APS March Meeting Ramblings

Things I learned at the APS March meeting. Updated as I learn them. That's right: real time updates of connectivity of my neurons translated into html translated into text and pictures on your browser.

  • A Yale experiment led by Robert Schoelkopf has demonstrated the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm and Grover's algorithm (two qubit algorithms) using transmon qubits (superconducting qubits.) Fidelities for their implementation are in the 80 to 90 percent range. Paper: arXiv:0903.2030.
  • Also, congrats to Robert Schoelkopft for winning the "2009 Joseph F. Keithley Award For Advances in Measurement Science" for "the development of techniques for high frequency measurements of mesoscopic physics and quantum noise, including the radio-frequency single-electron transistor and absolute thermometry based on electron shot-noise."
  • Very cool experiment by Dan Stamper-Kurn's group: arXiv:0901.3800. Possible supersolid?
  • 7000 physicists trying to read the arXiv sets off the arXiv's robot machine thus denying access to the arXiv. Doh.
  • A "run of the house" reservation at a hotel can end up with your hotel room looking like a boardroom:
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  • As Ian mentions in the comments we learned that $2900 wine is only slightly better than $490 wine, but for the former the restaurant will buy your dinnner. We were so tempted, of course.
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    While not directly physics related, don't forget to mention the $2900 bottle of wine (and note that we are all in the wrong business).