Category: Quantum Computing
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It looks like the talks for QIP 2010 are now online.. Sweet, my television for the next few weeks. Well okay the Olympics may sneak in there (and jez NBC really stinks it up: I've never seen a network make men's downhill so boring...if you're going to short the west coast by not showing the events live don't you have a responsibility to at least do a good job? Please, please, Olympic committee let ESPN get the next contract.)
Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:02 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bacon • Quantum
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And here I thought I was the king (err Pontiff) of quantum Bacon, but no: follow @kenfagerdotcom on twitter who describes himself as "Inventor of Quantum Bacon and accomplished lover."
Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:59 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Extralusionary Intelligence • Off The Deep End • Physics • Read You Tweed • Science • Words
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In the New York Times today there is an interesting article about Helene Hegemann whose debut novel, "Axolotl Roadkill," drew wide praise. You know this story: turns out that the book contains plagiarized passages (plagiarism: check, sales rising: check.) What I find fascinating about the story, however, is not this rehash of a tried and true marketing tactic, but Ms. Hegemann's defense of herself, summarized in this quote:
"There's no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity," said Ms. Hegemann in a statement released by her publisher after the scandal broke.
Why do I love this quote? Well first of all I love her use of the word "authenticity," by which she certainly means a definition of the word "authentic" along the lines of: "true to one's own personality, spirit, or character." In this view of the word, if what you do rings true with others, well then you are legit. But, amusingly, authentic also means "not false or imitation"---a definition the victims of her plagiarism might find a bit off. Even more amusingly the word "authentic" has an etymology from the Greek "authentēs" meaning perpetrator or master. Ah, the forms of language, how I love thee!
But beyond her garbled defense, I also find the quote fascinating because of Ms. Hegemann use of the Ecclesiastes defense:
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun - Ecclesiastes 1:9-14
(Google this passage leads you to such fascinating acts of logic flagellation as
"If there is nothing new under the sun, how is it possible for people to keep finding new interpretations of Scripture?".) I've always found this passage, and this view of the world, to be a uniquely human bastardization of what we see going on around us in the universe. Now certainly what Ms. Hegemann means in this sentence is that all literature is---must be---derived from past works: that all the good ideas have already been written about. She might even believe that her version is better (cue
Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote)!
But to me what this view of literature shows is a vast narrowness in thinking about originality in the world. It makes me wonder, for example if Ms. Hegemann has ever picked up a copy of the glossy journal "Science"? For example, in the copy of this rag sitting beside me in this coffee shop I find the article Faintest Thrum Heralds Quantum Machines. This New Focus article describes recent work on cooling quantum systems spatial degrees of freedom to their ground state (which apparently the group at UCSB has achieved...no paper yet!) Now I'm not going to argue that today we are faced with a glut of repetitious rehashing of the multitudes of ideas, acts, and creations of the past. But we are also surrounded by a glorious amount of new creation: today scientists have created a large mechanical device which is so cold that it has a single quanta of energy. Baring knowledge of a vast alien civilization among whom this achievement was a past record, this seems to me a singular original act.
Everywhere I look, I see original acts: homomorphic encryption, a field effect transistor in graphene, and the imprint of the Lie Group E8 on an experiment describing a perturbation of the transverse Ising model. Nothing original Ms. Hegemann? I beg to differ.
But Ms. Hegemann probably shouldn't feel that bad. I mean, she's got great company in her mistaken view of originality. Quote "Sonnet 59":
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child.
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'er better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O, sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
Yes, dear Shakespeare, you plagiarized, borrowed, rehashed, and "mixed" Greek tragedies. But you were dead wrong about your not being an original. And today those who can't see the original in the world, well, perhaps they just need to change their job over from novelist over to today's more creative work force: scientist.
Posted by Dave Bacon at 2:13 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science 2.0
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Anyone tried out MoboMath?
MoboMath lets you work with math on a computer exactly as you learned it -- by writing it. MoboMath translates your handwritten math input into a formatted layout that can be used in Microsoft Word, Maple, and many other popular applications.
Instead of struggling with keyboard and palette input, you can create and edit math expressions for technical documents, calculations, presentations, and web pages in your own handwriting. It's fast, simple, and intuitive.
Using a tablet PC or an external tablet, just write your expressions as you normally would with your tablet's pen. Then convert them to a formatted math layout with a single tap and copy or drag them into your documents or worksheets.
Don't have a tablet right now or I'd test it out.
Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:50 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bacon
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Jorge and Mark send along some Bacon news:
Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:36 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Quantum Computing • Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.
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Shameless self-promotion: an article I wrote with Wim van Dam, "Recent Progress on Quantum Algorithms" has appeared in the Communications of the ACM. Indeed if you have a copy of the magazine you can check out an artists rendition of a quantum computer/quantum algorithm on the cover. Clearly quantum computing is the new string theory: so abstract that it must be represented by beautiful, yet incomprehensible, figures. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. (The article was actually written quite a bit back, so "recent" is a bit off. If we had to write it today I'm guessing we would include the quantum algorithm for linear equations as well as the quantum Metropolis algorithm.)
Posted by Dave Bacon at 3:11 PM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Quantum Computing
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The University of Waterloo is adding a quantum information graduate program, one step closer to being able to get a Ph.D. purely in quantum information. Application details here. Description of the program below the fold.
Read on »
Posted by Dave Bacon at 3:30 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Quantum Computing
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Martin passes along information that the quantum group at NEC labs has openings for summer interns:
I wanted to let you know that the quantum group at NEC Labs America has openings for 2010 summer internships. If some of your students are interested, please refer them to
http://www.nec-labs.com/careers/internship.php
A typical duration of a summer internship is three months (end of May-end of August in most cases, but this is quite flexible). The compensation will be competitive with other industrial internships. We will start looking at resumes around February 15.
If you are interested in quantum algorithms or quantum error correcting codes, this is an incredible opportunity.
Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:51 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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Dave Bacon is a theoretical ski bum who is also a pseudo 
