O brave new quantum world!
Quick, Batman! To the trademark-mobile along with a stack of three or four letter company names:
Feb 27 (Reuters) – On-demand business phone service provider Nuvio Corp said it filed a lawsuit against Garmin International Inc…alleging Garmin’s Nuvifone infringes on Nuvio trademark, which it uses on its phones and telephony services.
Over at Cocktail Party Physics, Jennifer Ouellette shares her thoughts on good science communication
I’ve learned over the course of my varied career that the trick to all good science communication is being able to boil a complicated science story down to its most basic components — the “core narrative” — to which one can then add layers of detail and complexity to tailor the narrative to a wide range of target audiences.
The main point I tried to get across in that first workshop is that this is not the same thing as the “dumbing down” epithet that many physicists like to fling at popular approaches to difficult subjects.
Beside the fact that physicists (and scientists of all stripes don’t-think-you’re-getting-off-easy-you-chemists) like to call things “dumbing down” simply because it makes them seem smarter than they might be, I think Jennifer is exactly right: the best popular science I remember reading never felt like they were dumbing things down for me. (In this way does the best popular science share a similarity with the best children’s literature?) I don’t remember reading “Godel, Escher, and Bach” and thinking it was oversimplifying the Church-Turing thesis. I don’t remember reading “A Brief History of Time” and thinking Hawking was pulling his punches (although I do remember I disagreed with him on all sorts of topics.) “The Turing Omnibus” from my recollections was certainly not about dumbing things down: it’s where I first learned about computational complexity classes, analog computers, and the busy beaver problem. The explanations I remember were not contrived and oversimplified, from my perspective, but seemed like actual objects the scientists were working with, explained without technical jargon and complicated analysis, but with their scientific heart still beating.
But this got me wondering. Once upon a time, I was a great consumer of popular science. I’m fairly certain I read every popular science book in my hometown library (along with the books all the books on pseudoscience as well.) But over the years I’ve read less and less popular science. Why has that been?
Continue reading “Popular Science for Scientists?”
On the intertubes today I’m seeing a lot of references to “Electron filmed for the first time” (digg, msnbc, Live Science.) For a decent explanation that doesn’t involve radically distorting quantum theory, I recommend this Physical Review Focus article (and, of course, nothing compares to the original PRL…although it must be said, as always, that four pages is not enough, damnit!) Note that, if I understand correctly, the movie “filmed” above is a movie in “momentum space” and, of course, we’re not really talking about the observation of a single electron, but of the momentum distribution of the coherent electron wave packets. But what really confuses me is what the actual “movie” is supposed to represent.
Continue reading “"Filming" an Electron”
Crackpot animation of the day:
The man on the lift chair at Stephen’s Pass asks me my occupation. Professor, I tell him, at the University of Washington.
Oh, he offers, My daughter is a fourth generation Husky. I was in the class of 1972. Or, well I would have been if I’d graduated, but I knew what I wanted to do didn’t need a degree. If I’d wanted to work for IBM or Honeywell or something, then I guess it would matter.
Seattle, he continues scratching some snow from his mustache, used to be such a great city. But now, the traffic is crazy. My wife and I went on a trip and couldn’t find a city more messed up than Seattle.
Interesting, I tell him, hoping that exactly my lack of interest might change the topic of conversation. So what do you do?
I’m retire now, but I used to be developer.
QCMC 2008 in Calgary call for abstracts, Quantum Information and Control in Cairns, Australia call for abstracts, Covaqial, Brassard nominated for Herzberg Medal, and the limits of quantum computers.
Continue reading “Happenings in the Quantum World: February 21, 2008”
There are days when I wish quantum cryptography was a mature, installed, technology. Today is one of those days. Why? You might think its because I’m a quantum obsessed physicist whose daily sustenance depends on the future of quantum information science. But no. Today I wish quantum cryptography were installed because today the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the Bush administration’s domestic spying program;
The Supreme Court rejected a challenge Tuesday to the Bush administration’s domestic spying program.
The justices’ decision, issued without comment, is the latest setback to legal efforts to force disclosure of details of the warrantless wiretapping that began after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The American Civil Liberties Union wanted the court to allow a lawsuit by the group and individuals over the wiretapping program. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs could not prove their communications had been monitored
If only the ACLU’s clients had been using quantum cryptography, then they would know that their phone lines were being tapped, and they would have the record to prove it. Of course what the judges probably really meant was that the plaintiffs could not prove their communication had been monitored by the government’s domestic spying plan. Sadly, quantum cryptographers have yet to develop a method for identifying the name of the attacker when eavesdropping occurs on quantum key distribution.
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”
Yes we work on Saturdays. Okay work may be the wrong word. Updated as the day goes along and my brain doesn’t fill up (plus I’m chairing a session, so is it ethical to chair and blog at the same time?)
Continue reading “SqUINT Live Blogging – Saturday Talks”
Sloan awards have been announced for this year. On the list I noticed at least two three quantum computing/information related names: Alexandre Blais (University of Sherbrooke), Andris Ambainis (University of Waterloo), and Jason Petta (Princeton.) Congrats!