All Better Now
The Quantum Dragon is back to "normal," whatever that is.
The Quantum Dragon had an emergency last week, so last week’s edition only contained news up until the emergency happened. This edition starts with the news that otherwise would have been in last week’s edition, and then continues with the news that would normally be in this week’s edition.
Entangled Quarks
This paper isn’t especially readable or entertaining but what’s not fascinating about the words “entanglement” and “quarks” in the same sentence? Okay, okay, they’re not “chocolate” and “peanut butter,” but they’re way up there nonetheless. Published in Nature, this paper is NOT paywalled.
Prof. Preskill Listens to The Superposition Guy’s Podcast
I’ve been listening to Yuval Boger’s The Superposition Guy’s Podcast since before it was renamed from The Qubit Guy’s Podcast. Apparently, Prof. John Preskill listens, too. He at least listened to one episode, anyway, featuring Dr. Rob Schoelkopf and Ray Smets of Quantum Circuits, Inc. This link might require a Twitter account.
Quantum Doom, aka Quandoom
I haven’t had a chance to play Quandoom yet, but here is a limited adaptation of Doom that requires 5-6 GB of RAM to run a custom QASM simulator to run a classical algorithm adapted to 72,376 qubits. The game contains 83,651,224 lines of QASM-ish and ~8,000 lines of C++.
The Dungeon Master of Quantum Computing
The Dungeon Master himself, Dr. James Wootton, is set to talk about “what games can do for quantum and vice-versa” at “Next Level 2024: exploring the future of science and games” at King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London. If you’re interested in quantum gaming, you gotta follow the DM.
Cat Breeders
According to Google Maps, Alice & Bob is a cat breeder. Does that mean they will always need to have at least two cat qubits on the current generation’s chip to make the cat qubits for the next generation’s chip? This link might require a LinkedIn account and parental permission.
AI-Generated Podcast for Mathophiles
The Quantum Formalism Substack has introduced an AI-generated podcast to supplement its ebooklets. In its trial phase, the “Influential Mathematicians in Quantum” monthly series will be converted to audio. This first episode shines a spotlight on Jacques Hadamard and runs for 12:18.
A vinyl record!
I should be excited that Prof. Eduardo Miranda’s upcoming album “Qubism” features quantum computers alongside 6 musical instruments, but I’m even more excited that 51beats will be releasing a vinyl version of it in addition to the versions for streaming and downloading. I don’t have a record player, obviously, but now I want one!
Dead LEGO Cats
QuEra Computing has LEGO sets, both real and AI-generated. I still hope to get the real version one of these days. Notwithstanding my chagrin, here is an AI-generated LEGO set of Schrodinger’s cat, which means that, if real, you would be building a dead cat. This link might require a LinkedIn account.
Quantum Hardware Engineering Playlist
Onri Jay Benally has aggregated a YouTube playlist that contains 18 quantum hardware engineering videos as of the moment I’m typing this. I don’t know if any of these videos are particularly entertaining but I’m sharing this playlist because of the aggregator. I’m sure Mr. Benally is only sharing informative videos.
Postdoctoral, Faculty, and Industry Opportunities
The Princeton Quantum Initiative has a new job portal that is community oriented, in other words NOT limited to jobs at Princeton. If you have job openings of your own, you can email pqisearch@princeton.edu. And, of course, if you’re a job seeker you already know what to do.
Shall we play a game?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve used this line before, but the important thing here is that Quarks Interactive's Quantum Odyssey is in closed beta testing, and the good news is that you can message Laurentiu Nita on LinkedIn to request access. This link might require a LinkedIn account. Messaging almost definitely does.
Quantum Mechanics and Avant-Garde Music
Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin, a composer, pianist, and Quantum Music Researcher at Moth, has published “Quantum Mechanics and Avant-Garde Music: Shadows of the Void” through Springer Link. I see mentions of quantum physics, contemporary music, and even some history. Any Werner Heisenberg fans in the house?
Tough Act to Follow
I hope there’s going to be a video of the presentation that I had to follow at this ICpEP event. He wasn’t talking about quantum, but he was absolutely hilarious. After his first minute, I was already wondering, “how the heck am I going to make ‘quantum’ interesting after THAT?!?!?” And then his Q&A… stick a fork in me….
Freelancers are still available!
I know a Virtual Assistant and a Python/C++ programmer, both of whom would be happy to work for $5 per hour. I’m not a recruiter asking for fees or anything, by the way, I’m just trying to help a couple of job seekers out. So, if you’re interested, let me know; I’ll provide an introduction and get out of the way.
Quantum Musical Instrument… Online!
I just discovered that Q1Synth, a quantum musical instrument developed by Prof. Eduardo Miranda, is being hosted online by Moth. So, stop playing your saxophone, Lisa, and check out Q1Synth! In other news, I couldn’t help noticing that the designer’s name is James Cameron….
A Mainstream Meme
Thanks to Dr. Javier Mancilla Montero for sharing this meme, which is one of those mainstream memes that never seems to go away. The topic is appropriate in my case, harking back about 3-4 years ago when I was trying to figure out amplitude encoding from scratch. Achievement unlocked. This link might require a LinkedIn account.
Breakdancing
How can I not include a video that includes The Arm Wave? As an added bonus, there’s an ever-so-slight peek into Google Research’s QuantumAI Lab. No Olympic medals were awarded, though. This link might require a LinkedIn account, as well as a warmup and some stretching.
Avengers, assemble!
My extended family spent an afternoon in the Quantum Realm, shown above. No mathematics required. No physics knowledge needed. It was quite expensive, though, for the first 30 minutes or so until my mother-in-law won some jackpot that kept us playing for about 3 more hours.
This is what the Pym Particles looked like, by the way.
A Short Joke
Nardo Manaloto shared a joke this week that’s short, sweet, and Heisenbergian? Heisenbergish? Heinsenberg-inspired? Well, I seem to be uncertain, pardon the pun, as to what to call it, but it seems like original material to me. It’s the first time I’ve seen it, anyway. This link might require a LinkedIn account.
What are we buying?
This is a remarkable article. If true, Australia is giving PsiQuantum a billion Australian bucks with seemingly no idea what the deliverable is. The saddest part, in my humble opinion, is that PsiQuantum is going to take all that money and then commercialize, in their own words, an extremely limited system.
Nobel Prize in Physics
My timeline is saturated with this right now, so I might as well add my two cents. I’ve read arguments in support and arguments against, and the key takeaway is that it’s controversial. I don’t mean to call you Shirley, but surely there have been advances in physics for which there are no arguments against their worthiness.
Move over, Nobel Prize
A lot of people are talking about Q-CTRL setting a fundraising record for a software company, but what I find even more interesting is that this announcement largely pushed the Nobel Prize off my LinkedIn timeline. You don’t get to upstage Nobel Prize announcements every day.
What does quantum computation look like?
Three images of the control console screen of QuEra Computing’s 256-qubit “Aquila” neutral atom quantum computer show the three steps of analog-mode quantum computation: 1) loading the atoms, 2) sorting the atoms, and then 3) measuring the atoms. This link might require a LinkedIn account.
The keynote speakers aren’t experts?
The Munich Quantum Software Forum has an unusual program. Some of the 14 keynote speakers are experts and some of the 6 experts are keynote speakers, so some of the keynote speakers aren’t experts. For that matter, not all of the experts will be speaking. This link might require a LinkedIn account?
Quantum Computing and the Board of Directors
Steve Suarez of HorizonX Consulting is going to be talking about getting support at the Board of Directors level for a quantum initiative. This is desperately needed, because hype and non-quantum technologies shouldn’t be a strategy to fund actual quantum technologies. This link might require a LinkedIn account. This link doesn’t.
Another one bites the dust.
This isn’t funny at all, but Japan-based blueqat is discontinuing its quantum initiative because it’s not profitable. This is an important reality check because there is a lot of this going on, but it goes unreported in favor of perpetuating hype. The industry could advance faster if we acknowledge where we fail so we can focus on where we succeed.
D-listing
This is a real shocker: hype does NOT create shareholder value. Did you know that at least one privately held quantum software company is actually profitable? Did you know that there are other privately held quantum companies that appear to be doing quite well? Sears Holdings and RadioShack are not role models for your investments.
Joke of the Week
Q: What is a superconducting quantum computer’s favorite genre of music?
A: Metal.
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