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Will the Real Reason For Quantum Theory Please Stand Up?

Michael Nielsen has a nice essay up explaining Why the world needs quantum mechanics:

Conventional wisdom holds that quantum mechanics is hard to learn. This is more or less correct, although often overstated. However, the necessity of abandoning conventional ways of thinking about the world, and finding a radically new way – quantum mechanics – can be understood by any intelligent person willing to spend some time concentrating hard. Conveying that understanding is the purpose of this essay.

For a good explanation of Bell inequalities, jump to Michael’s essay.
Continue reading “Will the Real Reason For Quantum Theory Please Stand Up?”

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Closed Timelike Mathematicians

John Baez points to a remarkable mathematician (having being lead there by Alissa Crans):

You may have heard of the Mathematics Genealogy Project. This is a wonderful database that lets you look up the Ph.D. advisor and students of almost any mathematician. This is how I traced back my genealogy to Gauss back in week166.
I was feeling pretty proud of myself, too — until I found someone who had two Ph.D. students before he was even born!
Yes indeed: our friend and café regular Tom Leinster is listed as having two Ph.D. students: Jose Cruz in 1959, and Steven Sample in 1965. At the time he was teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Later he took an extended sabbatical, got born in England, and transferred to kindergarten. After a lively second career as a youth, he returned to academia and got his Ph.D. at Cambridge under Martin Hyland in 2000. He now has a permanent position at the University of Glasgow. But who can say what he’ll do next?
Check it out soon, since it may go away.

And yes I posted this just so I could used the words “closed timelike mathematicians.”

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Quantum Computing Room on Friendfeed

For those of you who aren’t afraid of “uberconnected web 2.0”-ing, I’ve set up a quantum computing room on friendfeed. “For those with nothing better to do than contemplate the one true theory of computation.”

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Now With 1.4 Percent More Physicists!

A new Scienceblog: Built on Facts. Sweet, more physicists:

Matt Springer is a graduate student of physics at Texas A&M university. He is also an occasional writer and tinkerer, and he is probably too curious for his own good.

It’s a good think he’s not a cat, eh?

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Not Cuil

Sure quantum computers can find a needle in an unstructured haystack quadratically faster than their classical brethren, but I didn’t think the word “quantum” and “search” would appear in the press quite this soon: Ex-Googlers reinvent web search: Quantum porn (not safe for work! i.e. they show the quantum porn!) and Quantum porn engine foiled by strawberries and muffins: How the Cuil kids live. And yes, I “cuil”ed my own name, and no, this blog doesn’t come up (nor any quantum porn.)

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Change We Believe In, But Tenure?

Turning down a tenured position at the University of Chicago Law School:

Soon after, the faculty saw an opening and made him its best offer yet: Tenure upon hiring. A handsome salary, more than the $60,000 he was making in the State Senate or the $60,000 he earned teaching part time. A job for Michelle Obama directing the legal clinic.
Your political career is dead, Daniel Fischel, then the dean, said he told Mr. Obama, gently. Mr. Obama turned the offer down. Two years later, he decided to run for the Senate. He canceled his course load and has not taught since.

File this one away in regards to (1) deans don’t always know what they are talking about and (2) turning down a tenured position has the potential of leading you to be one of the two leading candidates for the position of president of the United States.
You who are reading this, could you make a similar such decision?

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The Bar Scene

Someone at Caltech’s PR office sure was having fun:

Caltech Astronomers Describe the Bar Scene at the Beginning of the Universe
PASADENA, Calif.–Bars abound in spiral galaxies today, but this was not always the case. A group of 16 astronomers, led by Kartik Sheth of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, has found that bars tripled in number over the past seven billion years, indicating that spiral galaxies evolve in shape.

Oh, I can tell you all about the bar scene near Caltech. Dive bar: The Colorado. Beer for graduate students: Lucky Baldwin’s. Quantum margarita night: Amigos. Quantum beer night: drive five hours north to Albatross in Berkeley, CA.