I think it is kind of important to point out that there isn't much that was shown in the video, that is different from a traditional low-temperature lab (although I am not an expert). The only differences appear to be the compact casing (with some shielding) of the D-wave box and the D-Wave chip itself (whos "quantumness" is a hot topic). The rest of what was shown in the video was a traditional dilution refrigerator setup. I say this not to make a point about how bad D-wave is (they do some good stuff), but to try and separate what is traditional equipment, versus what they claim to be innovating on. I feel this is necessary as dilution refrigerators can be pretty damn impressive and could cause people to think that was the main part of their invention.
I don't specifically target my posture, but I do take a holistic view to health and fitness. I realize that I've taken a career path that will have me sitting 6-8 hours a day for the rest of my life. Therefore I focus on getting at least an hour of fitness everyday. The gym fulfills a lot of my requirements and I go maybe 4-5 days a week. This allows me to build a strong body. I also play organized sports, and run on my off days. I have a bad back, with mild scoliosis and a rib that easily dislocates and staying fit allows me to reduce the pain.
Bohmiian mechanics is a non-local hidden variable theory of Quantum Mechanics. Any result from traditional QM should hold with Bohmian Mechanics, including the ability to perform quantum computations. We have a reasonable certainty that QM is possible thanks to a Threshold Thereom http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9702029. Additionally, it is quite easy to run algorithms with a small amount of qubits (5-10) that show that theory holds and should continue to hold as more qubits are added. It has become a scaling problem, which hopefully can be solved with time.
24k/year grad student. Of course the pays not great, but I get to learn and work on some cutting edge stuff and eventually get a degree out of it. Also while I can end up working long hours, I generally choose when they are and can take quite a bit of vacation.
While all of these are required, none of the besides linear algebra are needed in great detail. I think someone who is Studying mathematics should be able to handle it.
Of course this is a story filled mostly with anecdotes, but as a Canadian I would like to believe that generally we are a "nice" people as a whole and take pride in it. However, I would not say we are necessarily passive like the movie theatre anecdote suggests in the article, except when it comes to our politics.
As there was no mention of it in the article, I would love to suggest that people check out Atlantic Canada. Full disclaimer, I am an ex-pat from Nova Scotia, but I still love the place and miss the feeling of community and hospitality. Things seen to happen much slower, then the hustle and bustle of Ontario. Although, as Canada is such a spread out nation I have so much more to see!
Having been all over our great country I've always thought all Canadians are nice and polite, but in the maritimes people are friendly. In most of Canada people are perfectly pleasant and apologize if they bump into you, but wouldn't dream of starting an interaction unless forced to. In the maritimes people will walk up, introduce themselves and start talking.
Whenever I travel to the US I'm always reminded apologizing there carries an admission of guilt. If I bump into someone on the sidewalk and we apologize to each other, neither person is admitting fault; we're both simply acknowledging an unfortunate situation and moving on with our lives.
I do always laugh when I see a news article or blog post about how nice everyone was in Toronto, when the rest of Canada views them as total jerks. It's a whole different scale I suppose.
I am involved in the field, and I can say that it is quite an interesting result. Of course it doesn't mean we will have affordable quantum computer soon, or even in the near future but it is a legitimate result.
Putting a qubit in a coherent state really isn't a technical challenge anymore. The challenge these days is getting it to stay in a coherent state (ie. avoid decoherence) long enough to be able to perform gates on the qubit and perform computations. I'm about half way through the paper so far and I really think it is quite an interesting approach and result.
When you are an expert in an academic field, you typically have spent many, many years reading about the problems in the field and the main ways to attack them. The same authors, will typically pop up again and again. Through conferences and collaborations one gets to know the main contributors in the field. On top of this, it is very rare for someone to break into a field with a major discovery. Normally people tend to hone their skills on more minor problems over time and obtain a deep understanding of the material. To top all of this off, academics quite regularly receive emails from crackpots claiming to have found a solution to p=np, etc.
I am not saying that Dr. Granville was right to immediately dismiss the concept of an unknown solving such a problem. I am just trying to provide some background for why he may of reacted as he did.
The problem was challenging.
The solution was exceptional.
So, maybe something about the
person who solved the problem
might be exceptional, that is,
might fail to fit some
common patterns?
Or, in this case, we can't call
the success luck. So, for
considering what is likely to be
the situation
or characteristics of the
person with such an exceptional
success, where are we to look?
Are we to look at the dozens
of people we do know or the
thousands of other people, all
of whom tried but failed to have
such exceptional success?
So, we didn't see him at an
AMS conference; he's not a
full professor at a top
university; he doesn't have
a wife, 2.5 children, a
3 bedroom, two bath house,
and two late model cars;
...? So?
If we hear a claim of some
astounding accomplishment, then
maybe (A) the accomplishment
is nonsense and the person is
exceptional because they are
a crackpot or (B) the accomplishment
is terrific and the person is
exceptional because they were
very successful. So, with
either (A) or (B) we stand
to see things exceptional
that don't fit common patterns.
Net, if really want to look for
the very best accomplishments,
then we shouldn't reject people who
look exceptional, that is,
don't fit some patterns we learned
from people who haven't had
some terrific accomplishments.
And, in this thinking, we have to
notice, in business there can be
essentially some very good luck
but not in pure mathematics
complete with theorems and proofs
that can be checked with high
reliability. That is,
in business, people who
are not very exceptional
and do fit common patterns
can still be very successful
because of essentially luck;
so, in business can find people
who fit nearly any common
pattern and also are exceptionally
successful just because of luck;
can't do that in pure math
there luck doesn't work!
Hmm there is a difference between a unknown and a crank. Zhang was a trained Ph.D. mathematician with an academic lecturing position. Now I didn't even finish my Ph.D. in physics but I know enough about how to do research to not submit a proof that is not rigorous enough to warrant peer review. One should not refuse to peer review a unknown researcher with the right credentials/trainings who make serious arguments in line with academic practices.
Same as you this is not a comment on Dr. Granville. I wrote in response to your comment on how the field is typically cloistered among a few insiders. I don't think that justifies refusing to review an unknown (as in not famous) researcher who demonstrates training and seriousness (which fortunately they didn't in Zhang's case but Zhang also was extra careful in making his ideas crystal clear). This happens too rarely for the insiders to claim undue burden. Cranks are very obvious to identify (a lack of literature review and understanding of previous works is a tell-tale sign).
Cranks and unknowns often look alike. Heck, researcher who diverge just a bit from accepted doctrines often look like cranks until either they repent or their approach bears obvious fruits.
Hmmm, that is plausible, but I can't think of any modern example where some deviation has resulted in a qualified researcher being categorized as a crank-- ignored maybe, or perhaps dismissed but definitely not called a "crank". Actual cranks are very very easy to spot and people won't bother wasting effort addressing them.
I'm not sure. Crank is often used as an ad hominem in science, so it is difficult to tell mudslinging from real crankiness, it depends on the sincerity of the one applying the label, and also on the severity of the crankiness. And many people have trouble with groking more benign eccentricity.
