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2010 MacArthur Awards

The 2010 MacArthur Fellows have been announced. Among them are a physics teacher, a quantum astrophysicist, an optical physicist, a biophysicist, and a computer security expert:

  • Amir Abo-Shaeer Physics Teacher inspiring and preparing public high school students for careers in science and mathematics through an innovative curriculum that integrates applied physics, engineering, and robotics.
  • John Dabiri Biophysicist investigating the hydrodynamics of jellyfish propulsion, which has profound implications for our understanding of evolutionary adaptation and such related issues in fluid dynamics as blood flow in the human heart.
  • Michal Lipson Optical Physicist working at the intersection of fundamental photonics and nanofabrication engineering to design silicon-based photonic circuits that are paving the way for practical optical computing devices.
  • Nergis Mavalvala
    Quantum Astrophysicist linking optics, condensed matter, and quantum mechanics in research that enhances our ability to detect and quantify gravitational radiation.
  • Dawn Song Computer Security Specialist exploring the deep interactions among software, hardware, and networks to increase the stability of computer systems vulnerable to remote attack or interference.

A good year for physics…well if you want to buck the feelings of the old codgers and insist physics does not just equal particle physics. I guess it no longer takes a genius to do particle theory (just a context free grammar generator?) Just kidding fellows 🙂

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NRC (not really correct?) Graduate School Rankings

The NRC graduate school ranks are due out tomorrow, September 29. For those who don’t know, the last NRC ranking was in 1995 and the latest is much delayed (I.e. the “data” such as it is is already out of date.) Departments have been given access to the data for a week now but have been under embargo. As a blogger it is a moral imperative to search the inter tubes for leaks of this data. Surprisingly there has been little leaked, but today I’m proud to say that my own UW, while not technically breaking the embargo (okay maybe they have :)) has some info out about their forthcoming rankings. Now I’m probably definitely biased but I can pretty safely say that the UW CS ranking is off by a bit:

The NRC assessment of UW Computer Science & Engineering is based on clearly erroneous data. The assessment is meaningless, and in no way representative of the accomplishments of UW CSE. Errors in the data affect (at least) UW CSE, many other computer science programs nationally, and many programs in other fields at the University of Washington.
During the week of September 19th, NRC provided pre-release access to its long-delayed “Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States,” scheduled for public release during the week of September 26th.
We, along with colleagues in other computer science programs nationally and colleagues in programs in other fields at the University of Washington, quickly discovered significant flaws of three types in NRC’s data:

  • Instances in which the data reported by NRC is demonstrably incorrect, sometimes by very substantial margins.
  • Instances in which the accuracy of the data cannot easily be checked, but it does not pass even a rudimentary sanity check.
  • Instances in which institutions interpreted NRC’s data reporting guidelines differently, yielding major inconsistencies.

Here are three specific examples affecting UW CSE:

  • Due to difficulty in interpreting NRC’s instructions, NRC was provided with an incorrect faculty list for our program – essentially, a list that included anyone who had served as a member of a Ph.D. committee. In 2006 (the reporting year), UW CSE had roughly 40 faculty members by any reasonable definition. In the NRC study, our “total faculty” size is listed as 91 and our “allocated faculty size” (roughly, full time equivalent) as 62.5. A large number of these “additional faculty” were industrial colleagues – whose “academic records” (including grants, publications, and awards) were quantitatively evaluated by NRC as if these individuals were full members of our faculty. Since faculty size is the denominator in many measures computed by NRC, you can imagine the result – clearly erroneous.
  • NRC reports UW CSE with 0% of graduate students “having academic plans” for 2001-05 (the reporting period for this measure). In fact, 40% of our graduating Ph.D. students took full-time faculty positions during this period. We are one of the top programs nationally in producing faculty members for major departments; in recent years our graduates have taken faculty positions at Berkeley, CMU, MIT, Princeton, Cornell, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Penn, Waterloo, Toronto, WashU, UCSD, Northwestern, UCLA, UBC, Maryland, Georgia Tech, UMass-Amherst, and many other outstanding programs. NRC obtained this number from an outside data provider; it’s clearly erroneous.
  • NRC reports UW CSE as having 0.09 “awards per allocated faculty member.” The erroneous faculty count is not sufficient to explain this, given that our faculty includes 14 ACM Fellows, 10 IEEE Fellows, 3 AAAI Fellows, 14 Sloan Research Fellowship recipients, a MacArthur Award winner, two NAE members, 27 NSF CAREER Award winners, etc. We don’t know where NRC obtained this data, but it’s clearly erroneous.
    The University of Washington reported these issues to NRC when the pre-release data was made available, and asked NRC to make corrections prior to public release. NRC declined to do so. We and others have detected and reported many other anomalies and inaccuracies in the data during the pre-release week.

The widespread availability of the badly flawed pre-release data within the academic community, and NRC’s apparent resolve to move forward with the public release of this badly flawed data, have caused us and others to take action – hence this statement. Garbage In, Garbage Out – this assessment is based on clearly erroneous data. For our program – and surely for many others – the results are meaningless.

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More Postdocs, Conferences, Oh My!

Singapore/Oxford quantum nanoscience postdoc:

ADVERT: Two postdocs in Quantum Nanoscience Theory: Fundamental physics and high-level structures.
The two postdoctoral researchers in the theory of quantum information and technologies will be appointed to work jointly in Singapore and in Oxford, UK. The researchers will be employed by the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) in Singapore, but will spend up to 10 months each year working in the University of Oxford. The appointments are for 3 years, and form part of a larger initiative on quantum nanoscience. The annual salary is up to $86,000 Singapore dollars (approx. $63,800) plus housing benefits. Each individual will be supervised by two of the following researchers: Simon Benjamin, Bob Coecke, Dieter Jaksch, Vlatko Vedral. The posts are available immediately and will be advertised until they are filled. It is hoped that the appointees will be in post on or before the 4th Jan 2011.  For more information including further particulars and selection criteria please email Irene Tan <irene.tan [atatat] nus.edu.sg>.
Further particulars:
http://www.quantumlah.org/openings/QuantumNanoscienceFurtherParticulars.pdf
Selection criteria:
http://www.quantumlah.org/openings/QuantumNanoscienceSelectionCriteria.pdf

Are you good at quantum information theory?  BBN:

Title: Quantum Optical Information Theorist
Department: Disruptive Information Processing Technologies
Location: Cambridge MA
Raytheon BBN Technologies’ Disruptive Information Processing Technologies Business Unit, located in Cambridge, MA, is seeking a qualified theorist with a strong background in quantum optics and information theory. The ideal candidate should have a good working knowledge of Fourier optics, optical imaging, stochastic processes, estimation theory, digital communications and coding theory, and be familiar with quantum measurement theory. The candidate will join a highly entrepreneurial group of researchers advancing optical communications and imaging technologies by pursuing an in-depth study of the fundamental limits on the information carrying capacity of light waves. The candidate will work with experts in quantum information theory in leading efforts in developing a deep understanding of designing quantum-limited optical communications and imaging systems, and will also provide strong theory support to diverse new and existing efforts on quantum, atomic, superconducting and optical phenomena. Position responsibilities will include building and developing novel information theoretical understanding of quantum optical systems, as well as working closely with experimentalists to perform modeling and simulation of advanced concepts in a system environment.

And Howard sends a note for a conference in Florida in April with an abstract due date of Oct. 2010:

I encourage you and your students and/or associates to participate in the conference QUANTUM INFORMATION AND COMPUTATION IX (DS216) to be held during the SPIE International Symposium on Defense, Security and Sensing, 25-29 April 2011 in Orlando, Florida, USA.
Please see the website: http://spie.org/ds216

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"I sound my lonely trumpet in the dark trying to relax at the edge of precipice which once again faces me"

Steve sends me this gem, arXiv:0905.1039.  The title of this blog post being a line from the paper:

Citation entropy and research impact estimation
Z.K. Silagadze
A new indicator, a real valued $s$-index, is suggested to characterize a quality and impact of the scientific research output. It is expected to be at least as useful as the notorious $h$-index, at the same time avoiding some its obvious drawbacks. However, surprisingly, the $h$-index is found to be quite a good indicator for majority of real-life citation data with their alleged Zipfian behaviour for which these drawbacks do not show up. The style of the paper was chosen deliberately somewhat frivolous to indicate that any attempt to characterize the scientific output of a researcher by just one number always has an element of a grotesque game in it and should not be taken too seriously. I hope this frivolous style will be perceived as a funny decoration only.

I wonder if this will provoke a response from my dear friend the Sad Physicist?

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Quantum Singapore Postdoc Lah

Quantum postdoc on (or at least near) the equator where you can watch the moon rise on the horizon and wonder “who tilted the moon?” (unless, of course you have previously lived a low latitude!):

Postdoctoral Position in Quantum Information
Applications are invited for a postdoctoral position in Quantum Information at the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT), Singapore.  The position is associated with the research group of Stephanie Wehner and located at CQT on the campus of the National University of Singapore. CQT is one of the leading centres for quantum information in the world, and there is ample opportunity to interact with many senior researchers. The successful applicant will be able to host some of his/her own collaborators and perform independent travel, facilitating the steps to becoming an independent researcher.
Candidates should be creative, highly motivated, and interested to work in an interdisciplinary and very collaborative environment. The candidate will have a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, theoretical computer science or mathematics and a strong background in quantum information theory, quantum cryptography or related fields of research.
Applications with a full CV, list of publications, a brief statement of research interests (one page) and names and electronic contact details of three referees should be sent via email to Stephanie Wehner (wehner [atatatar] nus.edu.sg). Application deadline is the 1st of November 2010.  The position is available starting 1 January 2011 (starting date negotiable). Later applications will be considered if the position is not filled.

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Automated Robot Paper Dance

It’s the paper dance, done automagically (one of the authors is a Dancing Machine, the other, not so much):

arXiv:1009.2203 [scirate arxiv]
Automated searching for quantum subsystem codes by Gregory M. Crosswhite, Dave Bacon
Quantum error correction allows for faulty quantum systems to behave in an effectively error free manner. One important class of techniques for quantum error correction is the class of quantum subsystem codes, which are relevant both to active quantum error correcting schemes as well as to the design of self-correcting quantum memories. Previous approaches for investigating these codes have focused on applying theoretical analysis to look for interesting codes and to investigate their properties. In this paper we present an alternative approach that uses computational analysis to accomplish the same goals. Specifically, we present an algorithm that computes the optimal quantum subsystem code that can be implemented given an arbitrary set of measurement operators that are tensor products of Pauli operators. We then demonstrate the utility of this algorithm by performing a systematic investigation of the quantum subsystem codes that exist in the setting where the interactions are limited to 2-body interactions between neighbors on lattices derived from the convex uniform tilings of the plane.

With pictures:

and with code to boot: http://github.com/gcross/CodeQuest/downloads.

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Beyond Postdocalypse

Even more postdocs 🙂 Peter Love from Haverford College has postdocs for quantum simulation, the most important, yet with apologies to those who have made major progress in this field, still least understood portion of quantum algorithms.  Which is why you should do this postdoc and help us all understand the power of quantum simulation:

Postdoctoral position in Quantum Information
Applications are invited for a postdoctoral research position in quantum information at Haverford College.  The successful applicant will work with Peter Love and collaborators on the development of methods for the simulation of quantum systems on quantum computers, but will also be able to pursue their own research agenda. Applications of particular interest include methods for quantum chemistry, including electronic
structure and chemical reactions.  Candidates must hold a Ph.D. in Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Computer Science or other relevant subject by the starting date.
Haverford College, located 10 miles from downtown Philadelphia, is one of the country’s leading liberal arts colleges.  Its Physics and astronomy program emphasizes research both in and out of the classroom. The Departments of Physics and astronomy comprise seven faculty and three existing postdoctoral scholars. The qualified and interested applicant will have the option to participate in this program by advising undergraduate research students and possibly teaching within the physics department.
The initial appointment will be for one year, with possible extension to three years.  The position is available to begin on the 1st January 2011, but the starting date is negotiable.  Applicants should send a cover letter, CV, bibliography, and a statement of research experience and interest, and arrange to have at least two letters of recommendation sent
to:
Peter Love
Department of Physics, KINSC
Haverford College
370 Lancaster Avenue
Haverford PA 19041
Applications received by Nov. 1 2010 will be given full consideration, but will be accepted until the position is filled.
Included Benefits:
A full benefits package is provided with this job.  The full dental coverage and maternity leave begin after one year of employment.

And as always, the best postdoc positions around, okay so I’m biased…the Omidyar Postdocs at the Santa Fe Institute:

The Omidyar Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Santa Fe Institute offers you:

  • – unparalleled intellectual freedom
  • – transdisciplinary collaboration with leading researchers worldwide
  • – up to three years in residence in Santa Fe, NM
  • – competitive salary and generous benefits
  • – discretionary research and collaboration funds
  • – individualized mentorship and preparation for your next leadership role
  • – an intimate, creative work environment with an expansive sky

The Omidyar Fellowship at the Santa Fe Institute is unique among postdoctoral appointments. The Institute has no formal programs or departments. Research is collaborative and spans the physical, natural, and social sciences. Most research is theoretical and/or computational in nature, although may include an empirical component. SFI averages 15 resident faculty, 95 external faculty, and 250 visitors per year. Descriptions of the research themes and interests of the faculty and current Fellows can be found at http://www.santafe.edu/research.
Requirements:

  • – a Ph.D. in any discipline (or expect to receive one by September 2011)
  • – computational and quantitative skills
  • – an exemplary academic record
  • – a proven ability to work independently and collaboratively
  • – a demonstrated interest in multidisciplinary research
  • – evidence of the ability to think outside traditional paradigms

Applications are welcome from:

  • – candidates from any country
  • – candidates from any discipline
  • – women and minorities, as they are especially encouraged to apply.

SFI is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Application Materials:
Interested candidates must submit the following:

  1. Curriculum vitae (including publications list).
  2. Statement of research interests (max. 2 pages) to include a short description of the research you would like to pursue and why.
  3. Description of interest in SFI (max. 1 page) that describes your potential contribution to the SFI community and also explains the potential impact of SFI on your research. Consider addressing one or more of the following: What sort of input from other fields would most improve your future research? What type of multidisciplinary workshop might you want to organize during your Fellowship? What aspects of your present or future research are difficult to pursue in a traditional academic environment?
  4. Three letters of recommendation from scholars who know your work. (The letters should be sent independent of the application. When you complete the online application, please be prepared to provide e-mail addresses of the three individuals who will recommend you. SFI will contact them directly with instructions for submitting letters.)
  5. (Optional) A copy of one paper you have written in English, either published or unpublished.

The Omidyar Fellowship at the Santa Fe Institute is made possible by a generous gift from Pam and Pierre Omidyar.
The Santa Fe Institute is a private, independent, multidisciplinary research and education center founded in 1984. Since its founding, SFI has devoted itself to creating a new kind of scientific research community, pursuing emerging synthesis in science. Operating as a visiting institution, SFI seeks to catalyze new collaborative, multidisciplinary research; to break down the barriers between the traditional disciplines; to spread its ideas and methodologies to other institutions; and to encourage the practical application of its results.
To apply:
Online application site open 1 Sept – 1 Nov 2010.
We ONLY accept online applications via the online-application site.
To begin your online application click HERE
Inquiries: email to (Javascript must be enabled to see this e-mail address) // < ![CDATA[
document.write('ofellowshipinfo@santafe.edu’)
// ]]>ofellowshipinfo [atatat] santafe.edu

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TEDxCaltech

Oh wow, very cool.  TEDxCaltech (http://tedxcaltech.com/):

On Friday, 14 January 2011, Caltech is hosting TEDxCaltech, an exciting one-day event to honor Richard Feynman—Nobel Laureate, Caltech physics professor, iconoclast, visionary, and all-around “curious character.” You won’t want to miss a minute. Stay tuned for more details.

Via @seanmcarroll.  Here is the YouTube teaser:

Oh I would absolutely love to see this. And, “Dear organizers, Please make sure Scott Aaronson is one of your speakers as he is clearly the Richard Feynman of the modern era (without the bongos, I think.)”

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Homogeneous

Down the rabbit hole of universes I dread…
Opening up the daily scientific journal of Oct 23, 2051, a torrent of computer modern fonted journal articles confront me with yet more additions to the proven facts of the Human and Robot American Republic’s known knowledge. New bits xored into the database of that which is true, to be consumed by the rational robots that govern our modern libretarian robotocracy.
Switching on the music now, the artificial intelligence picks out a song guaranteed to satisfy my previous preferences, clustering me into a machine learned sisyphusian hell, from which esape isn’t even listed on the menu of options. How soothed the past feels, served up one associative memory inspired lyric at a time…with catchy bridge lyrics too boot!
But short this entertainment must last, for the advertising dollars that are being lost not peddling to my immediate virtual surroundings the ABSOLUTE bargain that is a Google sponsored cruise to the port of Long Beach. Buy it now, see cargo shipped through direct express tubes to the heartland of America! Witness the end result of the optimal combinatorial solution to economic policy, executed within epsilon of the NP-hard solution.
But all of this is, of course, just a distraction from the true meaning of life: to appear unfiltered on national YouTube. To live, alas to be viral, among the social webs, that truely is the one goal that will make life worth living. A life lived adored by millions justifying any lack of substance, for what is substance if not another check mark in the list of known knowledge?
To sleep now, a day spent pushing the epsilons of an optimized marketing drive, epsilon small but multiplied by billions. Dreams now of Superman III, and salami slices so thin yet so numerous that they even evade the IRS. Sweet dreams to influence my vote, sweet dreams to keep me warm during everything but at night. Sleep. Sleep.