Category: Quantum Computing

Posted on

New CS PhD Grad? Funding Opportunity: CIFellows

Via the CCC Blog, an announcement concerning an NSF funded opportunity for new PhDs in Computer Science, CIFellows (http://cifellows.org):

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and the Computing Research Association (CRA), with funding from the National Science Foundation, are pleased to announce an opportunity for new PhD graduates in computer science and closely related fields to obtain one-to-two year positions at host organizations including universities, industrial research laboratories, and other organizations that advance the field of computing and its positive impact on society.
The Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Project will fund as many as 60 such positions. Applications are due very soon: June 9, 2009. Awards are expected to be announced by July 10. Positions will commence in Autumn 2009.
Go to http://cifellows.org to apply to be a CIFellow.
Also: Go to http://cifellows.org to advertise your interest in hosting a CIFellow at your organization.
Individuals who received their PhD from a U.S. institution between May 1, 2008 and August 31, 2009 in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Science, or a closely related field are eligible to apply. Applicants must obtain commitments from between one and three prospective hosts/mentors. Hosts/mentors must not be at the same institution as the one granting the PhD. The CIFellows website provides resources for both prospective applicants and host/mentors to announce their interests and availability.
– Ed Lazowska, Chair of the Computing Community Consortium Council
– Peter Lee, Incoming Chair of the Computing Research Association

Any new grads interested in some quantum computing theory in Seattle? Shoot me a buzz.
Update: More info for the motivation for the program at Peter Lee’s blog.

Posted on

Videoabstracts

Martin Plenio writes in with a link to a new site he created with Daniel Burgarth Videoabstracts (Joe got an email too):

I am writing to you to bring to your attention some new tool that we (Daniel Burgarth and myself) have developed that has the aim of making science papers just a little more accessible. Its called Videoabstracts and consists of ‘homemade’ videos in which an author of the paper explains the key point of the paper in front of a whiteboard. The videos should not be longer than 5 minutes to force people to get to the point efficiently. We feel that these 5 minutes clarify the content and relevance of a paper much better than any abstract can do.
We have produced several examples that you may see on http://www.quantiki.org/video_abstracts. We did not strive for perfection as we feel that anybody should just be able to do these with a webcam and then upload them on QUANTIKI. The videos will then be stored on YouTube and at the same time a link will be created on the arXiv.

Cool. We need to do one about our latest paper arXiv/0905.0901.

Posted on

Physics Viewpoint: "Too entangled to quantum compute one-way"

Physics is an new APS initiative to highlight select articles for Physical Review journals, very much in the model of the commentaries that appear on articles in journals like Science. Many (all?) of the articles are written by researchers in the field, and are meant to be readable by a wide audience of physicists and serve as a sieve for what a good broad physicist should know about what is currently going on in physics.
Today, a highlight I wrote about two recent PRLs has appeared: Too entangled to quantum compute one-way. This paper highlights two recent papers on entanglement in one-way quantum computing: D. Gross, S. T. Flammia, and J. Eisert, “Most Quantum States Are Too Entangled To Be Useful As Computational Resources” Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 190501 (2009) (arXiv:0810.4331) and M. J. Bremner, C. Mora, and A. Winter, “Are Random Pure States Useful for Quantum Computation?” Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 190502 (2009) (arXiv:0812.3001). (With the bonus appearance of arXiv:0903.5236 by Richard Low.)

Posted on

Adiabatic Paper Dance

Yes, it’s a slow dance:

Through the hourglass I saw you, in time you slipped away
When the mirror crashed I called you, and turned to hear you say
If only for today I am adiabatic
Take my pulsed gates away

arXiv:0905.0901, “Adiabatic Gate Teleportation” by Dave Bacon and Steve Flammia(As seen on arXiview)

Posted on

Too Few Wrong Papers?

After watching Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk* it occurred to me to go back and look at my own scientific papers and try to assess them for how creative they were. Some things you should just never do, I guess, but it did lead me to an interesting question.
* The first 2/3 of the talk is excellent, ending not as great. I’m heartily in support of his cause, but it felt to me like he was implying that this was the one and only problem with the education system, which I find hard to swallow.
Continue reading “Too Few Wrong Papers?”

Posted on

Dynamical Decoupling Workshop

Michael Biercuk sends me a note about an upcoming workshop on dynamic decoupling. He’s trying to get a gauge of the interest in such a workshop:

Upcoming International Workshop on Dynamical Decoupling (IWODD)
Expected Date: October, 2009
Location: Boulder, CO
By Invitation Only
Interested participants please contact Michael J. Biercuk,
biercuk at boulder.nist.gov

Those interested should shoot Michael an email.

Posted on

arXiview: A New iPhone App for the arXiv

Over 9 months ago I decided to apply for teaching tenure track jobs. Then the economy took what can best be described as a massive, ill-aimed, swan dive. Thus creating an incredible amount of stress in my life. So what does a CS/physics research professor do when he’s stress? The answer to that question is available on the iTunes app store today: arXiview. What better way to take out stress and at the same time learn objective C and write an iPhone app that at least one person (yourself) will use?
Continue reading “arXiview: A New iPhone App for the arXiv”