Theoretical Musings
Dave Bacon is a theoretical ski bum who is also an assistant research professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research is on quantum computing, his scientific passions extend to everything in physics, mathematics, computer science and beyond, and his personal pleasures include making wine, playing poker, skiing, camping, and daydreaming (although not all of those at the same time.)
June 27, 2008
Category: Technology
This spring/summer has been particularly cloudy in the northwest. But today it is sunny and looks to get to the pleasant high 70s. This, obviously, is due entirely to the fact that Bill Gates controls the weather and today is...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:45 AM • 5 Comments • • View blog reactions
June 26, 2008
Category: Science 2.0
A topic of much discussion I see in the Science 2.0 world (it's like the Renaissance, but with more Javascript!) is the idea of Open Notebook Science. In one version of Open Notebook Science, one simply opens up ones research...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:47 AM • 32 Comments • • View blog reactions
June 25, 2008
Category: Science 2.0
One of the most interesting talks that many of us in the quantum computing world have seen is the talk by Manny Knill on fault-tolerant quantum computing. Above and beyond the interesting content, what was cool about this talk was...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 4:31 PM • 9 Comments • • View blog reactions
Category: The Loony Bin Called Academia
No, no, I'm not leaving academia (yet :) Pfffffft! That's the sound of me thumbing my nose at the world.) But recently I was thinking about about people who get a Ph.D. in, say, physics, or are a new postdoc,...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:25 PM • 40 Comments • • View blog reactions
June 24, 2008
Category: Physics
So you really think the LHC is going to swallow up the Earth by creating a black hole or a quacking duck with X-ray super powers? Why don't you put your money where your mouth is? Not to be confused...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 6:52 PM • 8 Comments • • View blog reactions
Category: Technology
I'm always behind the times. I just discovered Tiddlywiki and I love it!...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 3:55 PM • 4 Comments • • View blog reactions
June 23, 2008
Category: Computer Science
The first edition of the newly revamped Communications of the ACM is out. And I must say, so far I'm greatly impressed. First of all it seems that they've gotten rid of the absolutely horrible front pages for all articles...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 3:07 PM • 4 Comments • • View blog reactions
Category: Finance
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?...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:27 AM • 15 Comments • • View blog reactions
June 22, 2008
Category: Go Ahead, Waste Your Time
Real? I always wanted to design bumps in the road so that vibrations in your car would say something when you went over them......
Posted by Dave Bacon at 4:50 AM • 4 Comments • • View blog reactions
June 21, 2008
Category: Physics
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=349685and 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!...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 6:40 AM • 14 Comments • • View blog reactions
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