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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.)
Recent Posts
- Thinking of Hiking in the Olympics...
- Teacher of the Year
- Video Games for Science
- Automata
- Algorithmic Steampunk?
- Turok New PI Director
- BQP, NP, and All That
- Back to Back Statistics
- In Probability We Trust?
- Happenings in the Quantum World, May 6, 2008
Recent Comments
- Ian Durham on Teacher of the Year
- Coin on Video Games for Science
- Travis on Video Games for Science
- debunker on Video Games for Science
- The Flying Trilobite on Video Games for Science
- Dave Bacon on Automata
- Pieter Kok on Algorithmic Steampunk?
- Anthony on Automata
- Sage on Automata
- John Sidles on Algorithmic Steampunk?
Categories
- $$$
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- Best Title Ever
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- Education
- Extralusionary Intelligence
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- Go Ahead, Waste Your Time
- Liveblogging
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- Neologista
- Nitpicker's Paradiso
- Off The Deep End
- Physics
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- Read You Tweed
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- Science 2.0
- Science By Press Release
- Seattle
- Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.
- Skiing
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- Technology
- The Loony Bin Called Academia
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Archives
Blogroll
Quantum Loonies
- Brissie to Brizzle
- Cohærence*
- David Deutsch's Blog
- nextquant
- not exactly in focus
- Peter Rhode
- Quantized Thoughts
- Quantum Algorithms
- Quantum Moxie
- Quantum Quandries
- rdv live from Tokyo
- rose.blog
- Shtetl-Optimized
- we don't need no "sticking" room 408
- Zeroth Order Approximation
Physics and Astronomy Propoganda
- Andrew Jaffe: Leaves on the Line
- Angry Physics
- An American Physics Student in England
- Arcane Gazebo
- Asymptotia
- atdotde
- Backreaction
- Cocktail Party Physics
- Cosmic Variance
- Dynamics of Cats
- illuminating science
- incoherently scattered ponderings
- Information Processing
- Life as a Physicist
- Life on the Lattice
- {metadata}
- Musings
- The n-Category Cafe
- nanoscale views
- Not Even Wrong
- Physics and Physicists
- A Quantum Diaries Survivor
- Random thoughts of an astro major
- Remaining Eye
- Science After Sunclipse
- The Spline
- Uncertain Principles
Computer Scientists Are Cool Too
- Absoultely Regular
- Avi Rubin's Blog
- Computational Complexity
- Computer Research Policy Blog
- [Lowerbounds Upperbounds]
- Ernie's 3D Pancakes
- Freedom To Tinker
- The Geomblog
- in theory
- Machine Learning (Theory)
- My Biased Coin
- Nerd Wisdom
- See Jane Computer
- Structure & Strangeness
Science, Unclassifiable, (and That's Good)
Mathematics
There Exists Science, Beyond Physics, Math, CS
Science 2.0
Friends Who Put Up With Me
- French Street Brewery
- Geoknitting
- impropaganda
- katzenklavier
- Quantumbiodiscs
- scrofulous
- Spike, Peanut, and Me
- Ten Pound Press
Finance/Economics and Moneygrubbing
Seattle Rocks
Left
Right
Other Information
The use of Occam's razor on this website is strickly prohibited.
Cows are well approximated by a sphere.
About
If you came to this about page you're probably here to learn the answer to the question which nearly everyone asks: "How do you quantize a Pope?" No? That wasn't your question? Okay, well maybe later I'll get around to talking about whether the Pope is a fermion or a boson. Until then you'll just have to read this much more boring "about page."
The Quantum Pontiff is a blog where some theoretical physicist who calls himself Dave Bacon pontifficates. Sometimes he makes sense, but often he seems like a raving loney. He has a particular fondness for anything to do with quantum theory, and saying silly things about the laws of the quantum world has been known to cause him to bash his head against his keyboard (which makes his neighbors rather concerned and causes funny bumps on his forehead.) Dave works in the field of quantum computing, which many computer scientists think of as physics and many physicists think of as computer science. Because his research area sits in between disciplines, he obtains an immense amount of pleasure watching the culture of physicists and computer scientists collide (Eat your heart out, C. P. Snow.) His sworn mortal enemy is Shtetl-Optimized which sucks for Dave because the Optimizer is a genius.
From September 2003 to October 2007, The Quantum Pontiff resided at this website, where the most commented upon post was, strangely enough, about Wayne Dyer. At one point in time the top hit for "pontiff" on google led to this website, allowing Dave to cross off from his list of things to do "Become more popular on the internet that the Pope." Now, however, wikipedia has gained the top spot and Dave has had to uncross out this entry on the Pope.
More information about Dave can be found at his academic webpage here or on his research groups homepage here. All of his academic papers are located here and all of his talks are located here. Here is a picture of Dave's dog.
