Pascal’s Wager is a classic for those who want to argue about the existence of God, but now, according to Peter L. Bernstein, of the New York Times, we should be using it for financial risk calculations. Say what?
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Mario Theme….with an RC Car?
Real? I always wanted to design bumps in the road so that vibrations in your car would say something when you went over them…
Blak Holz Eatn My Worlsd! Update
rpenner passes on some of the latest news on the black hole lawsuit against the LHC:
Update: The trial has been scheduled for June 2009….
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=4830&view=findpost&p=349304
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=4830&view=findpost&p=349685
and
Update: LHC Saftey Assessment Group releases two papers.
http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/LSAG-Report.pdf
http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/CERN-PH-TH_2008-025.pdf
Update 6/23: Oh noes! The Optimizer wants to kill us all!
Shark Versus Octopus
Place your bets…
Woke Up, Got Out of Bed, Dragged a Comb Across my Head
One of the most amusing things about writing a blog is that people you’ve never met form an impression about you from your blabberings, and then, often, when they actually meet you they are astounded that you aren’t “an old grumpy guy” or whatever image they had in their mind. So, in order to confuse you even more, here are some things which I’ve been reading and thinking about and doing while not working on efficient quantum algorithms for the hidden subgroup problem.
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Graceful Error Handling?
Running a process to fix the utf-8 support on scirate.com using the unix “screen” command I got the following crash:
Suddenly the Dungeon collapses!! - You die...
Doh!
Tiger Versus the Theoreticians
David Brooks, has an op-ed in the New York Times about Tiger Woods and his astonishing string of triumphs in the golfing world (including last weekends U.S. Open which I watched the end of on both Saturday and Sunday: my wife was right he did make that last put.) Brooks piece waxes on and on about the Tiger’s ability to concentrate
And for that, in this day and age, he stands out. As I’ve been trying to write this column, I’ve toggled over to check my e-mail a few times. I’ve looked out the window. I’ve jotted down random thoughts for the paragraphs ahead. But Woods seems able to mute the chatter that normal people have in their heads and build a tunnel of focused attention.
Now Tiger’s concentration level is definitely astounding (and his combination of hard work, athletic talent, and mental toughness is certainly unmatched in golf), but I wonder if David Brooks every seen a theoretician or mathematician working?
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Rhythm is a Quantum Concatenated Code
I do believe this is the first time I’ve performed the paper dance on the scienceblogs incarnation of this blog. Yep, it’s that time again: it’s the paper dance!
“A far away light in the futuristic place we might be; It’s a tiny world just big enough to support the kingdom of one knowledgeable; I feel a wave of loneliness and head back down I’m going too fast (I’m going too fast)”
arXiv:0806.2160
The Stability of Quantum Concatenated Code Hamiltonians
Authors: D. Bacon
Abstract: Protecting quantum information from the detrimental effects of decoherence and lack of precise quantum control is a central challenge that must be overcome if a large robust quantum computer is to be constructed. The traditional approach to achieving this is via active quantum error correction using fault-tolerant techniques. An alternative to this approach is to engineer strongly interacting many-body quantum systems that enact the quantum error correction via the natural dynamics of these systems. Here we present a method for achieving this based on the concept of concatenated quantum error correcting codes. We define a class of Hamiltonians whose ground states are concatenated quantum codes and whose energy landscape naturally causes quantum error correction. We analyze these Hamiltonians for robustness and suggest methods for implementing these highly unnatural Hamiltonians.
Drunkard's Tennis and the Advice of Winners
Writing grants and teaching, not to mention trying to get some actual research done, has taken up a considerable amount of my time this quarter. I mean, sheesh, I’ve barely had any time to read! This has, of course, made me grumpy. So when the publisher of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
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Lies, Damn Lies, and New York Times Graphics
The New York Times has a policy on anonymous sources. Great! But do they have a policy on statistics? They certainly need it. I mean, take a look at the graphic from an article on women and smart phones:
Continue reading “Lies, Damn Lies, and New York Times Graphics”