Sunday

[nightdog_barks]

danalwyn, you around? I was reading the May 2nd issue of The New Yorker yesterday, and in their "Annals of Science" series there was an article on David Deutsch. It was fascinating -- quantum computing, bits, qubits, multiverses and the many-worlds theory, Shor's algorithm and the "where is the computation taking place?" conundrum ... oh my god, so much my brain was melting and SO SCARY COOL. And he's a House fan, which made me smile. Just an amazing read, even if I could barely wrap my mind around even half of it. :-D I'd link to the article online, but it's one of those "subscriber-only" things. If you'd like, I can try to scan the actual pages and make a PDF.

Otherwise ... sunny and warm. Enjoyed Doc Martin and Doctor Who last night. On the sports front, stunned that the Mavericks are up 3 - 0 on the Lakers. Who woulda thought? And still reading At Home and enjoying it greatly.

Comments

[danalwyn]

Oh, I'm around, although delayed. Seems the Comcast has interpreted my disapproval of their service as a signal to make it all break on me.

I have access to Deutsch's papers, if not the actual article, but I'm afraid that quantum computation is a field I don't truly understand except in it's most basic form (the last time I paid attention to it they were all aflutter because they had just managed to computer 3 times 5). It's a fascinating field, but for me the knowledge borders on the arcane. In more religious matters, I'm also not quite sure of the Many-World Interpretation, being like most physicists raised in the Copenhagen tradition, and like most experimentalists converting to Instrumentalism in my studies (Wikipedia attributes the core expression of instrumentalism to David Mermin: "Shut up and calculate". Only theorists really have the time to fight battles over the interpretation of quantum mechanics, battles which are all the more arcane for being currently indeterminate. So I don't know if I would have to fake religious umbrage when reading the article or not.

The field is fascinating though, and there's a lot of future in it. What there has been so far though is a lack of people who can make it accessible to the public. Hopefully this article is a step in the right direction (on that note: Dear taxpayers, please fund us. kthxbai).

[nightdog_barks]

Dan! I am glad to see you. :-D

Yeah, there was a lot of talk about Einstein and Niels Bohr in the article, and how quantum computation may or may not (or both at the same time, heh) affect understandings of their work. I agree completely about the arcane knowledge aspect, and I was trying to think of a writer who could make it more accessible to the general public. The author of this article was someone named Rivka Galchen, and to be honest I didn't think she did all that great a job. Bill Bryson could do it, I imagine -- I'll have to go back and see if he touched on this subject in his A Short History of Nearly Everything. Otherwise ... I don't know. I've heard nothing but good reviews of Mary Roach and her science writing. Of course, Deutsch himself has written a book -- perhaps I'll give that a try.

I guess the question is, will there ever be a popular market for a book about things being in two places at once and prime calculations taking place across multiple 'verses? *g*

[danalwyn]

The problem with physics is that we've wandered so far away from conventional reality we don't really have any reference points we can share with the general public. Considering that the general public is the one that pays our bills, this occasionally has disastrous effects.

Quantum computing is interesting though, although I think it's a lot further in the future then a lot of its adherents realize, or believe. But that, of course, is just my opinion.

[nightdog_barks]

All I can say is, I just love it that there's a field of science where a person can actually say things like "far away from conventional reality" and they're not exaggerating.

:-D