupling techniques across a variety of qubit technologies. Follow this link to see the list of invited speakers which includes Erwin Hahn, who pioneered the spin echo, as a keynote speaker.
The Secret Order of the ArXiv
The astro/physics blogosphere is all atwitter about papers the Nature embargo policy (See Julianne If a paper is submitted to nature does it still make a sound, the cat herder Hear a paper, see a paper, speak no paper, and he of less than certain principles Unhealthy obsessions of academia. He of uncertain principles loses the catchy title contest 🙂 )
Continue reading “The Secret Order of the ArXiv”
Information Causality
Recently I finally got a chance to read the new preprint arXiv:0905.2292 “A new physical principle: Information Causality” by M. Pawlowski, T. Paterek, D. Kaszlikowski, V. Scarani, A. Winter, and M. Zukowski. It’s been a long time since I spent more than a few spare hours thinking about foundational issues in quantum theory. Personally I am very fond of approaches to foundational questions which have a information theoretic or computational bent (on my desktop I have a pdf of William Wootter’s thesis “The Acquisition of Information From Quantum Measurements” which I consider a classic in this line of interrogation.) This preprint is very much along these lines and presents a very intriguing result which clearly merits some deeper thinking.
(Update: see also Joe for details of the proof.)
Continue reading “Information Causality”