Category: Quantum Computing

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Go to MIT, Learn About Quantum Computers

MIT has won a three million dollar NSF grant for a interdisciplinary graduate training program for quantum information science. The program will be called iQuISE and will be lead by Isaac Chuang along with Seth Lloyd and Jeffery Shapiro. Now the real question is how the heck do you pronounce iQuISE? “I.Qs?” “I Kiss?” “I.Q. eyes?”
Oh, and also we get the answer to how interdisciplinary is quantum information science:

MIT academic departments and divisions that will have faculty and students participating in iQuISE include Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics, Nuclear Engineering, and Engineering Systems.

Quantum information apparently scores a seven on the MIT interdisciplinary scale. Can anyone beat that?

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Count the Headlights on the Highway

Yep, it’s paper dance time. This one is less of a dance and more of a shuffle:

arXiv:0808.0174 (scirate)
Title: Simon’s Algorithm, Clebsch-Gordan Sieves, and Hidden Symmetries of Multiple Squares
Author: D. Bacon
Abstract: The first quantum algorithm to offer an exponential speedup (in the query complexity setting) over classical algorithms was Simon’s algorithm for identifying a hidden exclusive-or mask. Here we observe how part of Simon’s algorithm can be interpreted as a Clebsch-Gordan transform. Inspired by this we show how Clebsch-Gordan transforms can be used to efficiently find a hidden involution on the group G^n where G is the dihedral group of order eight (the group of symmetries of a square.) This problem previously admitted an efficient quantum algorithm but a connection to Clebsch-Gordan transforms had not been made. Our results provide further evidence for the usefulness of Clebsch-Gordan transform in quantum algorithm design.

Yet another step in my ever increasing quest to become a lone author lunatic (er, lunatic!) of quant-ph. Next step is obviously Microsoft Word only arXiv postings.
Bonus points for identifying the song, of course.

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Quantum Computing Room on Friendfeed

For those of you who aren’t afraid of “uberconnected web 2.0”-ing, I’ve set up a quantum computing room on friendfeed. “For those with nothing better to do than contemplate the one true theory of computation.”

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Fraud Fighting Quantum Computers

From Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston, we find a gem of quantum computer’s capabilities in an interview with Max Levchin, cofounder of Paypal:

…Its one of those things where, in the end, fraud is so nondeterministic that you need a human or a quantum computer to look at it and sort of make a final decision…

Fight determinism with determinism, but fight nondeterminism with nondeterminism! I like it! But can you fight determinism with nondeterminism? Why am I now singing “I shot the nondeterminism, and the nondeterminism won?”
(I’m pretty sure Max is waxing poetic here, cus from all I’ve read about him he’s a pretty sharp cookie.)