Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

So Long and Thanks For All the Fish!

pontiff — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:49:55 +0000

So Long and Thanks For All the Fish!

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 for a while, so it would be disingenuous of me to claim this is all about the PepsiCo blog. You see about six months ago, something quite miraculous happened (for some definition of miracle). He's pictured above being indoctrinated into the liberal media that is the New York Times. Since baby Bacon's birth, my blogging has dropped off a cliff (Grand Canyon style.) Choosing between spending time with baby Bacon and quantum pontifficating is, well, a simple choice. In light of my light blogging it seems natural to leave Scienceblogs and return to my original blog http://dabacon.org/pontiff where I can occasionally blog when in between changing diapers and getting peed on from three feet away (dude!)

Now, don't get me wrong, I think Scienceblogs decision to host the PepsiCo blog is "bad! bad! bad!" I'm happy that my fellow Sciencebloggers have protested violently against this. Had I not been on the brink of leaving, I probably would have given the overlords the benefit of a doubt for a few days. Everyone makes mistakes, to get cliche, and I'd rather measure my reaction after watching how people react to their mistakes (I believe this comes from being part California surfer dude.) So I guess what I'm saying is that this is about 80 percent pre-existing condition and 20 percent the Pepsi fiasco. I'm sorry if that offends the more ~~activist~~ passionate among you, but it's my own truth. Or at least my own biased perception of how I feel. Which is the best you're going to get.

Anyway, on to more positive thoughts, please come on by and check out my new local: http://dabacon.org/pontiff. Here is the rss feed. Oh, and moving back to my old location means one good thing: LaTex! Mmmm, juicy mathy blog posts.

pontiff Wed, 07/07/2010 - 07:49

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Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

It has been nice. I've enjoyed your blog. You will be missed. Good luck.

Enjoy Baby Bacon. Sometime in the last ten seconds, my six-month-old baby turned into an eleven-year-old girl. There's some time warp phenomenon there...

Does this mean you're not coming for AQIS this year? My own team and collaborators are planning on dominating the poster session this year, with various quantum computer architecture and engineering-related things.

P.S. Getting peed on from three feet isn't as bad as #2. Um, TMI?

Dave,

>> being indoctrinated into the liberal media that is the New York Times

you should balance it with some WSJ; Babies need a fair and balanced diet...

I've enjoyed your blog at both places for years, and wish you a good time at the re-newed location. But (by implication) not having good LaTeX access at Scienceblogs puzzles me. It seems that would definitely be a feature they'd provide and even boast of.

For comparison, is ScientificBlogging gaining on Scienceblogs even though I think the latter has more "prestige" as bastion of establishment science bloggers? Do they offer LaTex?

Pr(Future Dave Bacons|Library Cuts) is Small

pontiff — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:30:52 +0000

Pr(Future Dave Bacons|Library Cuts) is Small

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 percent of the population is below the poverty line. Most employment is in the services or retail trade, with government and agriculture/mining/timber being the next highest employers. The collapse of the timber industry during the 70s and 80s took a hard toll on the county and no industry has really arisen to take its place.

As you might imagine, given the above facts, the recent recession has cause some financial hardships for Siskiyou county. It comes as no surprise, then to read an article in the local newspaper, the Siskiyou Daily News, regarding drastic cuts in the funding of the Siskyou County library. The county is running a $3.7 million deficit, and many cuts are now on the county supervisor's agenda. Among the cuts is one that hits dear to my heart, cutting the county library's budget from $712,000 to $50,000, the later being enough to keep the utilities running at the library buildings. The county library in Siskiyou county is in danger of dying.

Read about this made me sad. Now I'm not a bystander without personal interest in this situation: my handicapped sister has worked or volunteered at the county library in Yreka for many many years. The "gainful" employment the library has given her has been a blessing for her and, I think, for those who get to spend time with someone who is much more wonderful than her oafish brother. It would be a shame if her job where to end, not because she costs the county much (she is a volunteer now) but because it brings great joy to her day, and I suspect, to many people who interact with her.

But I'm also sad for a different reason. I'm sad because of Spacetime Physics 1ST Edition. 1st edition, peoples, not the later editions! I picked up this book from the county library at who knows what age and learned all about special relativity (chapter 1 is available here: note the dog and spaceship.) Indeed learning about hyperbolic sine and hyperbolic cosine were of great use when I finally, years later, had to learn trigonometry (which I taught myself in order to calculate how the size of the moon's shadow is changed by refraction in the earth's atmosphere. NERD!)

I'm sad because of a county library Calculus book whose author I do not remember, but where I first learned about Newton's (and friend's) great discovery involving wacko ideas like limits and infinitesimals. It will come as no surprise to learn that I was led to this book by a book on quantum theory. The quantum theory book started out with a discussion of something called blackbody radiation, and it was very important that the big sigma (I new this stood for a sum) was used instead of a big flat "S." A science teacher said "Ah that's an integral sign from Calculus." Ah the indignation of having to learn calculus before you could learn quantum theory (now we know better!)

I'm sad because of all of the back issues of Scientific American with their wonderful articles on the game of life, computer bugs that evolved, and tinkertoy machines for playing tic-tac-toe (and whose author, in later life, seems to have become rather sadly confused.)

I'm sad for all of the many popular science books on the "mysteries" of quantum theory that allowed me, when it came time to really learn quantum theory, to know exactly where the line to those mysteries lay and that crossing that line tonight at 2 a.m. was not going to help me solve my problem set by 10 a.m. I'm sad for A Brief History of Time, From the Big Bang to Black Holes where I learned that I disagreed with Hawking about many things, none of them involving physics.

Now I can't say that I've been any great contribution to my country, given how big of a user of its library I once was. I live in Seattle and visit Yreka only occasionally now. But I do know with high certainty that a major factor in me ending up with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and performing research on quantum computing can be traced back to that county library. And I'm guessing that for many others the library has provided a path towards their own self-education: may it be on black holes, sewing, or learning about the history of the world. If I had a soapbox I'd probably also go on about studies showing businesses not moving to the county due to it's low literacy rate. But enough of the political whining. Tonight, I'm just going to be sad for the future kids who don't even know that they just lost one more opportunity to expand and better their future world.

pontiff Mon, 06/14/2010 - 18:30

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Science

Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

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Free Thought

At least the web provides some replacement. Imagine if this closing had happend in the 1970s with no alternative available.

Dave: Has your university library cut back on its hardcopy journal subscriptions -- because the publication(s) are available online? If not, why not?

Except as a museum for rare books, I suspect that the traditional library model will cease to exist within 20 years, and perhaps much sooner. I'm not arguing that this is a good thing -- but it's the reality. It's awfully expensive and inefficient to heat/cool and file/store/retrieve the same book in thousands of libraries across the country.

(It's slightly amusing that a cutting edge technologist such as yourself laments the library's demise. But rest assured that I have some spare vacuum tubes in my basement -- if you need any.)

Lyle: The problem with your argument is that for many people--and the fraction is likely to be higher than average in a poor rural place like Siskiyou County--the public library *is* the internet access point. For those people there is no practical difference between the 1970s and now in the impact of the library closing.

One of the highlights of my week as a kid was visiting the library, being able to choose WHATEVER I WANTED to read, without having to persuade my parents to buy it.

It's not about what you can directly trace to learning from the library; it's about finding out about the world on your own terms, that finding out that reading is fun and learning is exciting, and there is soooooo much more than what they teach you in school.

@rocky:

Has your university library cut back on its hardcopy journal subscriptions -- because the publication(s) are available online? If not, why not?

Yes they have. They've also cut back on online subscriptions. Luckily for me, in quantum computing a very high percentage of papers are on the arXiv.

Certainly I agree with you that the library model is going to change (and hopefully the journal model will change as well, but that's another story.) Universities will probably be among the first place where this change occurs, because they are already used to the model of electronic distribution used by online journals.

But for a rural poor area like my hometown, it's going to be a very painful transition. For example, current models of online books used by Amazon and others don't really fit into a library model. As an optimist, and someone who believes in technology as an agent for good, I think there will be a way through this, but in the meantime a lot of people are going to have a lot less access to books.

As mentioned by others the internet does provide a good source of knowledge but for my small town the library is the public internet access point. And right now the internet does not provide a good source of free "literature."

Ack, gotta run late for bus!

One good thing about capitalist society is that the wealthy are not prevented from endowing a library (or forced to endow then name it Fearlessleader Library).

Another good thing is the ability to capitalize on discoveries and intellectual property, making endowments possible.

@kim: I'm happy to hear you will be endowing the Siskiyou County Library :) I'm sure they will be happy to name it after you or any other fear-less-leader of your choosing!

Of course, at the lowest level, the lack of funding for the library is a problem in economics. The lack of a sustainable economy in the county due to a variety of factors (remoteness, meth, crime, economic hysteresis, etc.) is the fundamental problem. The county budget, for example, spends roughly 43 percent of its budget on law enforcement and about 10 percent on roads. Another 17 percent goes to public assistance. Choices must be made and jobs and government services and jobs will be cut.

What is sad, however, is that, in this county, they are spending 50 times as much on law enforcement as they are on supporting institutions like the library. This, to me, is a symptom of a deeper malaise, one that does not value education or learning (Having lived 18 years there, I can attest to this. But "oh", you say, "you were a nerd, so probably teased to death and bitter about this!" Actually to tell you the truth I loved my childhood, enjoyed my friends, and if anything probably gave more teasing than was given. Sorry Tim.) Now I'm not one to argue that learning and education are ultimate goals to be sacrificed at the account of all others (I only PLAY a professor on college campuses, and I'm not too good at this act anyway), but a basic fundamental respect for learning is, I think, at the heart of a viable economy, a viable democracy, and a free society.

But, "Aha!", you say "that would mean you would have to cut law enforcement." And I say yes, you would. And your crime rate is going to go up. Because just as the budget cuts to the library are a symptom of deeper economic problems, the crime problem is a function of a deep economic and societal problem. Because the economy sucks, people turn to crime. Increasing law enforcement makes you safer, at the expense of an ever increasing populace behind bars and more and more money spent keeping you safer.

In Siskiyou county the only economically viable model is for the population to shrink dramatically, for outside companies to set-up shop, or for Lithium deposits to be discovered in the county (heh.) Sadly I think learning and education are more likely to lead to these than any increase in law enforcement.

Dave as you know these are some of the root questions about the role of government, the answers to which my poorly-endowed cranial cavity finds wanting.

If the county inverted spending police/education, are you sure kids growing up there would be better off - in terms of safety, drug use, and the equilibrium between immediate gratification of crime vs delayed learning? And even if it did, what % of future prof. Bacons would emigrate to big universities/big cities/big salaries, as opposed to coming home and teaching high school?

I have been to Russia a few times, and witnessing the after-effects of control via central-committees (admittedly even more corrupt than ours) tempered my view of communal efforts for the greater good. In the unlikely case one day I become endowed, I would finance internships for American students in Russia. Methinks they would come home and work even harder, for themselves, and therefore for all of us.

Indeed these are tough questions, and I'm far from having good answers. Personally I actually think the U.S., when I compare it to other countries around the world, does things fairly well and I'm am personally happy that I get to live here and not elsewhere. For example, when I look at countries that spend less of their GDP on their government, for example, I see a lot of countries I wouldn't want to live in because they are corrupt and lawless (or are dictatorships funded by oil profits.) When I look at countries that spend more of their GDP on their government, I see places I wouldn't want to live in because of stifled innovation and freedoms (and are often corrupt!) A flawed but interesting list of this ordering is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percen… . On the far ends of both of these spectra are places that are their own pieces of hell on earth. I suppose this makes me an aberration for today's political climate in that I don't see either side of the two points of view as making compelling cases. Actually that's not quite true. At a federal level, I actually support a smaller government in that I think spending nearly of third of our budget on the military is a good way to end up as a new chapter in The Collapse of Complex Societies .

"If the county inverted spending police/education, are you sure kids growing up there would be better off."

Of course I'm not advocating an inversion, only a balancing. Certainly an inversion would lead to Siskiyou county chaos! Well maybe they would start to make inroads against the recent loss of their meth jobs to Mexico (bumper sticker that used to be relevant: "Buy American, Do Meth!") But do I value police 50 times education? No. If I were a better man I'd look up and try to estimate the trade-offs in crime-rate vs. spending on sheriffs, and crime-rates vs. library funding :)

"And even if it did, what % of future prof. Bacons would emigrate to big universities/big cities/big salaries, as opposed to coming home and teaching high school?"

Good question. I don't know but I can tell you that the number of friends in my class who returned home to teach is one and the number who went on to big city jobs is much higher (I will brag tell the cows come home about my friends who are now a diplomat, multiple computer programmers, a venture capital dude, and a West point education officer in the army (a guy who I can DEFINITELY say would not have ended up where he did without the library....he read voraciously.))

Eric, if they can't access the internet at the library, they can just do so on their iPhones. Okay, I know, I know, some of them are probably too poor to afford iPhones, but a Droid should suffice as well.

Kaus: The problem with accessing the internet via any kind of cell phone is that the terrain is mountainous (look at the photo that accompanies the post, or look at a road map of the area and note that there is a Siskiyou Pass a few miles the other side of the Oregon border and Siskiyou Mountains all over the vicinity). Cell phone coverage is line-of-sight, so there will be many places in the county from which you can't get a signal. (I hear anecdotally that people have trouble getting net access via iPhone in downtown San Francisco due to buildings blocking signals from AT&T cell towers.) Presumably I-5 is reasonably well covered (interstate highways generally are), but I would not assume the availability of any kind of wireless service more than a mile from the freeway.

Thanks for blogging this. As you point out, it's about a lot more than books. Libraries provide access to e-government services, help finding jobs, and help for small business owners. It's precisely during these times that the public library is so important. I'm sure with that cut, they're also laying off the professional librarian, and that's a shame. I think the schools will notice the difference as will all the members of the local community.

Great post. Tough issues.

I too grew up in a small rural community, and the library-related problems you describe are embedded in constellation of equally tough problems: the slow economic collapse of family-owned farms and family-owned small businesses; an accompanying loss of family-supporting blue-collar jobs; and (very sad to say) a *huge* increase in rural methamphetamine abuse.

Is it obvious, though, that rural communities are in better shape than today's academic communities?

How many grad students recognized their own institution in the recent Onion story "Adderall Receives Honorary Degree From Harvard"?

How many of the following goals are realistic for a young person, purely an economic and statistical point of view? "I want to be a family farmer" ... "I want to be an R01 medical researcher" ... "I want to be a quantum information scientist" ... "I want to be a professional basketball player"?

Most young people (but not all) appreciate that the pigeonhole argument ensures that the NBA goal is unrealistic as a kid's sole "Plan A" ... there simply aren't enough NBA jobs to go around ... and so every NBA-aspiring kid needs a fallback "Plan B".

It's less obvious---but equally true---that similar pigeonhole arguments apply to the other professions ... in rural life and in modern academia.

These pigeonhole arguments are why a planet with 10,000,000,000 people has to focus on the broad challenge creating 10,000,000,000 family-supporting jobs ... with "jobs" broadly conceived ... because the dystopian alternative is that billions of human beings will be simply warehoused ... abandoned to lives without hope.

These sobering global-scale realities are why I find it natural to conceive of "quantum systems engineering" as the natural enterprise-driven extension of "quantum information science and mathematics" ... because together these quantum disciplines form a creative math-science-engineering continuum that (IMHO, and hopefully) has great promise of helping to meet (soon!) the challenge of job creation on a global scale.

I guess this blows me away. My husband grew up in a town of 150 (smaller now). They didn't have a library, but the closest large town (which looks to be about twice the size of Yreka) has three: one for the local college, one for the county, and one for the city. The city or county library ran a book-mobile out to all the surrounding rural towns that didn't have libraries, and my husband began reading Asimov when he was 8 or 9. (By contrast, I grew up in a town of about 50,000, and I spent every other summer day at the city library with occasional forays to the state library.)

Even with the advent of the internet, most of the small towns in ND would not give up their libraries. Many people don't have internet access. Some can't afford computers, and those who can find the connections to the internet are more expensive than they can handle and flakey to boot. ND doesn't have the option of iPhones (thanks AT&T). So the only place to get reliable internet access is the library. The same is true of several small towns in SD and MN. In many ways, the library literally is the only access to the world outside of your town.

I realize the situation is based in economics, but I can't help wondering if this some of this may be the result of somewhat screwed up priorities.

Most of the money we'd otherwise have is either:
being sucked up by the top few percent,
being sucked up in political gamesmanship,
being wasted,
and I'm sure I left out plenty.

Neil B, is the world is short of money? Heck no ... the world has piles of capital looking for solid investments.

Is the world short of talented, hard-working people? Heck no ... there are literally billions of talented, hard-working people on this planet.

Is the world short of good ideas? Heck no ... not with more than a million academic articles published each year! :)

Hmmmm ... so perhaps it's the joining of people, ideas, and investment together that proceeds more slowly than the friends of our planet could wish?

John, it's true there is plenty of "real" capital, but because of how the money system works and flows, credit gets gummed up and things can't get done. Look at "the great depression" - all of the same "things" were still around, but people were out of work, hungry, etc. I don't think it's a matter of sheer speed, but read e.g. http://www.elegant-technology.com/kossack_econ_1.html to see how financialization took effort away from real industry. Also, even the physical capital is being degraded in some areas due to more difficult resource extraction, "externalities" like oil spills, war, etc. that cause intrinsic waste.

Dave, even the Seattle Public Library has budget issues. Have you noticed that they all get closed two weeks out of the year? Before we Seattle residents were cut off, I had to get several books from the King County Library system because they were not in Seattle (the King County Library is a seperate property line item, Seattle's is funded from the city's operating budget).

I don't donate to the Seattle Library Foundation each year just to get early entrance to their book sales!

I should mention that my mother made me love libraries. My favorite memories were of her taking me to the library, and both of us reading together on my parents' big bed on Sunday afternoons. My daughter also loves reading, and has been on winning Global Reading Challenge Teams (The last time she was in the challenge the library picture cut off my kid's head! I think it had something to do with the penguin hat she insisted on wearing. She now has done most of her high school volunteer hours at the library.)

Ack! I forgot something very important about the library!

My daughter and one of her friends would check out Japanese anime movies from the library. They would watch them in Japanese with English subtitles. By the time they started to take the language in 7th grade, they were already familiar with the spoken language.

My daughter has always considered Japanese to be "easy." She will be taking AP Japanese next year.

After visiting my brother last year in Europe (he does computer systems work for US State Department embassies, after a spending twenty years in the Army Signal Corps), she is thinking of going to school overseas and finding an international career (which I hope starts at the Jackson School of International Studies so we can pay in state tuition and she can live at home!).

Neil, your post reminds me of Schiller's maxim "Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain." Soberingly, on those occasions when I undertake to "contend", it generally becomes all-too-clear that my *own* stupidity is the primary obstruction ... ouch.

As a quantum confection, who has seen Aaron Fenyes' recent (brief) essay "Thereâs no cloning in symplectic mechanics"? Fenyes' essay points out a striking dynamical phenomenon (no-cloning), that is present in both classical and quantum mechanics, and originates in their shared foundations in symplectic geometry and Hamiltonian flow.

I don't donate to the Seattle Library Foundation each year just to get early entrance to their book sales!

Guilty!

Mrs. Pontiff suggested after reading the comments on this post that those of us who benefited from the library as kids should be giving back at this moment.

Though, getting into the book sale on Friday evening before the public opening on Saturday morning is pretty awesome! I got one volume of Richard Feynman's physics lectures (and standing next to me in line was a guy who was in those lectures in the early 1960s).

It is a madhouse, but I do know where the science, sewing, and math sections are located. My daughter goes to the manga section, and then we meet up later.

Wow....reading about this really depresses me. And one of the things that's so damned lousy about it is sh#t like this is happening all over the country. But meanwhile we're shelling umpteens of billions of dollars on a meaningless war. There is definitely something very wrong there. I wish your sister the very best.

William says: "Wow ... reading about this really depresses me ... sh#t like this is happening all over the country ... there is definitely something very wrong there." William, what you posted is a Great Truth ... which means its opposite is a Great Truth ... but IMHO its preferable for folks to seek *that* optimistic dual-truth for themselves (because there are so many of them).

My own version of that dual-truth is posted over on Dick Lipton's blog GÃ¶delâs Lost Letter and P=NP ... here are the concluding two paragraphs:

---------------

"There is no need, therefore, for todayâs mathematicians, scientists, and engineers to feel like Miniver Cheevy that they are 'born too late'; to 'love the days of old'; or to 'curse the commonplace'."

"Our fate is the opposite of Miniver Cheevyâs; we are at the beginning of a 21st century that will see greater advances in our understanding of dynamical mathematics, science, and engineering, than any previous century has seen. And our increasingly crowded, increasingly hot, increasingly resource-short planet urgently needs those dynamical advances."

---------------

For me, it is an article of faith that the number of such Great Truths is unbounded. Moreover, Fathers' Day is an especially good day to profess them!

Best wishes, therefore, are jointly extended to the QIS blogosphere's newest Bacon father and the planet's youngest Bacon child ... may you both enjoy a 21st century that is shaping-up to be the ... greatest ... century ... ever! :)

William, as a further, positive, response to your concernsâwhich every dad knows that young folks feel, `cuz dad's feel them too!âI posted to Dick Lipton's blog topic "Guessing the Truth" the most positive-yet-realistic response that I could conceive.

Begin a contrarian, this inspired me to ask ... Sidles, is that the best you can do? Can't you conceive an even more positive-yet-realistic response, to these very real, very urgent concerns?

This construction is proving to be considerable challenge; perhaps other QIS folks would like to attempt it. Because (obviously) there's more than one QIS path-forward, and it is neither necessary nor desirable that everyone follow the same path.

Lidar Interview

pontiff — Fri, 07 May 2010 08:15:30 +0000

Lidar Interview

Here's an interview with Daniel Lidar whose was the postdoc who first taught me quantum error correction (and more.) No, not that LIDAR!

Note to all you job seekers, even in your darkest hours know that you have friends out there who are working to change the abysmal state of quantum computing hiring:

I would also hope to see a wave of new faculty positions at US institutions for quantum computation theoreticians and experimentalists. We now have the first generation of students and postdocs trained in this field, many of whom are finding it very difficult to land faculty positions in the US, and are forced to seek such employment in other countries. This is most unfortunate, and I hope that US universities will reverse this trend.

pontiff Fri, 05/07/2010 - 04:15

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quantum computing

Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

Round We Go

pontiff — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:02:25 +0000

Round We Go

Lest you think I'm not working:

pontiff Wed, 03/24/2010 - 09:02

Tags

Computer Science

Go Ahead, Waste Your Time

Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

The video you have requested is not available.

Ah youtube is a bit slow. Should work now.

Are you working on an App where you can traverse/explore 3D graphs using "few finger gestures" ?

Hah, no. But that would be fun :)

Any guesses as to where this graph comes from?

Depiction of a (parallel?) algorithm?

If I guess correctly, will you send me an updated list of GQI committee members for the newsletter? :)

It looks like some sort of depiction of a group or algebraic structure. I guess that's the obvious part (or not, who knows). I can't see all the connections. At first glance it looks like it is a set of subsets closed under unions and symmetric differences. Not sure about the red stuff though.

Distance-2 toric code where blue is data, red is ancilla, and your notation is confusing.

I don't get it. To my eye, nothing is happening.

John you are stereotyping me :) Nope not related to the toric code.

I'm surprised no one has spotted the pattern in the graph. I'm not as surprised that no one knows what it is...the only people I know who might know that answer are CS theorists.

@David: it's just rotating yes. The question is "what is this graph?"

Ohh, not dynamical. Rotating is just for giggles, or to show us all the edges. This is part of the conformal graphs thing?

Yes for giggles and to show the edges! Not part of a conformal graph thing.

The edges from the (a,b) boxes are hard to see [white background and thicker lines might be better for display?]

I'm trying to discern why you are interested in combinations of two things chosen from four? Is the four item node in the graph adjacent to any of the (a,b) boxes?

Well how about a full description of the adjacencies? After all, if the video was high enough quality and we had good enough eyes, that data would be available to us.

[0,1,2,3] - a1,a2,a3,a0
[0,1] - a0,b2,a1,b3
[0,2] - b1,a2,b3,a0
[0,3] - b2,b1,a0,a3
[1,2] - b0,a1,b3,a2
[1,3] - a1,b0,b2,a3
[2,3] - a2,a3,b0,b1
[] - b1,b3,b2,b0

Uhmm, if there's a number x in [], then there's a connection to ax, if not, it's connected to bx, e.g. empty [] is connected to all b's, [0,1,2,3] is connected to all a's. I guess that's not enough to be of interest to a CS theorist (?)

It's a "famous" construction. Well famous among the small group of people who have caught graph isomorphism disease...

I guess it's related to the Hadamard code?

Hi Dave,

Nice! Never mind what it is, how did you make it? Is this vpython?

Peter

Ubigraph http://ubietylab.net/ubigraph/index.html
plus a video screen capture utility

OneBusAway

pontiff — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:34:39 +0000

OneBusAway

Congrats to OneBusAway, winners of the 2010 WTIA Industry Achievement Award for "best use of technology in the government, nonprofit or education sector". OneBusAway was started by University of Washington students and provides real time access to transit information here in the Seattle area. I know it best through it's iPhone app, which is by far my most regularly used app (sure I probably use email more, but the iPhone app I use every weekday nearly without exception.) Yeah, yeah I know you fancy European cities will scoff at our backward nature, but I will tell you that the iPhone app is great: it tells you whether your bus is early or late and...best of all I can use it to walk an extra block and catch a bus at a prior stop...thus allowing me some exercise as well as the chance to get a better seat on the bus (What's up King County Metro bus drivers with your heavy feet? :)) If you're a Seattlite who uses public transport, I highly recommend OneBusAway (there are also Android and phone apps.)

pontiff Fri, 03/05/2010 - 08:34

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iPhone

seattle

Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

"Yeah, yeah I know you fancy European cities will scoff at our backward nature..."

your post prompted me to get the latest app for german rail, which seems a lot better than the previous homemade version. poor guy had to scrape their clunky webpage.

however, i would gladly trade you for urbanspoon!

Looks awesome! Do you know if they're planning on working with other regions?

I might ride the bus more often if I had this app.

I find subways much easier to figure out than buses, particularly if I have to make one or two transfers.

That sounds like a great app. We could do with one here in Sheffield.

google maps does something similar, right? is the difference that google maps relies on published bus schedules and not real-time knowledge of whether the buses are late?

Yes it updates in real time.

2010 Pi Day Contest

pontiff — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:14:28 +0000

2010 Pi Day Contest

Scienceblogs and Serious Eats are teaming up this year for the 2010 Pi Day Bake-Off. I wonder if Mrs. Pontiff is up to defending her crown?

pontiff Fri, 03/05/2010 - 07:14

Tags

bacon

Off The Deep End

Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

It's not Pi day until 31st May!

Unless of course you're using a "middle-endian" date format, but no ... as either a computer scientist (big-endian) or a physicist (upholder of international standards, little-endian) you couldn't *possibly* be using a middle-endian format, could you?

Recent Progress in Quantum Algorithms

pontiff — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:11:51 +0000

Recent Progress in Quantum Algorithms

Shameless self-promotion: an article I wrote with Wim van Dam, "Recent Progress on Quantum Algorithms" has appeared in the Communications of the ACM. Indeed if you have a copy of the magazine you can check out an artists rendition of a quantum computer/quantum algorithm on the cover. Clearly quantum computing is the new string theory: so abstract that it must be represented by beautiful, yet incomprehensible, figures. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. (The article was actually written quite a bit back, so "recent" is a bit off. If we had to write it today I'm guessing we would include the quantum algorithm for linear equations as well as the quantum Metropolis algorithm.)

pontiff Mon, 02/01/2010 - 09:11

Tags

quantum computing

Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

Categories

Free Thought

Aram's talk on the linear equations algorithm at QIP was really awesome. It's such a ubiquitous problem that almost anyone working in science and engineering (and economics) can understand and it was great to see it attacked from a quantum computational standpoint.

You mean the Cubists were NOT illustrating SR and QM?

Dave, QIP2010 helped me appreciate that a curious inversion is occurring in physics. During the 20th century the "Holy Grail" was classical experimental data predicted by an elegant theory ... using (of course) classical resources to generate the prediction.

Nowadays this paradigm is turning upside down: the "Holy Grail" of physics is ---amazingly---classical experimental data that cannot be predicted by *any* theory using classical resources.

Quantum computers were the first such devices, the classical output data being (famously) factors of large numbers, for example.

We are not witnessing many more such experiments being designed ... but frustrately, none of the (many!) experiments proposed have (so far) turned out to be experimentally feasible.

It's enough to make a person wonder whether some censorship principle is at work?

As Ashtekar and Schilling put it, we may wonder whether "the linear structure which is at the forefront in text-book treatments of quantum mechanics is, primarily, only a technical convenience and the essential ingredients---the manifold of states, the symplectic structure and the Riemannian metric---do not share this linearity."

This is the idea behind my two predictions for FOCS2019 on Dick Lipton's blog that:

FOCS 2019-I: Simulating noisy quantum systems is generically in the same computational complexity class as simulating classical systems

FOCS 2019-II: M-Theory is the unique causally separable, relativistically invariant quantum field theory that can be simulated with classical computational resources

The point being, that the toolset of linear Euclidean geometry remained useful even after it was discovered that classical state-space is curved and smaller than once thought. Similarly, the toolset of linear Hilbert geometry will remain useful even if it is discovered that quantum state-space is curved and smaller than once thought.

In fact, a quantum universe that *could* be simulated with classical resources, would be fun ... and mathematically rich ... and it *might* even be the universe that we live in. The jury is still out on this (enjoyable!) question.

"We are not witnessing many more such experiments being designed ... but frustrately, none of the (many!) experiments proposed have (so far) turned out to be experimentally feasible."

I would say something quite different. The only experiments that physicists do are the ones for which they can compare to numerical evidence. Without a quantum computer, any experiment that would need a quantum computer is not deemed interesting...unless, of course there are other reasons for it to be interesting. Thus high-Tc, non-abelian anyons, etc are interesting but frustrate physicists...they're exactly the models that physicists would need a quantum computer to simulate.

I recently heard someone describe topological order as "topological order is a new kind of order which explains all of condensed matter which was what we though Landau theory did before topological order, but this time topological orders are all we need to fix up the theory and explain everything." How many new phases of matter must we find before we realize that the complexity of nature is far more vast than the textbooks say. We solve what we can solve, the rest is ignored.

Sorry for the typo, Dave ... I *meant* to type: "We are NOW witnessing many more such (non-simulatable) experiments being designed ... "

I definitely agree with the latter half of your post, in which you say "the complexity of nature is far more vast than the textbooks say". But isn't this is just as true of classical physics---or even plain old number theory---as it is of quantum physics?

Here Terry Tao (commenting on Dick Lipton's blog upon the topic Are The Reals Really Uncountable?) has given a wonderfully interesting list of examples in which nature's complexity is greater than one might think:

URL: "http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/are-the-reals-really-uncountab…"

With regard to the middle part of your post, it's my impression that quantum experimentalists and quantum simulationists are discovering reasons for similar humility. Two examples: (1) quantum experimentalists no longer to expect to prepare exact ground states (of glassy materials) by subjecting them to a thermal bath, and (2) quantum simulationists no longer expect to simulate (on algebraic state-spaces) quantum post-selection experiments.

In consequence of these (and other) humility-inducing considerations, actually *doing* experiments that can be actually *proven* to be un-simulatable, is IMHO likely to prove considerably more challenging than present-day QIT theorists optimistically expect!

The good news for QIT theory (IMHO) is this: the emerging challenge "build an unsimulatable physical device" is just as fundamentally important in terms of math, science, and engineering---and furthermore is broader in scope and more naturally defined in complexity theory---as the older (too rigid?) challenge "build a quantum computer".

Surely there are fun times ahead, for quantum mathematicians, quantum scientists, and quantum systems engineers alike. Good! :)

"I definitely agree with the latter half of your post, in which you say "the complexity of nature is far more vast than the textbooks say". But isn't this is just as true of classical physics---or even plain old number theory---as it is of quantum physics?"

But the classical experiments are at least tractable on a classical computer. You can do simulations of them, today. Experiments where quantum effects rear their head? A challenge...and easier to ignore.

I don't think we're disagreeing, Dave. Despite efforts, no-one has yet done any physical experiment (classical or quantum) whose dataset is provably hard to simulate with polynomial classical resources.

And this includes quantum simulation challenges that in past decades were regarded as intractable ... like hadronic mass measurements.

Meanwhile, the practical capacity to simulate quantum systems has been increasing comparably rapidly to Moore's Law (more properly Moore's Scaling) of computing hardware---and this increase has been sustained over several decades.

Why is this the case? Hey, *that* is a mystery! :)

"I don't think we're disagreeing, Dave. Despite efforts, no-one has yet done any physical experiment (classical or quantum) whose dataset is provably hard to simulate with polynomial classical resources. "

I think we ARE disagreeing: I think we have done such physical experiments! For example take high-Tc superconductors. Many of the properties of these systems can be explained by a 2D Hubbard model (http://www.springerlink.com/content/2602658404110583/). But if you look at what numerics can do: tractable is not the right word (http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0610710) Indeed there is the (embarrassing) situation that different numerical models yield different phases for these models!

But the bigger point is that physicists like to study systems they can build reasonable models of. Often these reasonable models are classical computational models. This BY DEFINITION excludes anything which cannot be so simulated. A physicist might call such systems "messy" and ignore them. But they aren't necessarily messy...they just are tractable without a quantum computer.

Certainly no quantum computer has been built which cannot be classically simulated (in the sense of simulating the computation, not in the sense of simulating the physical system.) But this doesn't mean that there aren't experiments that aren't doing intractable things...indeed I'd wager that this is the norm, rather than the exception. The game of experimental physics, however, is stacked so as to not even consider this possibility.

Not all classical systems can be simulated on conventional computers.... ask the cat brain simulation people.

LOL ... Dave, with respect to high-Tc superconductors, we're not disagreeing about the *past* ... we're disagreeing about the future!

There's no shortage nowadays (and there never has been) of experimental datasets that are empirically hard to simulate ... but (at present) there are *no* experimental datasets that are provably hard to simulate.

That is why, to my mind, one of the truly great achievements of QIT is to point out that (in principle) it might be possible to attempt such experiments (in fact, Geordie, isn't that an important aspect of D-Wave's development program?)

This has created that rare-and-valuable entity, a *new* class of physical experiments for mathematicians, scientists, and engineers to think about ... and try to carry through.

The proofs that the QIT folks contribute have especial value IMHO, because (as mathematician Henry George Forder said) "The virtue of a logical proof is not that it compels belief but that it suggests doubts. The proof tells us where to concentrate our doubts."

Similarly, no-go theorems from QIT do much tell quantum simulationists where to look for new algorithms ... and these rigorously-grounded insights are immensely valuable.

I might question the "rigorously grounded" part when applied to many QIT results. It seems to me that a lot of the theorem proving that happens occurs in experimentally non-interesting limits. For example, when Umesh said that computer science was the backbone of quantum computing I nearly barfed my expensive swiss chocolate. Real (ie experimental) quantum computing is about condensed matter physics, not computer science. Any result that doesn't explicitly include temperature, for example, I wouldn't trust.

> Certainly no quantum computer has been built which cannot be classically simulated (in the sense of simulating the computation, not in the sense of simulating the physical system.)

I'm not so sure you're correct about this Dave. While I understand what you're saying, I think that the inclusion of the environment adds a level of difficulty to the simulation exercise that might push our bigger chips out of the simulatable in principle range. IE simulating 128 quantum spins you can do with quantum monte carlo, but what do you do with 128 quantum spins interacting with even a simple thing like an ohmic markovian oscillator bath? In general you also have to include even harder things like 1/f noise which is non-markovian.

Now you guys have done it ... raised issues that I'll have to actually *think* about!

Seriously, Dave, thank you very much for hosting this great blog ... your Com. ACM article was immensely thought-provoking too ... and thanks to everyone who is commenting (Geordie especially).

"Any result that doesn't explicitly include temperature, for example, I wouldn't trust."

Do you say similar things for classical computers? "I don't trust quicksort because it doesn't run at T not equal to zero." Sorry that seems like a very narrow way to approach the world.

Indeed I would say that you don't really have a quantum COMPUTER unless you can forget about temperature. Before then what you've got is some pseudo-computer thingee that can be used to a limit, but then what? D-wave, the quantum pseudo-computer company?

Yes. Yes I would. Never did trust quicksort.

Pseudo-computer thingee is kind of catchy... I like it.

It just seems to me that boring/irrelevant work is boring/irrelevant work...independent of whether it has theorem proving or not. Physics has just as much worthless work done in irrelevant limits as CS does. But to deny that proving correctness of algorithms, understanding the limits and power of computing using a rigorous approach seems wrong.

Oh, and remind me not to let condensed matter physicists write computer code :)

"Do you say similar things for classical computers? "I don't trust quicksort because it doesn't run at T not equal to zero." Sorry that seems like a very narrow way to approach the world."

Yes, some of us do! When analysing computational complexity of, say, integer addition (people who design adders have to do it, theoretical CS types assume it is O(1) in time all the time :) ), not much changes if one uses bits or trits, binary or ternary or whatever other reasonably small base. But it has to be reasonably small for physical (ultimately, Johnson noise, i.e., temperature) reasons. After this is established, fast adder logic design can be handed over to computer scientists and they will tell you that you need space of, say, N log_{base} N and time log_{base} N to add N-digit numbers and any fixed base would influence only pre-factors.

But allowing T=0 for classical logic would allow infinitely large computational bases. "You want to add two N-bit integers? Well, in base 2^N it is O(1) operation!" or some such formally correct, but totally useless statement! :)

Paul B.

The irony, of course, is that I'm reading these comments in between shutting down Firefox to free up memory while running...a simulation of a quantum system.

LOL ... Dave, today you & I are flowing in similar directions ... I'm studying Wikipedia's (compact but opaquely abstract) article on "tautological one-forms" ... with a view to purging our quantum simulation codes of shameful coordinate-dependence.

Thus far, it's not the simulation code that's dumping core ... but my cerebral cortex. :)

> Oh, and remind me not to let condensed matter physicists write computer code :)

REAL coders do everything by brute force. Efficiency is for the weak. Man's game.

I hear Google uses lots of N^2 algorithms.

I think you get fired if you suggest an N^2 algorithm there...

Or not even hired :)

N^2? Luxury!

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

(it's Monty Python's version of the future of QIT)

Seriously, with regard to N^2 algorithms, the modern push toward simulationist S&E is driven (at the mathematical level) in large measure by a (boring?) algorithmic improvement N^3 â N^2 (where N is the number of finite elements) associated with the advent of iterative numerical solvers.

The literature is somewhat sparse on this, because these algorithms (especially their preconditioners) are among the most closely-held proprietary secrets of companies like ANSYS. And if you don't perceive these N^3 â N^2 improvements as having substantial economic value ... well ... you haven't check ANSYS' 10-year stock history! The plain fact is, enterprises like Boeing's 787 simply don't fly without these N^3 â N^2 S&E simulation tools.

That's why a big part of the rationale for our QSE Group's adoption of forms-and-flow frameworks, is to adapt these N^3 â N^2 algorithmic advances to quantum S&E.

You Might Be a Theorist

pontiff — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:30:54 +0000

You Might Be a Theorist

If your work productivity is shaped by the type of pen you are currently using:

pontiff Tue, 01/26/2010 - 12:30

Tags

Off The Deep End

Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

TOO TRUE !! I have Pilot G2 gel grip pens, and cannot function without them. I've even done desperate Staples store runs to find them :)

I can only work with extra-fine black Pilot G2 pens. In fact, I had to leave work early one day last month after my pen died and I discovered that the supply closet only had those pens in fine tip.

Ha! I just put down my (black) Pilot V5, to open twitter and see this.

Sharpie Pens, enough said. Great marker pen from a quality marker company. Great dark black lines, no bleed through. Makes sketches and diagrams look real nice, as well as text and formulas. Best of all, they are available in 6 colors (in a variety pack): black, blue, red, green, orange, and purple. So you always have more colors to work with on note-taking, grading/corrections, graphs, diagrams, sketches, etc. etc. and most importantly, keeping up with whiteboard (or colored chalk) professors/lecturers. http://www.sharpie.com/enUS/Product/Sharpie_Pen.html

Buy them, you won't regret it.......and don't forget to give me all the credit!

Buy them, you won't regret it......and don't forget to give me all the credit!

How fitting to have an ode to these ancient writing tools on the day before the unveiling of their successor :-)

Wikipedia has a good article on mogigraphia = "writer's cramp." Anyone whose livelihood depends on a particular choice of pen, is by extension dependent on the ability to write by hand. Writer's cramp is a task-specific affliction, so we theorists are particularly at risk. It is important to take frequent breaks and observe good ergonomics, this should be taught to all undergraduates who are learning to calculate by handwriting.

oh yes, so true, so true. The Pilot V7 serves as a link between my thoughts and the paper, like no other pen can do. Alas, however, they have a tendency to splort ink all over the place on airplanes. Gel pens are better for that environment. There is a Pilot G1 pen that seems to be only sold in Europe that is really good (it's different from the G2).

Do I know way too much about this? Will I reveal even more geekiness by extending the discussion to mechanical pencils? and types of lead? and paper? what about the paper?

I find that I particularly enjoy the uni-ball Jetstream, Red for my scribblings.

They're pretty pens - that shade of blue is one of the most beautiful colors IMHO (and who knows "if you see it like I do" etc!) ScienceBlogs is also the gold standard of scientific blogging. Well, what does anyone think of another outfit with the very name "ScientificBlogging" (www.scientificblogging.com, Facebook)? I haven't heard much about them.

BTW, I'm debating sci-blog netiquette in a Facebook thread: if a blogger makes a factual mistake about another person's concept (like, proposed experiment) inside of a bitter tirade, should that BO correct (like []s in main post) and not just noted in comments? I think so, anyone else? I also asked if any important/interesting ideas (significant) ever came from a blog. Link if requested, or check mine. Aside from that I don't want a continuing feud over the example in question. I want that forgotten about; and the proposal itself to be considered anew.

Pilot's rule!!

The only downside is the failure mode for these pens causes dramatic and sometimes irreversible damage to textiles.

I seem to have started a trend for Logitech io2 digital pens within our group.

My post must have gotten messed up.....

Long story short: Sharpie pens, enough said. 6 colors, no bleed through, Sharpie quality. http://www.sharpie.com/enUS/Product/Sharpie_Pen.html

(1) I did win one of those Scienceblogs coffee cups. I love it.

(2) I like pens that I can write with while lying on my back in bed or on a beach. They used to be marketed as if by NASA, or using antigravity.

@dabacon Shameless Self-Promotion

pontiff — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:49:21 +0000

@dabacon Shameless Self-Promotion

The Shorty Awards have a category called "bacon." Your vote for @dabacon will, I promise, result in a great increase in your pork-based karma. And voting doesn't even clog your arteries!

pontiff Tue, 01/19/2010 - 08:49

Tags

bacon

Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

I voted, even though I don't Twitter.

I voted for you Dave, and I too do not have Twitter! You didn't say what category, so I picked "science." I hope as reward you'll let me shamelessly promote myself too, so I proudly announce that I have become a center of controversy at your rival (?) Chad Orzel's site "Uncertain Principles." He thinks I'm wrong in my critique (name link) of the decoherence interpretation in quantum mechanics. Check out his post http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/01/neil_bates_owes_me_160.php/
You guys and gals should pitch in! What I really need is support for at least getting the empirical prediction right, if I can convince you I did, aside from what it would mean.

I couldn't get a single on of my almost 600 Facebook "friends" to vote for my paper in the 2009 FQXi Essay Contest. One of the winners, Sabine, has fine and popular Physics blog. Just saying...

About the UBC Talk

pontiff — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:58:13 +0000

About the UBC Talk

About that talk at UBC which I posted about on Sunday...

Q: How'd the talk in Vancouver go Monday, Dave?
D: The slides were awesome and the animations dazzling.
Q: So the talk went well?
D: Don't know. I didn't give the talk.
Q: Didn't give the talk? Why not?
D: Well at the time I was supposed to be giving the talk I was on the US / Canada border.
Q: Oh so you were late for your talk ...due to being stuck at the border crossing?
D: Actually I was heading back into the US at the time.
Q: Huh? Why were you heading the wrong direction?
D: Well because the fireman called.
Q: The fireman? Why did the fireman call you?!?
D: Well he called me to tell me I needed to call my wife.
Q: Why in earth would the fireman call you to tell you to call your wife?
D: Well he called to tell me to pick up my wife's call. Oh and he called on account of the mess in the bathroom.
Q: Mess what mess?
D: Oh well the mess was from the boy.
Q: Boy? Your little boy made a mess in the bathroom and the fireman had to call you?
D: Well the boy himself really didn't make a mess, because well he wasn't quite mobile at the time.
Q: Not mobile? But how was he involved in the mess?
D: Well he was the one who made my wife call the fireman on account of deciding to be born today.
Q: Born today! Well I'll be.... So the talk went well?

Mrs. Pontiff and Baby Bacon are both doing well and soon we will be heading home from the hospital (bringing home the Bacon, so to speak.) This sleep deprivation brings back fond memories of handing in my homework(s!) after an all nighter at Caltech. But at Caltech only a few of my fellow techers spit up quite this much.

pontiff Tue, 01/05/2010 - 17:58

Tags

Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.

Great timing!

Congratulations!

Congratulations dude

Congratulations!

Congratulations, Dave!

Congratulations^6! Pictures, please? :)

Wow! Super picture! Congratulations again! :) :) :)

Congratulations! Wow!

Congrats Dave - if your "rival" (?) Chad O. can father a cute baby why not you? Furthermore, your appreciation of issues in QM is IMHO superior. That phrase "Mrs. Pontiff" sure does look weird - we're not likely to see that going around in official use for a long time, if ever.

Congratulations Dave! I hope the other 2/3rds of the pontiff family are getting on well. I expect to see Baby Bacon as a co author on your next paper!

Your son has just born and you've managed to find some time to make up a dialogue and actually post it? Wow!

Now, go there, and spoil Baby Bacon and Mrs. Pontiff a little!

Congratulations!

Congratulations! I am always in favor of smart people having children.

Tiny babies give me the warm fuzzies [and ten years ago, I would have never thought that they would].

Congrats.

Many congratulations! Here's wishing you sleep.

Congratulations! That's wonderful news! My youngest daughter can babysit, if you're in need of a sitter.

Wonderful news, Dave! Congratulations to you and, er, the whole Pontiff family :-)

Congrats Dave,

But I have a question...is Baby Bacon similar to Suckling pig? If so you should keep the kid away from the Seattle foodies...