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Benasque 2007

A workshop in the beautiful Pyrenees anyone? Can life get any better for a quantum computing scientist than spending time in the mountains doing quantum information science?

BENASQUE 2007
Dear Colleague,
We are pleased to inform you that following a very successful editions of Benasque 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2005 we are organizing another workshop of the similar type in June 2007. This is to invite you to apply using
the electronic form that you can find on the website specified below. We encourage you to apply as soon as
possible and not later than the end of March 2007. The number of participants at the Benasque Centre at any given time is limited to about 50. We will do our best to accommodate most of the applicants, however, in some cases we may be unable to find suitable time slots for all of them, i.e. we cannot guarantee acceptance. Budget permitting, we expect to offer a modest allowance to some participants. Preference will be given to those staying for the whole
duration of the workshop.
We do hope to see you in Benasque next year!
Ignacio Cirac and Artur Ekert
_________________________________________________________
BENASQUE 2007
Title: Quantum Information
Venue: Benasque in the Spanish Pyrenees.
Date: The 3 week period 10– 29 June 2007.
Website: http://sophia.ecm.ub.es/
Registers at: http://benasque.ecm.ub.es/2007qi/2007qi.htm
_________________________________________________________

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Got quant-ph?

I just noticed that the project to supply the arxiv as a single file has moved beyond covering hep-th and now includes quant-ph and gr-qc. Sweet! Closer and closer to all of physics on my harddrive.

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This Post Written Tomorrow

John Cramer, inventor of the transcational interpretation of quantum theory (not to be confused with transactions in software or hardware, although you may be surprised to learn that they aren’t totally unrelated! ) is apparently going to try (here at UW) to see if there is any juice behind his interpretation by looking for possible violations of quantum theory in the form of retrocasual signals. In related news Andrew Steane has an intriguing paper out on foundational questions where he pursues ideas similar to the transactional interpetation (quant-ph/0611047). Me? I love the transaction interpretation because mucking with time really makes my head spin (and time is such a strange, strange beast!)

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IQING 5 Registration Open

Michael Bremner writes that registration for IQING 5 is now open (new website: http://iqoqi003.uibk.ac.at/users/x22440/IQING5)

The fifth Informal Quantum INformation Gathering (IQING 5) is taking place in Innsbruck on April 11 – 14 2007. IQING 5 will bring together young researchers working in the field of quantum information science so that they can discuss their research in an informal environment.
Junior postdocs, PhD students, and Diploma/MSc students working on theoretical or experimental quantum information science are invited to attend. All participants are strongly encouraged to submit an abstract for a presentation.
Registration is due by the 31st of December 2006 (midnight GMT). Notification of acceptance will be given by the 31st of January 2007.
The organizers anticipate that there will be a limited accommodation subsidy available for those who need it.
The organizers would like to thank the University of Innsbruck, IQOQI, QAP, and SCALA for supporting this workshop

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Reed Talk

Tomorrow I’m heading down to Portland, Oregon to give a talk at Reed College. What, you’ve never heard of Reed? Shame on you! Why should you have heard of it? Because it produces an astounding number of excellent students who go on to graduate school. In fact the leading institutions for producing undergraduates who go on to get Ph.D.’s (per capita) are 1. Caltech, 2. Harvey Mudd, and 3. Reed. (For details see this page. At Caltech, 42 out of every 100 undergraduates go on to get a Ph.D., a truly astoundingly high number.)

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Washington Education Roundup

And now for something a little different 🙂 Yeah I’m growing tired of complaining about fault-tolerant haters too 😉
This article in the New York Times highlights concerns about math education here in the great state of Washington. Money quote:

In part, the math wars have grown out of a struggle between professional mathematicians, who say too many American students never master basic math skills, and math educators, who say children who construct their own problem-solving strategies retain their math skills better than those who just memorize the algorithm that produces the correct answer.

Which of course is silly. Mastery of basic math skills AND construction of their own problem-solving strategies is important for math education. It’s not an OR sort of game. Sadly I think “construction of their own problem-solving strategies” is a proxy for “water down the curriculum” while at the same time “mastery of basic math skills” is proxy for “only accepting answers done by the accepted algorithm.” Both are anoying as heck.
In related news, extremely long time readers of this blog are familiar with the WIT: the Washington Institute of Technology. WIT is my dream university which I’m planning on founding once I find the necessary billions of dollars to get it started. Well I’d better hurry up because the beginnings of a movement to build a polytechnic here in Washington: Seattle Times article here.