pontiff | May 10, 2008For a second straight year, the winner of the U.S. Teacher of the Year, is a University of Washington graduate. Of course I'm not supposed to say that, as not bragging is an sacred northwest tradition. (Did you know that the University of Washington receives the second most federal research funding of any institute in the United States?)
The teacher who won the award is Michael Geisen, who teaches in Prineville, Oregon, wish is just north and east of Bend, OR. Dude, not only is he an awesome science teacher, but he also gets to live in a sweet locale. Bend is an outdoor enthusiasts…
pontiff | May 10, 2008Science is full of hard problems. One hard problem is protein folding. Indeed vast amounts of computer power have been thrown at this problem. So one wouldn't think that the computer we've got sitting on top of our body would be much use for this problem. But is this true? Can humans fold proteins better than computers? Enter onto the scene foldit developed by a group of researchers here at the University of Washington.
An Economist article explains:
The existing program uses trial and error, and pre-programmed mathematical rules that govern folding as understood today. But users of the…
pontiff | May 9, 2008From a student today in office hours before today's midterm: "How many times will the word automata appear in the test, including its use in acronyms like DFA, NFA, GNFA, and WTFA?"
pontiff | May 9, 2008From the annals of "is that really the word you wanted?" from a New York Times article on steampunk:
"There seems to be this sort of perfect storm of interest in steampunk right now," Mr. von Slatt said. "If you go to Google Trends and track the number of times it is mentioned, the curve is almost algorithmic from a year and a half ago." (At this writing, Google cites 1.9 million references.)
Certainly I can interpret this as saying that the trend has a curve which can be generated by an algorirthm, but I'm guessing Mr. von Slatt meant something else, considering that the curve which is…
pontiff | May 9, 2008Of interest to quantum computeristas: Cosmologist Niel Turok has been named the new director of the Perimeter Institute. Onward and upward!
pontiff | May 8, 2008The mothership, aka Seed magazine, has a crib sheet for quantum computing. Its not half bad, considering how bad things like this can go. And of course this is probably due in part to the fact that they list the Optimizer as a consultant. But the real question is whether that little shade of black outside of NP is an illustrators trick or the result of a complexity theorist being the person they asked to vet the cheat sheet?
pontiff | May 8, 2008Two fans in Dodger stadium caught back to back fouls during a Mets game (and, almost as importantly, the Dodgers lost, woohoo!)
From the article:
But USC mathematics professor Kenneth Alexander used Wednesday's Dodger Stadium crowd size and game statistics -- 40,696 in attendance and a foul ball count of 48 -- to postulate the odds against Walker and Castro catching back-to-back fouls.
Calculating that only one of 18 pitches were fouled into the stands (other fouls stayed on the playing field) and factoring in the six fans sitting close by the pair, Alexander fielded the problem.
"One in…
pontiff | May 8, 2008When discussing ways that quantum computing may fail, a common idea is that it may turn out that the linearity of quantum theory fails. Since no one has seen any evidence of nonlinearity in quantum theory, and it is hard to hide this nonlinearity at small scales, it is usually reasoned that these nonlinearities would arise for large quantum systems. Which got me thinking about how to well we know that quantum theory is linear, which in turn got me thinking about something totally wacko.
For you see I'm of the school which notes that the linearity of quantum theory, if broken, almost always…
pontiff | May 6, 2008New leader at the Perimeter Institute this Friday, Perimeter researcher wins prestigious award, a summer school on quantum cryptography, the answer is not quantum physics, and quarter charge quasiparticles for quantum computing.
Looks like the Perimeter Institute, without whom jobs in quantum computing theory would be scarcer a Wii at Christmas time, is going to announce its new executive director this Friday, May 9.
In other Perimeter Institute quantum computing news, Raymond Laflamme, has won the Premier's Discovery Award. The picture on that announcement makes Ray look very intense!…
pontiff | May 1, 2008One of the coauthors on the paper which I claimed was shoddy has written a comment in the original post. Which merits more commenting! But why comment in the comment section when you can write a whole blog post replying!
The paper in question is 0804.3076, and the commenter is George Viamontes:
Dave, this is a complete mis-characterization of the paper. Before I start the rebuttal, I'll add the disclaimer that I am the second author of the paper, and would be more than happy to clarify this work to anyone.
Sweet! Continuing:
We are absolutely well aware of the threshold theorem and we…
pontiff | April 30, 2008Hoisted from the comments, Rod says
You guys are much more blunt than I usually am (except with students :-). You're also a lot more succinct.
This particular paper may be wrong, and the authors should be told that, but: as the field grows, and more engineers join, there are going to be more people who start with naive positions. The goal is not to run them off, but to teach them, so they can help us build these things :-).
To which, of course, I can only plead guilty, guilty, guilty. I mean no harm to engineers, that is for sure, especially considering the fact that I am surrounded by them…
pontiff | April 29, 2008Okay, well apparently the paper arXiv:0804.3076 which I mentioned in the last post is being picked up by other bloggers (see here and here as well as here) as a legitimate criticism of quantum computing. So before anymore jump on this bad wagon let me explain exactly what is wrong with this paper.
THE PAPER DOESN'T USE FAULT TOLERANT CIRCUITS.
Hm, did you get that? Yeah a paper which claims that
We will show, however, that if even a small amount of imprecision is present in every gate, then all qubits in every code block will be affected, and more importantly the error in any given qubit…
pontiff | April 29, 2008Okay, quick, who can be the first to tell me what is drastically wrong with arXiv:0804.3076? (via rdv.) Winner gets a beer next time I see them. This is almost as fun as the game of trying to spot the error in papers claiming thethe discovery of a quantum algorithm for efficiently solving NP-complete problems.
pontiff | April 29, 2008Via Alea, a new entry into the best title ever competition: "Option Model Calibration Using a Bacterial Foraging Optimization Algorithm" by J. Dang, A. Brabazon, M. O'Neill, and D. Edelman. That right, using an algorithm inspired by trying to mimic E. coli foraging, one hopes to calibrate a volatility option pricing model. No word yet, however, on whether bacteria will be able to spot CDOs with a large exposure to subprime mortgage bonds.
pontiff | April 28, 2008After a comment suggesting that a Science Film festival be held to combat a certain idiotic movie, He of Uncertain Principles agreed, and then the powers that be at scienceblogs decided to hold a poll on the Best Science Movies. And the four choices are...."Contact", "Gattaca", "An Inconvenient Truth", and "Jurassic Park." To which I can only say...
What! No "Real Genius?" I mean come on! Talk about the ultimate of geeky science movies. Make that geeky physics science movies. Do I even need to count the ways? Okay I guess I do:
Lasers. Really, really powerful lasers. Lasers so…
pontiff | April 25, 2008Bill Gates, in his transition from Mr. Big at Microsoft, to Mr. Big at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, has been going around to various college campuses and given a talk "Bill Unplugged." You can watch the video here if you are so inclined.
Notes from the talk.
First of all no one asked the question I wanted him to answer: how is he going to commute to work. You see Gates' house is on the "east side" which is separated from Seattle by floating bridges (I kid you not.) The commute across these bridges, is, well, lets just say, not the most pleasant experience. The new offices for…
pontiff | April 24, 2008Good talks are rare gems. Good talks about interesting topics even rarer. Good talks that make you want to change fields and design E. Coli which smell like bananas are the best. I saw a good one earlier this week, and its now online: Learning to Program DNA by Drew Endy. If you get a chance, check out the picture of Drew going off a waterfall in a kayake on the Lower McCloud river. That's very close to where I grew up (and don't you city folk come up there and ruin that beautiful neck of the woods. Stay way slicker!)
pontiff | April 24, 2008A new entry in the best title ever competition: arXiv:0804.2162, "The secret world of shrimps: polarisation vision at its best", by Sonja Kleinlogel and Andrew G. White. Secret lives of shrimp? That sounds more like an expose on the secret drug habits of the Roloffs on the T.V. show Little People Big World, than the title for a scientific article. (Yes it is politically incorrect to call little people "shrimps." Having spent the first many years of my life being stared at for have a little person as a sister, however, I think you can cut me some slack, and just laugh :) ) Let's see if…
pontiff | April 23, 2008Via Digg, an article on hilarious Google searches. Hmm, reminds me of one I discovered a while back. (Below may or may not be NSFW, depending on your level of puritanism. And it can certainly lead to clicking which is definitely NSFW.)
Why, no Google, you pornography obsessed search engine, that is not what I meant at all.
Update 4/24: Another good physics related google search at Swan's on Tea.