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Intergalactic Planetary

Paul Krugman proves that not only is a bad ass economist, but that he is also a pretty cool guy:

Thirty years ago I was an oppressed assistant professor, caught up in the academic rat race. To cheer myself up I wrote — well, see for yourself. Joshua Gans of the University of Melbourne scanned a copy of the thing I wrote — back then academics did their work with typewriters, abacuses, and stone axes — and was good enough to send me a copy. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Theory of Interstellar Trade.

I wonder what the equivalent of that paper is for quantum computing? Oh, wait, ALL our theory papers are like “The Theory of Interstellar Trade.”

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In Conclusion…Can You Hold For a Second?

How cut-throat is arXiv:0803.0272? This cut-throat (taken from v2 of the paper):

X. CONCLUSION AND FURTHER READING
This section will be completed when our error correction simulations have generated more data.

Reminds me of my idea to write a paper and submit it to the arxiv entitled “An Efficient Quantum Algorithm for the Graph Isomorphism Problem.” Sure, version 1, won’t have the algorithm, but hey, why should I make you wait?

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March Meeting Summary

I’m heading home from the March meeting, after giving my talk this morning and then having a nice lunch with graduate (and one undergraduate) students at a “Meet the Experts” lunch. Yeah, somehow I slipped by the guards! Luckily a real expert was there, in the form of Paul Kwiat, so all was good and the students didn’t learn anything to disastrous. “What I learned at the March meeting” below the fold.
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Qubits, Qbits, qbits, qubits, q-bits, and light nanoseconds

Hurray! My letter to Physics Today along with a delightful response from N. David Mermin has been published. I particularly enjoyed Mermin’s closing line:

It may be quixotic (but certainly not Qxotic) to try to correct the spelling of an entire community, but I owe it my best shot. What else is retirement good for?

Sweet! Now I can check off from my list of things to do in life: “Get published in Physics Today over issues related to my literature degree.”

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Twins in Donut Space

Visiting Princeton, the American home to Albert Einstein, I’m reminded of one of my favorite “paradoxes” of special relativity. And, even more so, one of my favorite versions of this paradox which, when I first heard it, it blew my mind. What paradox is this of which I speak? The twin paradox of course! Really just the plain old twin paradox? No. Much better than that: the twin paradox in donut space!
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This Side of Paradise

Visiting the Princeton Center for Theoretical Physics. Talk Wednesday morning (slides posted later.) The car driver claimed to have taken Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Larde to the airport last week.
Update 3/5/08: Talk is now posted here.