I’m heading home from the March meeting, after giving my talk this morning and then having a nice lunch with graduate (and one undergraduate) students at a “Meet the Experts” lunch. Yeah, somehow I slipped by the guards! Luckily a real expert was there, in the form of Paul Kwiat, so all was good and the students didn’t learn anything to disastrous. “What I learned at the March meeting” below the fold.
Continue reading “March Meeting Summary”
Quantum Algorithms and the Strange Nature of Quantum Theory
Over at Information Processing, the InfoProcessor talks about teaching Bell’s theorem:
I find that the hardest thing about teaching this material in class is that, after half a year of training students’ brains to think quantum mechanically, it is extremely difficult to get them to feel the weirdness of Bell’s theorem and spooky action. It all seems quite normal to them in the context of the course — they know how to calculate, and that’s just how quantum mechanics works!
Continue reading “Quantum Algorithms and the Strange Nature of Quantum Theory”
The Same Title?
On the arxiv Friday:
arXiv:0802.4248
Title: Coexistence of qubit effects
Authors: Peter Stano, Daniel Reitzner, Teiko Heinosaari
Comments: A paper with identical title is being published on the arXiv simultaneously by Paul Busch and Heinz-Jurgen Schmidt. These authors solve the same problem independently with a different method.
and
arXiv:0802.4167
Title: Coexistence of qubit effects
Authors: Paul Busch, Heinz-Jürgen Schmidt
Comments: A paper with identical title is being published on the arXiv simultaneously by Teiko Heinosaari, Daniel Reitzner and Peter Stano. These authors solve the same problem independently with a different method
Chosing the same title seems a bit strange to me. I mean simultaneous result posting happens quite frequently, but with the same title? But at least this answers a question I’ve always had which is whether the arxiv allows papers with the same title.
sSQUINT Conference
On President’s day I attended the sSQUINT followup conference to SQUINT 2008. sSQUINT? Never heard of it? Neither had I. But when I learned that the “s” stood for “ski” (or maybe “snowboard”) and that some of my fellow quantum informationers would be trekking to Wolf Creek Ski Area, well I had to submit a paper. Mine paper was about mogul formation as a self-organizing system. Another paper was on the ski bum as an outcast and iconoclast. Much to our delight the weather gods gave us some beautiful blue southern Colorado sunshine. For your delight, pictures below.
Continue reading “sSQUINT Conference”
Physics Justifying Gambling
Quantum theory justifying gambling? So reads this column by one Reverend Doctor Mervin Stoddart from Florida in the Jamaica Observer.
Continue reading “Physics Justifying Gambling”
Quantum Mario
Super Mario World vs. the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Physics:
Those of you who know me outside of this blog will find that particular juxtaposition of physics and Nintendo very amusing.
"Jumper" Jumped by Farhi and Tegmark
“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.
Continue reading “"Jumper" Jumped by Farhi and Tegmark”
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.”
Continue reading “Happenings in the Quantum World: February 1,2008”
Quantum Physicists as Cool as James Bond
Michael sends me a link to an article with the name of the new James Bond movie: Quantum of Solace. If compassion is quantized (down that path leads madness), I really hope I’m in a region where the correspondence principle applies.
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?
Continue reading “A Many Worlds Puzzle of a Different Kind”