Free Thought
pontiff | March 31, 2008Postdoc in Italy, AQIS 2008 Call for Papers, the Register reports on QUEST, and the New Scientist morphs into the No Scientist.
There is a postdoc position available in Italy:
A Post Doctoral fellowship in Quantum Information Theory is available at the University of Camerino, Department of Physics, associated with the EU project "Correlated Noise Errors in Quantum Information Processing" (CORNER FP7-ICT-2007).
The research work consists in the development of optimal encoding and decoding procedures for quantum memory channels. This should be done in connection with the channels…
drorzel | March 29, 2008
The 6 Cutest Animals That Can Still Destroy You | Cracked.com
Oh shit! Run!
(tags: animals biology psychology video science silly)
Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More - New York Times
Crazy people seek an injunction to keep the LHC from destroying the universe.
(tags: physics science stupid)
Of Two Minds : Science on Television : Ask a ScienceBlogs Reader
"If you could be in charge of a new program on the channel of your choice and had an unlimited budget what kind of show would you create?"
(tags: blogs science television society culture education)
The…
pontiff | March 28, 2008Linear optics quantum computing, where one combines linear optics with the nonlinear processes of single photon creation and single photon detection, is a relative newcomer onto the scene of possible routes toward quantum computing. Whenever I think about these schemes, what jumps into my head is a crazily filled optical bench, like the one below from the Zeilinger group:
Now, I'm but a mere theorist, but I think even theorists like me understand that trying to build a large scale version of this scheme, which has considerable overhead behind it in terms of the number of modes needed, is a…
drorzel | March 28, 2008There are fewer of them this time, so I'll keep them above the fold.
Graphene
makes for better optical displays - physicsworld.com
"According to the same group of
researchers that first fabricated the 2D sheets of carbon nearly four
years ago, graphene has the ideal optical properties to form the
transparent electrodes in liquid crystal displays (LCDs)."
(tags:
href="http://del.icio.us/orzelc/physics">physics
href="http://del.icio.us/orzelc/materials">materials
href="http://del.icio.us/orzelc/science">science
href="http://del.icio.us/orzelc/experiment">experiment
href="http…
drorzel | March 27, 2008You may or may not have noticed the absence of the "Links for [Date]" posts the last couple of days. There's been some sort of glitch at del.icio.us, and they didn't auto-post the way they usually do. You may or may not have missed them, but I do, so below the fold you'll find the big long list of stuff that would've posted, had things worked as usual (many thanks to Kate for cleaning up the HTML from the del.icio.us source)):
Physics
and Physicists: Accelerator in a Bowl
A nifty tabletop demonstration of a
particle accelerator, using a ping-pong ball and a salad bowl.
(tags:
href="http://…
pontiff | March 27, 2008It looks like DARPA is getting back into funding academic research in quantum computing. Here is a new BAA for a program called QuEST. And it looks like they want revolution, not evolution:
DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of Quantum Entanglement Science and Technology (QuEST). Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in the fundamental understanding of quantum information science related to "small" quantum systems. Specifically excluded is research which primarily results in incremental improvement to the…
pontiff | March 24, 2008Over at Emergent Chaos I found an article which throws down the gauntlet over quantum computers. And there isn't anything I cherish more than gauntlets thrown down!
Note: I should preface this by saying that I don't consider myself a over the top hyper of quantum computers in the sense attacked by the author. I find quantum computers fascinating, would really like to see if one can be built, but find the hyperbole that accompanies any small advance in the field a bit over the top. However I also think the article misses a lot of important points (and insinuates that people haven't…
drorzel | March 22, 2008
Security Beat
The DHS gets security advice from Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and David Brin. I feel safer already.
(tags: stupid SF war US politics)
States' Data Obscure How Few Finish High School - New York Times
"Like Mississippi, many states use an inflated graduation rate for federal reporting requirements under the No Child Left Behind law and a different one at home. As a result, researchers say, federal figures obscure a dropout epidemic so severe that only
(tags: education politics US academia)
Antihydrogen Production within a Penning-Ioffe Trap
Using magnetic fields to trap…
jstemwedel | March 20, 2008Well, light can still escape the gravitational pull of my world, but it does feel like it's getting noticeably smaller.
Three recent data points:
At a soccer game the other weekend, the team I coach was playing a team some of whose players I coached last Spring season. The parent of one of those former players of mine greeted me as "Dr. Free-Ride" -- apparently, he had stumbled upon my blog!
(Younger offspring's immediate reaction: "Oh, so you've seen my drawings!")
One of my students this term turns out to be the sister of the parent of my former player.
Today, I got an email from Steinn…
drorzel | March 18, 2008Stephen asks:
Why do you try to hide your secret desire to be a high-energy particle physicist?
Heh. Seriously, honestly, I have no desire whatsoever to be a high-energy particle physicist. I wish I had a somewhat better understanding of particle physics, becuase that way I would have an easier time reading a lot of news stories and Cosmic Variance comment threads, but particle physics is not for me, for a variety of reasons.
The main reason is really that I like doing table-top physics. I like knowing that all of my apparatus is in one place, and under my direct control. I don't have to…
pontiff | March 15, 2008As noted by Lance, the new journal ACM Transactions on Computation Theory is now accepting papers. Note for quantum computing theorists:
ACM Transactions on Computation Theory will cover theoretical computer science complementing the scope of the ACM Transactions on Algorithms and the ACM Transactions on Computational Logic including, but not limited to, computational complexity, foundations of cryptography, randomness in computing, coding theory, models of computation including parallel, distributed and quantum and other emerging models, computational learning theory, theoretical computer…
drorzel | March 15, 2008
Alpha Centauri might harbour an 'Earth' - physicsworld.com
SF fans and space enthusiasts worldwide commence drooling.
(tags: science astronomy planets space news SF)
NPR: It Isn't Rocket Science: How Best to Board a Plane
Science explains why Southwest is more efficient than other airlines.
(tags: science math computing travel)
The World's Smallest Diamond Ring -- Physics News Update 858
Lots of interesting physics being done with diamond crystals.
(tags: physics quantum experiment nano meetings science news)
The Frontal Cortex : Algebra Education and John Dewey
"The solution, I think…
pontiff | March 14, 2008Paul 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…
pontiff | March 13, 2008An interesting summer school for computer scientists interested in probabilistic techniques to be held in Bristol, UK (you know the school that had a chalkboard with the statement that quantum computers could efficiently solve NP-complete problems :) ) Deadline fast approaching. Details below.
From the summer school webpage:
The purpose of this school is to provide a graduate-level introduction to probabilistic methods in modern theoretical computer science, and to the mathematics underlying these methods. The school is primarily aimed at research students, postdocs and early career…
vhughes | March 13, 2008
Prismatic Soap Bubble
ScienceBlogs fans will have surely noticed the stunning images featured on our Life Science, Physical Science (above), Environment, Humanities and Technology channels. They're taken from On the Surface of Things: Images of the Extraordinary in Science, by Harvard organic chemist George Whitesides and photographer Felice Frankel.
Frankel, who heads the Envisioning Science program at Harvard's Initiative in Innovative Computing, recently chatted with me about the role of design in scientific communication.
Why do you call your work design, but not art?
This is my…
drorzel | March 13, 2008
nanoscale views: March APS Meeting II
The latest from New Orleans.
(tags: physics meetings science news)
Whatever » The Problem With 1,000 True Fans
"The problem is that Kevin Kelly, in his enthusiasm, wants to make it seem that getting 1,000 people to give you $100 is no great trick."
(tags: economics books comics music publishing culture society internet)
WMAP gives thumbs-up to cosmology models - physicsworld.com
"As well as placing tighter constraints on parameters such as the age and content of the universe, the five-year WMAP data provide new, independent evidence for a cosmic…
sporte | March 12, 2008Okay OpenOffice fans, show me what you can do.
Earlier this week, I wrote about my challenges with a bug in Microsoft Excel that only appears on Windows computers. Since I use a Mac, I didn't know about the bug when I wrote the assignment and I only found out about it after all but one of my students turned in assignment results with nonsensical pie graphs.
So, I asked what other instructors do with software that behaves differently on different computing platforms. I never did hear from any other instructors, but I did hear from lots of Linux fans. And, lots of other people kindly…
sporte | March 10, 2008The NASA Earth Observing System is an incredible resource for both science and education. One of the amazing things about it is all the different kinds and quantities of data are assembled together into pictures that even grade school kids can immediately comprehend.
How do they do it?
Each of the EOS satellites delivers a terabyte or more of data per day from many different instruments.
How do they take satellite imagery, rainfall statistics, temperature information, and other kinds of data and assemble these data into meaningful pictures?
The answer is HDF (hierarchical data format…
sporte | March 10, 2008Three (or more) operating systems times three (or more) versions of software with bugs unique to one or systems (that I don't have) means too many systems for me to manage teaching.
Thank the FSM they're not using Linux, too. (Let me see that would be Ubuntu Linux, RedHat Linux, Debian Linux, Yellow Dog Linux, Vine, Turbo, Slackware, etc.. It quickly gets to be too exponential.) Nope, sorry, three versions of Microsoft Office on three different operating systems are bad enough.
This semester, I'm teaching an on-line for the first time ever. The subject isn't new to me. I've taught…
drorzel | March 8, 2008
Let's Play a Game, Part 2: Game Trees and Totally Finite Games « Intrinsically Knotted
Classifying games based on possible moves and winning strategies.
(tags: math science academia games)
...yet I'll hammer it out
The Mentally Scarring Public Service Announcement Tournament. With YouTube links, so you can experience the trauma yourself.
(tags: youtube video television society)
The Sexual Paradox - Susan Pinker - Book Review - New York Times
'"If you were to predict the future on the basis of school achievement alone," Pinker writes, "the world would be a matriarchy."'
(tags: sex…