Category: Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

Writers have writer’s block while researchers have the research blues. Lately I’ve been struggling with perhaps the worst case of research blues I’ve had in a long time. Usually I am full of all sorts of crazy ideas that, while they never lead anywhere, are at least crazy and thus keep my spirits high. Lately, however, the well from which I’ve drawn my crazy ideas seems to have dried up. I’m not sure of the reasons for this: maybe I’m getting old and conservative and so I take a more pesimistic view of anything I dream about (but not pesimistic enough to start proving lower bounds :).) Maybe I’m getting dumber. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky. Maybe the time I’ve spent teaching last term has kept me from spending enough continuous time thinking about new research. Certainly I’m sure many of you have noticed a lack of anything “interesting” on this blog, and you can probably attribute this to the fact that I have been clinging to any half-baked idea I have like it is the last drop of water on a globally warmed future earth. Instead of posting dozens of half-baked muffins, I’ve only been posting half-baked crumbs.
The real question, of course, is how to pull oneself out of the research blues. I think there are many ways to approach this, and I’m pretty sure every researcher has their own methods. In the past, one way I’ve done this is to try to learn an entirely new subject area. Nothing like bashing your neurons up against a new set of problems to loosen them up and make them fire in crazy random ways again. Luckily for the next two weeks, I’m at the KITP in Santa Barbara, where I have plenty of time to try to get the neurons loose again. Unfortunately the black holes in higher dimensions program at KITP is soon closing up. Which is too bad because I certainly know nothing about the results in this field, and would love to bash my brains against what they are working on.
The research blues are a real part of being a researcher. They are rarely, however, discussed. Certainly in theoretical physics, a field in which stature seems to be assigned by being the last to blink, there are zero incentives to admit any struggles. Certainly this is one of the reasons I so like the book “Good Benito” by Alan Lightman since it does a superb job describing what it’s really like to do theory research. I’ve certainly seen my share of students and colleagues crushed under the weight of the load of research blues (will it crush me, I do not know? How can I know?) So the question I’d like to ask is what we should tell students who are just begining to consider their research careers. Too often I find it easier to just encourage the students forward, saying nice beautiful things about doing research. But lately, in my bout of pesimism, I’ve begun to think that we owe it to ourselves to tell those who are considering research in theory of the pitfalls of research. Tell them that one hazard of theory research is that you will undoubtably suffer from severe bouts of research blues (well at least those of us who can relate to the lyrics “I’m no Reykjavik pixie, no British genius who will rise and rise again…”) Certainly everyone has to judge for themselves whether they can stand the brutal beating of research blues, but pretending that all is hunky dorey seems to me a way to end up distorting your psychie into a twisted ball of frustration.
Oh well, again, not a very interesting post. See how it runs on and on without any point or interesting insight? But I’d thought at leasted I’d explain why the post was not interesting instead of just putting more tripe onto the blogosphere. At least this tripe has warning.

Today’s talk, powerpoint posted once I touch up the presentation:

04:00 PM
Condensed Matter & Atomic (CMA) Physics Seminar
Dave Bacon, University of Washington, Computer Science & Engineering
Building Robust Qubits Using Many-Body Strongly Interacting Quantum Systems
C-421, PAT (Physics)
The late Rolf Landauer liked to say that “information is physical.” By this he meant not that the abstract concept of information has anything to do with the laws of physics, but instead that it is physics which determines whether a device can robustly store and manipulate information. Thus, for instance, the robust storage of bits on hard drives is possible only because of the statistical physics of magnetic domains. In this talk I will discuss how this point of view should change the way we envision constructing devices which robustly store and manipulate quantum information. In particular I will discuss many-body quantum systems whose physics serves to replace the micro architecture of quantum error correction normally envisioned as necessary for building robust qubits. Along the way I will explain the basic ideas of topological quantum computing using anyons along with new ideas for self-correcting qubits in a three-dimensional quantum compass model.

Update: Talk is now posted here.

I’ve been hit by the seven by seven meme. Well, I guess this is okay, because seven times seven is forty nine, and I grew up a devout 49er fan. And besides, as Cosma points out this is a good way to procrastinate on working on lecture notes.
1. Seven things to do before I die
Things that I will air in the public: 1) Program a big quantum computer. 2) Ski down Mt. Shasta. 3) Live on a tropical island. 4) Live in a ski town. 5) Write an academic book. 6) Write a science fiction novel. 7) Discover the secrets of the universe. Okay, I’ll admit that last one is a bit ambitious.
2. Seven things I cannot do
1) Not laugh. 2) Ride a unicycle. 3) Understand what motivates mathematicians. 4) Tie my shoes correctly. 5) Be pessimistic. 6) Abandon reason. 7) Get enough sleep.
3. Seven things that attract me to [Seattle]
1) My sister. 2) My mother. 3) A girl I met in Hawaii. 4) My cousins! 5) Snow. 6) Blue. 7) The generosity of the computer science department and Mark Oskin for getting me my position here.
4. Seven things I say most often
1) “Sweet!” 2) “Dude.” 3) [beginning of sentence] “qubits” [end of sentence]. 4) “Off like a herd of turtles.” 5) “Vamanos?” 6) “It’s time to get up, it’s time to get up, it’s time to get up in the morning!” 7) “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.”
5. Seven books (or series) that I love
1) Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Donald A. Yates, James E. Irby, Anthony Kerrigan, L. A. Murillo, Dudley Fitts, John M. Fein, Harriet de Onás, and Julian Palley.) 2) Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. 3) The Transmigration of Timothy Archerby Phillip K. Dick. 4) Good Benito by Alan Lightman. 5) The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. 6) Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. 7) Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Pretty typical geek list, eh?
6.Seven movies that I watch over and over again (or would if I had the time)
1) Dr. Strangelove. 2) Donnie Darko (original cut, not director’s cut.) 3) Apocalypse Now (redux or original.) 4) The Shawshank Redemption. 5) To Kill a Mockingbird. 6) 2001 A Space Odyssey. 7) Au Revoir Les Enfants
7. Seven people I want to join in, too.
1) Scott Aaronson. 2) Aram. 3) Mic. 4) Steve Hsu. 5) Lisa. 6) Michael Nielsen. 7) Suz

Chirstmas Eve at my mom’s home in Yreka (“Yreka Bakery” backwards is “Yreka Bakery”) enjoying a warm meal before going out to look at the Christmas lights. I will say that Wal-Mart is making a killing off of those blow up Santas and blow up Snowmen.