Young, Smart, and Ready to Quantum Compute

I just finished reading Lee Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics. No, I’m not going to review it. What do you think I want the Quantum Pontiff to turn into a gigantic ball of flaming flamable flame wars? (The publisher actually was supposed to send me a copy and may still, but with my moving it may have missed me. But not to worry I went out and bought a copy myself because I couldn’t resist.)
Actually okay here is a two second review. The book is a fast, interesting read and I recommend it to anyone who is curious as to what all the fuss on certain websites is about without having to wade through a vast collection of comment tirades. Contrary to what you might expect, loop quantum gravity is not trumpted up as an alternative to string theory in the book, instead Smolin focuses on what he sees are the challenges string theory faces and then also about how he thinks the sociology of academia causes problems at a time when revolutionary new ideas are needed (which is what Smolin argues is required to get beyond our current status in the search for a quantum theory of gravity.) This later part of the book is interesting irrespective of your views or understanding of string theory and Smolin makes the case that the academic system has a lot of weaknesses when it comes time for truely new physics.
But okay, enought about the contents of the book that I’m not qualified to comment on. Lee Smolin actually mentions quantum computing multiple times in the book. Now first I have to take him to task because I am a nitpicking little son-of-a, and I just can’t help myself. Smolin writes

In 1994, Peter Shor of MIT, who was then a computer scientist at Bell Laboratories, found a remarkable result, which is that a large enough quantum computer would be able to break any code in existence.

Whoops. No, Shor’s algorithm can break the main public key cryptosystems those based on the difficulty of factoring and the discrete logriathm, but there are still public key cryptosystems which are so far resistent to both quantum and classical attacks (like those based on certain shortest vector in a lattice problems.) So quantum computers can’t break any code in existence. But, all is well, because in the next few sentences Smolin pays quantum computer some amazing props:

..Since then money has flooded into the field of quantum computation, as governments do not want to be the last to have their codes borken. This money has supported a new generation of young, very smart scientsits- physicists, computer scientists, and mathematicians. They have created a new field, a blending of physics and computer science, a significant part of which involves a reexcamination of the foundations of quantum mechanics. All of a sudden, quantum computer is hot, with lots of new ideas and results. Some of these results address the concerns about the foundations and many could have been discovered anytime since the 1930s. Here is a clear example of how the suppresion of a field by academic politics can hold up progress for decades

See he called quantum computer people “young” and “very smart!” That’s like being called “cool” in physics language! Now if only quantum computing could follow string theory’s example and populate physics departments across the country. Perhaps those in control of U.S. physics deparments who have hired a number of quantum computing theorists countable on fingers over the last few years have secretely been doing us all a big favor by keeping us from becoming overhyped and overpopulated. Or at least overpopulated.

Canadian Quantum

Quantum Works.

QuantumWorks is a new, NSERC-funded Innovation Platform that links Canadian researchers with industrial and government agency partners to lead Canada into the next technological revolution – that of Quantum Information. Building on established national expertise in quantum cryptography, quantum algorithms and quantum information processing devices, QuantumWorks research programs will provide “made in Canada” breakthroughs, protect them, and promote them to private and public sectors. Through a national training strategy in quantum information, QuantumWorks will ensure that research labs and the work force of tomorrow are populated with quantum-aware graduates. As the Information Age gives way to the Quantum Age, QuantumWorks will ensure that Canada leads the way.

Quantum Age? Don’t they know time is not a hermitian operator in quantum theory? (Okay, David Pegg did define a POVM operator called “age” which is sort of like a conjugate variable to the energy, BTW!)
The Canadians are coming! The Canadians are coming!
(You cannot begin to understand how hard it was to resit putting the word “eh” somewhere in this post 🙂 )

Entangled Superconducting Qubits

Entanglement in two superconducting qubits from UCSB: “Measurement of the Entanglement of Two Superconducting Qubits via State Tomography” Matthias Steffen, M. Ansmann, Radoslaw C. Bialczak, N. Katz, Erik Lucero, R. McDermott, Matthew Neeley, E. M. Weig, A. N. Cleland, and John M. Martinis, Science 313, 1423 (paper here, Science magazine summary here, physics web article here) Note that this is the first demonstration of entanglement in the sense that they have performed tomography on their states (previous results had shown level crossings consistent with entanglement of coupled superconducting circuits.) The authors show a fidelity of 0.87 with the state they were attempting to prepare.

How to Offend a Physics and Literature Major

Chad over at Uncertain Principles points to an article Are Physicists Smart? Disciplined Professionals serve Power. To quote from the article

That is the main reason, in my view, that physicists are stupid: They are unable to perceive complexity, a complexity of the real world that goes far beyond what physics will ever be able to handle in any universe. They are unable to even get a glimpse of the textures and subplots that may be intrinsically incompatible with mathematical description. To them, mathematics is the language of reality, not a mere human invention or genetically delimited _expression. To them, the objective mind is all-powerful and able to open all doors. To them, useful perception is physiological and does not benefit from the uncertainties of one’s emotional state. To the physicist, communication is data transmission, not the subtleties that can only be captured by the right configuration of social and emotional attributes. The physicist deals in hard bits, not the imperceptibles that determine our animal and social lives. The physicist is unaware of his blindness and glibly confident in his perception, especially his perception of himself as systematic unraveller of the truth.

Yep, that’s us physicists, a bunch of stupid cultural illiterates. Indeed.

More Fridays

Four Fidays ago, I got engaged. Three Fidays ago we bought a house. So what could I possibly do two Fridays ago? How about get a puppy? Everyone please welcome, our new puppy, Tess:
Tess
Tess is an eight week old mutt which we got from an animal rescue in Yakima, Washington. It was interesting trying to find a mutt puppy in Seattle. Where I grew up, in the country, there were mutt puppies all over the place. Mostly this was because many of the dogs were not neutered or spayed in the country. Now in the city, however, it seems that things are much different and nearly everyone spays or neuters their dogs. So there are a lot fewer unplanned puppies in the city. Hence, in order to get a mutt puppy, we had to travel all the way to Yakima! But Tess was certainly worth it. She is definitely a mutt, probably lab mixed with rottweiler mixed with who knows what. Here she enjoys the good life at Villa Sophia:
Tess Sleeps
And of course, I haven’t told you about last Friday. Last Friday, I was taken out to dinner and proposed to! And, because she had all eady said yes to my proposal, you can guess that my answer was also yes. At the dinner I received an incredibly cool engagement watch. One cool feature of the watch is that it has no batteries and never has to be wound. It has been about five years since I wore a watch. That’s a long time to go without time!

Mass Increase in Canadian Blackberry Hole

Michael Nielsen (no, not that Michael Nielsen, this one) to join the Perimeter Institute in May 2007 (more here.) It’s not quite all the way on the other side of the world from Brisbane (which is somewhere in the Atlantic ocean), but it is pretty close. Congrats Michael!

Oh, the Gall!

Back when I TAed physics, I used to tell the students that a huge chunk of physics was simply having the gall to believe that you could get the answer. In other words, “confidence is key!” (Of course this probably also leads to the well known problem of extralusionary intelligence)
In this spirit, here is an article in the Washington Post about gender stereotypes and scores on a math test. In the 90s a series of experiments showed that if you made students identify their sex (or race) on an exam then this would cause their scores on math tests to change, causing, for example, females scores to fall. The thinking here, of course, is that recalling your gender might also recall the negative stereotypes which are place on females in math. Well what the Washington Post article describes is what happens if you do the opposite. What happens if you ask questions before the exam which remind the students of their postive attributes. Well, the WaPo reports that a recent study found that in fact in this case the male test scores stayed the same and the female test scores increased such that they were indistinguishable from the male test scores! Having the gall to believe you could possibly be smart is, indeed, it seems very important. (I had an English teacher in middle school who used to berate the students for making fun of people who were doing well in class. “Why wouldn’t you want to get good grades?” she would ask. Thanks Mrs. Perry!)