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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFecm9NKbM?vq=hd720&rel=0&showinfo=0] by Jorge Cham. Ok, this is where things get weird. If quantum computers, femtometer motions or laser alligators weren't enough, let's throw in fractionalized electrons, topological surfaces and strings that go to the end of time. To be honest, the idea that an electron can't be split hadn't even occurred to me before my conversation with Gil [...]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zD1U1sIPQ4?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0] by Jorge Cham How do you make something that has never existed before? I often get suggestions for comics I should draw, which I welcome because A) I like to think of PHD Comics as a global collaborative effort and B) after 17 years, I'm almost out of ideas. This particular suggestion came from Chen-Lung [...]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pktWhH6m_DM?vq=hd720&rel=0&showinfo=0] by Jorge Cham What does it mean for something to be Quantum? I have to confess, I don't know. My Ph.D was in Robotics and Kinematics, so my neurons are deeply trained to think in terms of classical dynamics. I asked my siblings (two engineers and one architect) what comes to mind for them [...]
Most of Caltech’s contingent during QIP’s banquet. Not pictured: sword dancers, jug balancers and Gorjan. A couple of weeks ago, about half of IQI (now part of IQIM) flew from Pasadena to Beijing in order to attend QIP 2013, the 16th annual workshop on quantum information processing. I wish I [...]
Burning Man... what a controversial topic these days. The annual festival received quite a bit of media attention this year, with a particular emphasis on how the 'tech elite' do burning man. Now that we are no longer in the early September Black Rock City news deluge I wanted to forever out myself as a raging hippie and [...]
This is a jubilee year.* In November 1964, John Bell submitted a paper to the obscure (and now defunct) journal Physics. That paper, entitled "On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox," changed how we think about quantum physics. The paper was about quantum entanglement, the characteristic correlations among parts of a quantum system that are profoundly [...]
This blog has made the terrible decision to ask me to do more regular posts. Well, before trial and error catches up with me, let’s have some fun together… As young single Caltech graduate students, we have become accustomed to making hearts race with our science. We turn measurements and derivations into heart palpitations. While this [...]
A dark-haired man leans over a marble balustrade. In the ballroom below, his assistants tinker with animatronic elephants that trumpet and with potions for improving black-and-white photographs. The man is an inventor near the turn of the 20th century. Cape swirling about him, he watches technology wed fantasy. Welcome to the steampunk genre. A stew [...]
John Preskill's lecture, Introduction to Quantum Information (part 1 of 2), given at the 12th Canadian Summer School on Quantum Information in 2012.
Part 2 of John Preskill’s lecture, Introduction to Quantum Information, given at the 12th Canadian Summer School on Quantum Information in 2012.