This blog has moved. The new location is http://dabacon.org/pontiff. So long and thanks for all the fish! Over the past three years I've had a good time blogging here at Scienceblogs. Though I rarely agree with much they say (haha, classic curmudgeon that I am) I can honestly say my fellow Sciencebloggers are a great bunch of people, and I'm sure I'll continue to get irritated at what they write for many years to come (just kidding, I always agree with the physicists! ;) ) "Great Dave, thanks for taking a stand against the PepsiCo blog!" Well actually, I've been thinking about leaving…

Yep, it's that time again. Paper dance time! arXiv:1006.4388 Making Classical Ground State Spin Computing Fault-Tolerant Isaac J. Crosson, Dave Bacon, Kenneth R. Brown We examine a model of classical deterministic computing in which the ground state of the classical system is a spatial history of the computation. This model is relevant to quantum dot cellular automata as well as to recent universal adiabatic quantum computing constructions. In its most primitive form, systems constructed in this model cannot compute in an error free manner when working at non-zero temperature. However, by…

Oh, damn, I missed Bacon Camp. Well I'll just have to go camping myself :) Also: Colored Bacon and Bacon cupcakes.

Congrats to Rahul Jain, Zhengfeng Ji, Sarvagya Upadhyay, and John Watrous for being selected a best paper at STOC 2010 for their paper "QIP=PSPACE". (The best paper award was shared with "An improved LP-based approximation for Steiner Tree" by Jaroslaw Byrka, Fabrizio Grandoni , Thomas Rothvoss and Laura Sanità)

I grew up in the small town of Yreka, CA ("Yreka Bakery" backwards is...) that sits just minutes south of the Oregon-California border on Interstate 5. Yreka, population a little over 7000 brave souls, is the county seat of Siskiyou county. Siskiyou county is "god's country" meaning, yes, (a) it votes strongly Republican :) and (b) its scenery is awesome: Siskiyou county is, however, not a wealthy part of the United States (yes, if you measure wealth in dollars :)) Unemployment in the county is currently 19 percent (not seasonally adjusted), the median income is $29,530, and about 18…

Over at Daily Speculations, Alan Corwin writes about database programming jobs that will never return. The gist of Alan's piece is that the tools for databases are basically so turn-key and so easy that those who were trained to build their own database code by hand will be unlikely to see those job returns. He ends his article by noting: "For my friends in the programming community, it means that there are hard times ahead." Turn the page. Here is a report from UCSD on "Hot Degrees for College Graduates 2010." 3 of the top 5 are computer science related, and number 3 is "Data Mining…

Fellow Yrekan Austin Sendek's quest to get "Hella" the official prefix for 1027 has scored a Googol-sized success. Err I mean a Google-sized success: Austin also writes to inform me that there is an official petition, which can be found here. Also I'm amused to note that the google-monster also recognizes smoots.

Science is dynamic. Sometimes this means that science is wrong, sometimes it means that science is messy. Mostly it is very self-correcting, given the current state of knowledge. At any given time the body of science knows a lot, but could be overturned when new evidence comes in. What we produce through all of this, however, at the end of the day, are polished journal articles. Polished journal articles. Every time I think about this disparity, I wonder why different versions of a paper, the referee reports, the author responses, and all editorial reviews aren't part of the scientific…

One result of a workshop held in 2008 that "broad research themes within theoretical computer science...that have potential for a major impact in the future, and distill these research directions into compelling "nuggets" that can quickly convey their importance to a layperson" is this set of nuggets. Among the summary of nuggets we find quantum computing and three questions: In the wake of Shor's algorithm, one can identify three basic questions: (1) First, can quantum computers actually be built? Can they cope with realistic rates of decoherence -- that is, unwanted interaction between a…

One interesting thing about quantum computing is that because it is a very new field, a large amount of the research in the field is on the arXiv (interestingly the worst users have historically been computer scientists.) Back in 2006 whenever I would sit around BSing about the arXiv with other quantum computing people, the idea of improvements that would bring the arXiv more up to date would come up. After hearing repeatedly about such ideas, in January 2007, I got fed up of hearing about these ideas and so I sat down and wrote scirate.com, a Digg-like front end for the arXiv. Okay well…

Rob sends me information about an interesting new position at the Perimeter Institute (more info here): The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) is looking for a Scientific IT specialist -- a creative individual with experience in both scientific research and information technology (IT). This is a new, hybrid, research/IT position within the Institute, dedicated to helping PI's scientific staff make effective use of IT resources. It has two clear missions. First, to directly assist researchers in using known, available IT tools to do their research. Second, to uncover or…

Customer X: Hi, D-wave? So, I hear that you have this computer that can be used to solve computationally hard problems. Oh, yes, sorry, should have said a quantum computer, my bad. Well, you know we've got this hard computational problem, [Editor: problem description deleted to protect identity of involved company.] So what do you think, can you solve this problem for me? Great! Let me put you in contact with my technical guy. Yes, I'll wire the money to your account today. Months later. Customer X: Hi D-Wave, thanks for all your help with getting us set up to use your machine to solve…

Yes, dear Gray Lady, you certainly sound more sophisticated when you use the word "prime number" in your newspaper. But perhaps you might want to look up the actual meaning of the word before placing those words prominently beside two times five times five.

OMG hilarious: arXiv vs. snarXiv.

Mary Beth Ruskai sends a note about a travel grant program for a quantum information theory conference in Sweden this fall: US NSF Travel Grant Program for Nordita/Mittag-Leffler Conference on Quantum Information Theory 4-8 Oct. 2010 This program will provide funds to support travel and lodging for US scientists to participate in the International Conference on Quantum Information Theory to be held in Stockholm Sweden during 4-8 October 2010. Information on the conference is available at http://agenda.albanova.se/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=1440 The program is contingent on funding expected…

Another interview from the Science Watch special topic on quantum computing interview series: Gerard Milburn. Most interestingly is Milburn's comments on linear optics quantum computing funding: SW: How has the field of quantum computing changed in the past decade? Where do you hope to see it go in the next? No matter what technology is ultimately used for quantum computing, optics will necessarily be used for short- and long-distance communication both within and between quantum computers (as is currently the case for conventional computing). I was thus somewhat puzzled to learn that the US…

Martin Gardner has passed away at age 95. I fondly remember going back through the back issues of "Scientific American" as a kid and devouring Gardner's "Mathematical Recreations" column (along with the similar columns written by Hofstadter and Dewdney.) If I have any mathematical skills, I probably owe a large chunk of them to some of Gardner's puzzles. Indeed, in my mind, Scientific American went from a pretty good first rate science magazine, to something less than stellar, when they ended these regular columns along with their "Amateur Scientist" column. (And don't get me started on…

AQIS'10 submission and registration is now open: ============================== ============================== The 10th Asian Conference on Quantum Information Science (AQIS'10) http://www.qci.jst.go.jp/aqis10/ Tutorials: August 27, 2010 Conference: August 28 - 31, 2010 The University of Tokyo, Japan Submission Deadline (2 to 10 pages): June 14 (Monday), 2010 Notification of Acceptance: July 12 (Monday), 2010 Final version (2 pages): July 30 (Friday), 2010 ============================== ============================== Apologies for cross-postings. Please send…

Bacon has been overflowing my inbox. Some bits... Hahaha: Email and Bacon. Also: Kosher Fail. Bringing home the bacon. I bring it home every night. Your own Bacon Jesus. Someone to hear your prayers. Someone who cares (enough to harden you arteries.) Then of course there is the double down. Always when you've got hard 11 unless the dealer is showing an ace. Some food "ideas": Smoked Bacon Wrapped Bacon and Bacon Egg Loaf. Bacon with a side of bacon, please.

My first real visceral realization of the non-commutative nature of driving a car was the first time I tried to parallel park and attempted to pull front end first into the space.