Posts

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My Last Name

It’s Bacon! (Warning: the linked site may lead to abnormally clogged arteries.)
Update: From the comments,

Bacon, Bacon, Bacon
www.baconrobots.com – Because the only thing better then Bacon is a hot animatronic lady cooking it for you.
www.ratethebacon.com – A site for bacon lovers who love to talk about bacon.
www.baconspectator.com – Home of the Bacon of the Month Club.
www.craftyplanet.com/bacobuddies.htm – Bacobuddies – how cool is that.
www.blacktable.com/bacon030515.htm – Bacon soap.
www.makinbacon.com/welcome.htm – I’m sorry, but microwaving bacon is just wrong.
www.cookingforengineers.com/article.php?id=3 – Or is it? Scientific Bacon.
www.cockeyed.com/inside/bacon/bacon.html – The economy of bacon.
www.bayoudog.com/04kitchen/bacon.htm – Bacon as heroin.
www.iheartbacon.com – for the Bacon obsessed

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Quantum Computing for Undergrads?

Lately I have been pondering how I would teach quantum computing to computer science undegraduates. Imagine the class was made up of juniors and seniors who are majoring in computer science or computer engineering. How would you teach such a class?
My first thought is that I would attempt to structure the class more around programming and simulating quantum circuits than on the more abstract course that one normally sees in quantum computing. Certainly this would have the advantage of stressing the students previous strengths (leaving out, unfortunately, the theory students. But if they are really destine to be theory students they should try to take the graduate level course, no?) It would also give them hands on access to the abstract ideas of quantum computing. What I’d really like to use for this would be somethign akin to a hardware description language combined with a simulation synthesis tool. It would also be awesome if a CAD tool could also be developed. However, I haven’t seen anything quite resembling this in the quantum simulation world, but I’d certainly be happy to find out if such programs exist.

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Depth or Breadth?

Which would you rather have, breadth or depth? Suppose I give you the choice between the following two directions in experimental research in quantum computing in the next five years: either a few (say ten to thirty) qubits with extremely low decoherence and high control precision (perhaps even a high enough to perform quantum error correction) or a huge number of qubits (say hundreds to thousands to millions) with fairly poor decoherence and control. Assume that in both cases, fabrication can be done with a fairly high degree of sophistication. Of of these two options, which would you perfer to see in the near future?

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D-Wave News

D-Wave Systems, those crazy Vancouverites trying to build a quantum computer, have a new CEO:

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, May 9 /CNW/ – D-Wave, developer of the world’s most advanced computers, has appointed Silicon Valley technology executive and entrepreneur Herbert J. Martin as chief executive officer.

Which makes me dream of the day when I will be able to include in my grant proposal a request for dollars to buy a quantum computer.

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Zen and the Art of Spell Checking

In tonight’s quant-ph a keen eyed colleage finds a paper wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a koan:

Quantum Physics, abstract
quant-ph/0605070
From: Yu Shi [view email]
Date: Sun, 7 May 2006 12:02:44 GMT (16kb)
High Energy Quantum Teleportation Using Neutral Koans

Does this mean that Deepak Chopra was right? 😉
In this sprit:

Two students were watching an atom. One students said to the other: “look the electron is a particle, right?” The other said, “no most definitely a wave!” A wise master came along, so the students decided to ask the master his opinion on the matter. They both discussed with the master why each thought that the electron was what it was. The master thought for a while and then replied: “I’m not a physicist you damn fools.”

On a somewhat related note: This weekend we went to see Julia Sweeney and Ira Glass. Julia Sweeney does quite a routine about losing her religion (part of which is available from a “This American Life” show here here.) At one point in her routine she describes how after leaving her Catholic faith, she learns about all the new age mumbo jumbo. She is very excited by this: a blend of science and religion. But she makes the mistake of getting interested enough to actually go out and learn about quantum theory. Paraphrasing: “sure there is a lot about the behavior of atom particles and waves we don’t understand, but there is no quantum consciousness. Deepak Chopra is full of shit!” Ouch, new age slam!

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The Universe's Machine Language

For those local to Seattle, Seth Lloyd is in town tonight giving a Seattle Science Lecture:

Monday, May 8 at 7:30 pm.
Seth Lloyd: ‘Programming the Universe’
Seth Lloyd is a professor at MIT who works in the vanguard of research in quantum computing – using the quantum mechanical properties of atoms as a computer. He believes once humans have a complete understand the laws of physics, quantum computing will allow a complete understanding of the universe as well. His new book Programming the Universe explains how the creation of the universe involves information processing. His hypotheses bear implications for the evolution vs. intelligent design debate since he argues divine intervention isn’t necessary to produce complexity and life. Downstairs at Town Hall, enter on Seneca Street.

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Fifteen Year Plan

The Economist predicts that in 15 years time there will be quantum computers: “But quantum computing does now seem to be acquiring a momentum of its own. Give it 15 years, and who knows what will result.” Okay, not quite, but there is an article about building quantum computers which can be found here

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Sophisticated Quantitation Assay

A rock star chemist sends me word of a company which has a product calledThe Qubit Quantitation System (You’ll have to say what country you are connecting from to see this page.) Those biologists have stolen our “qubit!” I wonder if they realize that their product will get horrible placement on search engines because they are using a very common and highly linked word. Doesn’t seem like the best strategy to me. (On another note, am I the only one who is annoyed by the word “assay?”)

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Quantum Emerging Technologies

A new journal to watch: ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems?

JETC covers research and development in emerging technologies in computing systems. Major economic and technical challenges are expected to impede the continued scaling of semiconductor devices. This has resulted in the search for alternate mechanical, biological/biochemical, nanoscale electronic, and quantum computing and sensor technologies. As the underlying nanotechnologies continue to evolve in the labs of chemists, physicists, and biologists, it has become imperative for computer scientists and engineers to translate the potential of the basic building blocks (analogous to the transistor) emerging from these labs into information systems.

So far no quantum computing papers, but I think this will be changing very soon.

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One Heck of a Lorentz Transform

When I was little I used to wonder if a long time ago a distant alien race had noticed our little planet and set up a gigantic mirror pointing towards the earth such that we could use superpowerful telescopes to look into our planet’s past. Mostly I remember thinking that it would be cool if this were true and we could see dinosaurs (that was, I believe, the complete and total extent of my own version of the dinosaur fetish that seems to infect so many children.) Of course I was delighted when I discovered many years later the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, who had quite a fetish for mirrors. A memorial quote of Borges on mirrors is from “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”

Then Bioy-Casares recalled that one of the heresiarchs of Uqbar had stated that mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both multiply the numbers of man.

While this is not a quote I can exactly sympathize with, the logic of mirrors holds, I think, some strange consequences. For example, suppose you want to freeze a moment of your life for future generations to look back upon. Well, simply launch a mirror away from you at as close to the speed of light as you can possibly manage. Then some future generation will be able to use this mirror to look back at this moment. (Of course the closeness to which you can launch this mirror to the speed of light will effect how much you have “frozen” this instant.) Of course, you could just as easily take a picture of the moment. But the mirror trick affords a certain sense of security: as long as no one can launch a mirror faster than yours, your mirror is safe. And this only gets better as time goes on (they need a faster mirror than yours to catch up to yours.) Of course the size of the mirror needed might be a little extravegant, and certainly gets worse as a function of time. Why Kodak hasn’t marketed this to cult leaders who wish to preserve their teachings, however, I do not know. 🙂
The reason for this post is completely a function of associative memories: yesterday I was bored, and so I calculated for myself that if you move approximately 1-10^(-39) percent of the speed of light as compared to everyone else, then the event in your frame which has coordinates x=1cm and t=0, would correspond to an event which happened about 14 billion years ago, i.e. at the begining of the big bang. In other words there are reference frames where what is next to you happened at the big bang.
So what physicists/(whatever job title describes what I am) do when they get bored? Well it appears to me to be the same things we thought about when we were little. But now they just involve numbers.