quantum computing
pontiff | April 15, 2009Over 9 months ago I decided to apply for teaching tenure track jobs. Then the economy took what can best be described as a massive, ill-aimed, swan dive. Thus creating an incredible amount of stress in my life. So what does a CS/physics research professor do when he's stress? The answer to that question is available on the iTunes app store today: arXiview. What better way to take out stress and at the same time learn objective C and write an iPhone app that at least one person (yourself) will use?
What is arXiview? It is yet another arXiv viewer (there are two others available, last I…
pontiff | April 12, 2009
Can quantum computers efficiently compute factorials?
BaconCamp?
Day Took Er Silicon Valley Jrbs?
I wonder how I'd do on a RQ test?
pontiff | April 6, 2009Scott the optimizer asks a question on a wim:
Come up with a catchy name for growth rates of the form 2^(n^&alpha) , 0<&alpha<1.
I thought the answer was obvious: "probably in BQP."
update: does html superscript not work in a blockquote? I guess the answer is yes.
pontiff | April 6, 2009The survey of abused words in quantum computing shows the word "exponential" as having an, um, exponential, lead over its competitors. My own personal choice for the most abused word was "scalable," a word that is, in my opinion, the least debated, but most important, concept in quantum computing today. A word which everyone uses but whose definition is strangely missing from all almost all papers that use the word. Here are some thoughts on this word, what it means to particular groups, and what I, in my own pomposity, think the word really should mean.
Note the title of this post is…
pontiff | April 6, 2009John Preskill writes to me about workshop being quickly organized in response to the release of a report by US National Science and Technology Council calling for a national initiative in quantum information science. I saw this report a while back and have some half written blog posts about it that I need to finish off. Anyway the workshop website is http://www.eas.caltech.edu/qis2009/index.html. Everyone in the quantum information science is invited to attend and the registration and deadlines are, like, almost now!
Here is the blurb from the website:
In January 2009, the United States…
pontiff | April 3, 2009A note from Ivan Deutsch, Secretary-Treasurer of the APS GQI topical group about the winners of the best student paper awards:
We are pleased to announce the Best Student Paper awards for the 2009 APS March Meeting. For the best experimental paper, the winner is
Eric Lucero, UCSB
for his paper J17.1, "High fidelity gates in Josephson phase qubits".
For the best theoretical paper, the winner is
Lev Bishop, Yale University
for his paper V17.9, "Towards proving non-classicality with a 3-qubit GHZ state in circuit QED".
Congratulations to the future Doctors Lucero and Bishop!
pontiff | March 31, 2009
Click Here for PollOnline Survey | Website Polls | Email Marketing | CrowdsourcingView MicroPoll
pontiff | March 26, 2009Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to a question that I'm nearly constantly asked: "So...[long pause]...are you a physicist...[long pause]...or are you a computer scientist?" Like many theorists in quantum computing, a field perched between the two proud disciplines of physics and computer science (and spilling its largess across an even broader swath of fields), I struggle with answering this question. Only today, after a long and torturous half year (where by torture, I mean interviewing for jobs, not the eerily contemporaneous fall of the world's finances) in which I have been…
pontiff | March 18, 2009Kamil sends along a pointer to www.playqubit.com. "Qubit," according to the website is a new quiz show on the Discovery channel:
Qubit is a quiz show for the 21st century - fast-paced, cut-throat and fun!
Driven by stunning HD visuals, Qubit showcases science, technology and natural history. Not your ordinary quiz show, Qubit challenges convention by including the odd, unique and truly quirky aspects of the world of science.
Sounds like a fun show.
But "Qubit"? Really? I wonder if the PR firm that sold them on that name knew what the word meant and whether Ben Schumacher is offended or…
pontiff | March 18, 2009Things 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…
pontiff | March 10, 2009Dear Colleagues,
Online registration is now open for the 4th Workshop on Theory of Quantum
Computation, Communication and Cryptography (Waterloo, May 11-13, 2009) at
the following website:
http://www.iqc.ca/tqc2009
The deadline for early registration with a reduced registration fee is
March 29, 2009, which coincides with the deadline for booking
accommodation with guaranteed rate. Online registration will be closed
after May 3, 2009.
The program consists of invited talks, contributed talks, and poster
presentations.
(1) Invited speakers include:
Masato Koashi (Osaka University)
John…
pontiff | March 3, 2009Martin writes to tell me that there are student internships in quantum information technology available at NEC this summer (see here and here):
The Quantum IT group at NEC Laboratories America, Princeton, NJ has summer internship positions available for graduate students interested in quantum computing. Areas of interest include:
Quantum algorithms
Quantum communication
Quantum complexity
Quantum cryptography
Quantum error correction
Quantum fault tolerance
More information about the Quantum IT group can be found at Quantum IT Group Website. Interested students can send their resume to…
pontiff | March 2, 2009Stephen sent me a fun google query, discovered by one of his students:
Those are some pretty impressive four entangled qubits: sticking around for nine days without decohering :)!
pontiff | February 25, 2009David Kribbs sends along info about a quantum information position at the University of Guelph:
The Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Guelph invites applications for a full-time tenure track position to start 1 July 2009 or thereafter, at the rank of Assistant Professor. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to become a member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research program in Quantum Information Processing. Guelph is centrally located in southern Ontario, and the candidate will have the opportunity to participate in activities at the nearby…
pontiff | February 23, 2009For those local to Seattle, I'm talking tomorrow in the Paul Allen center:
TIME: 1:30 -- 2:30 pm, Tuesday, Feb 24, 2009
PLACE: CSE 503
SPEAKER: Dave Bacon, University of Washington
TITLE: Symmetry in Quantum Algorithms
ABSTRACT:
Quantum computers can outperform their classical brethren at a variety of algorithmic tasks. Uncovering exactly when quantum computers can exponentially outperform classical computers is one of the central questions facing the theory of quantum algorithms today. In this talk I will argue that a key piece of this puzzle is the role played by symmetry in quantum…
pontiff | February 23, 2009Quantum computing continues to grow in Canada. Congrats to the IQC at the University of Waterloo who now, truly are the center of the quantum computing universe:
With matching funds from the province of Ontario and RIM founder Mike Lazaridis, University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing will receive $150 million to build a research facility and attract talent
Canada will become home to the largest concentration of quantum computing talent in the world, thanks to $150 million in funding from government and the founder of Research In Motion Ltd.
The 2009 federal budget plan…
pontiff | February 20, 2009With apologies to Radiohead's "There, there":
in pitch dark i go walking in your codespace.
broken errors trip me as i speak.
just 'cause you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
just 'cause you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
There's always decoherence
Singing you to shipwreck
(Don't reach out, don't reach out
Don't reach out, don't reach out)
Steer away from these errors
We'd be a decohering disaster
(Don't reach out, don't reach out
Don't reach out, don't reach out)
just 'cause you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
(there's information on your shoulder)
(there's…
pontiff | February 20, 2009Okay, so keeping running notes on friendfeed isn't going to work for me. Just too hard to do this and make a readable record. Really we should just be taping the talks.
Summary of day one below the fold (this may be a bit off as this is being written a day later.)
Jack Harris, Optomechanical systems
Papers: arXiv:0811.1343, arXiv:0707.1724.
Jack talked about his cool work coupling optical systems to mechanical systems. Take a cavity and stick a mechanical system (a dielectric membrane of thickness 50nm and quality factor of about a million) into it. Jack showed how you could cool the…
pontiff | February 19, 2009Undergrad program which looks cool:
IQC will be hosting an Undergraduate School on Experimental Quantum Information Processing (USEQIP) from June 1st to 12th, 2009 and we would like to ask you if you could share the information below with potential students in your department.
This two-week program on the theory and experimental study of quantum information processors is aimed primarily at students just completing their junior year (third year of undergraduate studies). The program is designed to introduce students to the field of quantum information processing and allow to have hands…