Postdoctoral position in quantum error-correction

There's a postdoctoral position that has opened up in Mark Byrd's group at Southern Illinois University.  The research will deal with optimizing error-correcting code strategies.  This position will start in a few weeks.  For further information, please contact Mark at:




Mark S. ByrdAssociate Professor
Department of Physics
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, Illinois 62901
mbyrd[at]siu[dot]edu
618-453-2271

Difficult Problems in Quantum Information Theory

I only heard about this conference at the last moment through a colleague at USC. The line-up of speakers is excellent as are the problems that they will be talking about.

Where: MIT

When: May 3 - 4

Categorically Not - Political Animals

This is the third installment of Categorically Not for 2011. This is a series that was started three years ago by KC Cole. The talks are intellectually stimulating. If you are not too busy this Sunday (March 27) evening, please join me at the Santa Monica Art Studios (a.k.a The Hangar). While the talks begin at 6:30 p.m., I highly encourage arriving early because seats are limited and they go quickly. Below is the excerpt from the Categorically Not website:

Politics has been around longer than people. In fact, just about every living thing on Earth is engaged in some kind of power grab—the better to survive, reproduce, make the world safe for our progeny and, with any luck, evolve. Politics usually means trouble because goals can clash. So we do our best to manipulate, coerce and persuade—using intimate conversation and mass media, art and song, law and government, and all too often, violence. For this month’s Categorically Not! we’ll examine politics in the realms of art, activism and close primate relatives.

Jim Lafferty, executive director of the LA chapter of the National Lawyers Guild—an association of lawyers, law students and legal workers who give their time to protect the rights of ordinary folks—wonders whether there’s a future for the political activism in the U.S. What happens when governments chill free speech for all but the bravest and most committed; when the Supreme court decides corporations are more important than people; when concentrations of money, power and media make mass movements all but impossible. Is the human political animal obsolete in our country?

Change often requires what Robbie Conal would call Art Attack. “America’s foremost street artist” according to the Washington Post, Robbie’s posters skewering politicians, bureaucrats, and “other people dangerous to democracy and the future of rock'n'roll” have lined the streets of major cities; he’s the subject of the documentary “Post No Bills” and recipient of a NEA individual artist’s grant (he has an MFA from Stanford). Featured in venues ranging from The Wall Street Journal to "Charlie Rose,” Robbie’s work will be on display at the hangar, along with his book: “Not Your Typical Political Animal.”

Humans aren't the only political animals, of course. USC Anthropologist Amy Parish will discuss politics among other species, especially our closest living relatives--chimps and bonobos. As Amy's research has revealed, bonobo societies are dominated by females, who control access to everything from food to mating. Such a political landscape challenges many popular assumptions about human evolution—including the “natural” political order of things. At USC, Amy teaches classes on Darwin and culture, ethical issues in health and "Love, Marriage, and the Experience of Being a Wife.”

This program will take place at our usual home, Santa Monica Art Studios. Come at 6 for refreshments and wander the studios. Program begins at 6:30. We ask for a $5 donation to cover expenses.

Please RSVP to 310-397-7449 info@santamonicaartstudios.com

View Larger Map

Beyond Baroque

I will be reading some of my poems at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA on March 13th. My dear friend Sholeh Wolpe will also be reading some of her poems along with poets Alicia Partnoy, Melinda Palacio, and Ramon Garcia. You can find more information about the event at the Facebook event page set up by the organizers of Beyond Baroque.

Beyond Baroque is located at 681 Venice Blvd, Venice, 90291. The event starts at 4:00 p.m. Admission is $7.00.

View Larger Map

Canadian Summer School for Quantum Information 2011

From David Poulin:

The 11th edition of the Canadian Summer School on Quantum Information and the 8th Canadian Student Conference on Quantum Information will be held from June 6th to 17th 2011 at the Centre de Villegiature de Jouvence, located in a Quebec National Park. Once again this year, many of the world's leading experts on quantum information will present series of lectures targeted at prospective and current graduate students, as well as postdocs, in the areas of physics, mathematics, computer science and engineering. The Student Conference is a unique occasion for students to present their work and exchange with their fellow students. More information about these events can be found at the web page

http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/QI11/index_e.php

Registration is now open. Early registration ends March 11th, 2011.

Places are limited, first come first served. Hurry up!

Deadline to submit a contribution to the Student Conference: April 20th

Kirtan with Travis Eliot

I have been attending my yoga teacher and friend Travis Eliot's kirtans on Fridays at Bhakti Yoga Shala in Santa Monica. For those of you who don't know kirtan comes from the Sanskrit and means "to repeat." It is a call-response form of devotional singing. Travis leads the Sanskrit mantras and the audience responds. The mantras are usually short. As Travis explains it through a metaphor, imagine a windshield wiper moving back and forth and in the process cleaning the windshield. The repetition of the mantras are windshield wipers cleaning us spiritually.

I had the pleasure of listening to Daphne Tse who was a guest at Travis's kirtan this past Friday. She came all the way from Bali, shared her beautiful voice and led the second half of the kirtan with her magical "Saraswati Mata." I highly recommend checking out her album "Mata." This was a truly amazing kirtan because two hours got compressed into two minutes. I guess bliss can relativize time. You don't necessarily need to board a spaceship and travel at the speed of light.

Vinay Deolalikar and P vs. NP

The mathematics and computer science blogs are a-buzzin' about Vinay Deolalikar's unverified 100+ page proof that P does not equal NP. This paper is still a draft, and in a very preliminary form. Vinay happens to be a graduate of the University of Southern California. His advisor was P. Vijay Kumar. Dick Lipton talks about it in his blog, as do Scott Aaronson, and Greg Baker. Dave Bacon talks about it over at the Quantum Pontiff blog. I did read a little bit of the paper, and there do seem to some new ideas there. Scott has said that if the proof is correct, i.e., P <> NP, he will supplement an extra $200,000! As you wil recall this problem is one of the famous Clay Millenium Prize problems, and the Clay institute will award one million dollars to the person who solves it. The correctness of this proof would be quite remarkable. I just don't think that the problem's end time as arrived yet. I can place the hardness of this problem on an equal footing with other hard problems such as graph isomorphism, the Riemann Hypothesis, Navier-Stokes etc. Graph theory and complex analysis have been around for well over a hundred years. They are both mature fields of study, where as theoretical computer science has been around for only forty years. Vinay's purported proof must have some groundbreaking calculations and insights to arrive at the final result. The journey in this case is equally as important as the end result. I do hope that the proof is correct.

Hiding Quantum Information in the Perfect Code

Todd Brun and I have posted our new paper on arXiv entitled, "Hiding Quantum Information in the Perfect Code." You can find the paper here. I have reproduced the abstract below:

We present and analyze a protocol for quantum steganography where the sender (Alice) encodes her steganographic information into the error syndromes of the perfect (five-qubit) quantum error-correcting code, and sends it to the receiver (Bob) over a depolarizing channel. Alice and Bob share a classical secret key, and hide quantum information in such a way that to an eavesdropper (Eve) without access to the secret key, the quantum message looks like an innocent codeword with a typical sequence of quantum errors. We calculate the average rate of key consumption, and show how the protocol improves in performance as information is spread over multiple codeword blocks. Alice and Bob utilize different encodings to optimize the average number of steganographic bits that they can send to each other while matching the error statistics of the depolarizing channel.

Russian spies and steganography

Here's an interesting article on how Russian spies used steganographic techniques to hide secret messages on public websites. The quantum pontiff e-mailed me the following Wired article a few days ago:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/alleged-spies-hid-secret-messages-on-public-websites/

Quantum Steganography

After two years of research Todd and I have finally submitted our work on quantum steganography. You can find the paper here. There's more to come in a month or so. I've reproduced the abstract from the arXiv website:

Steganography is the process of hiding secret information by embedding it in an "innocent" message. We present protocols for hiding quantum information in a codeword of a quantum error-correcting code passing through a channel. Using either a shared classical secret key or shared entanglement the sender (Alice) disguises her information as errors in the channel. The receiver (Bob) can retrieve the hidden information, but an eavesdropper (Eve) with the power to monitor the channel, but without the secret key, cannot distinguish the message from channel noise. We analyze how difficult it is for Eve to detect the presence of secret messages, and estimate rates of steganographic communication and secret key consumption for certain protocols.

What the heck is a quantum computer?

Come hear me ramble on about quantum information science (QIS). This will be a very short and introductory talk. I will first give an overview and history of the field, and then develop some mathematical tools to understand and appreciate David Deutsch's toy quantum algorithm. I may end up explaining quantum teleportation and quantum super-dense coding if time permits. I am dedicating this talk to my adviser Todd Brun and my mentor Dave Bacon.


Details:

http://blog.crashspace.org/2010/05/what-the-heck-is-a-quantum-computer/

CaTeGOricalLy NoT! Grand Challenges

I am looking forward to attending Categorically Not which if you have read my past blog posts is a series of salon-based talks started by K. C. Cole. This upcoming event will take place at the Santa Monica Art Studios (a.k.a "The Hangar") on February 7 from 6:30 p.m. till 9:00 p.m. The title of the talk is "Grand Challenges." Doors open at 6:00 p.m., so you can partake in the drinks and food that the organizers kindly provide for. In order to cover the cost of the food/drinks, they ask for a donation of $5.00. I highly recommend arriving early because space is limited and if past events have been any indication, all the seats will get occupied rather quickly. Here is the excerpt from the Categorically Not website:

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

Sometimes, it can seem like a grand challenge just to get out of bed in the morning. But the world presents us with an almost overwhelming array of grand challenges made all the more urgent because of the dizzying rate of change in technology and society in general: how to stay out of war and manage resources on an already overcrowded planet; how to deliver medical care and reliable information in a babel of contexts and cultures; how to adapt traditional models of entertainment and communication to thrive in this new world?

For our February 7th Categorically Not!, we will explore grand challenges in journalism, cinema and engineering. Geneva Overholser, director of USC’s Annenberg School of Communication, Pulitzer Prize winner and former ombudsman for the Washington Post will talk about the challenges of trying to figure out how journalism—so essential to democracy—is going to survive when its economic underpinnings are collapsing and its traditional forms are being disrupted by new technologies. This perilous moment for journalism, she will explain, is in fact full of promise.

Just as journalism tries to make sense of life, so does “that bastard child” of literature, the screenplay. USC Cinema School professor Georgia Jeffries—who has written and produced films for HBO, Showtime, USA and Lifetime and been honored with numerous awards—will discuss the challenge writers face in balancing integrity and relevance in a time of extraordinary change in the marketplace. The screenplay explores every facet of human relationships, including gender, race, class, religion, age and youth. It is a demanding canvas, she says, but one with infinite possibility.

Scientists also face challenges in making sense of information—a specialty of Carl Kesselman, Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Co-Director of USC's Center for Health Informatics. His research focuses on grid computing, a technology for creating multi-institutional collaborations and virtual communities that require sharing of data, knowledge and computational infrastructure. The technology aids everything from large physics experiments to limiting damage (and improving responses) to Earthquakes as well as collecting and integrating biomedical data to improve accessibility.

Yoga With Travis Eliot

For a while now, I have been practicing yoga with Travis Eliot who has recently opened an online store. You can find inspiring yoga music, and audio downloads of his classes, and his instructional DVD. You can find more information about Travis at his website.

Travis truly brings the perfect balance of spirituality and physical fitness to his yoga practice. He is an amazing teacher, ever aware of his student's needs, and ever aware of where each one stands in their yoga practice. He strengthens our weaknesses without judgement, with empathy, with care and with deep-seated love. His music and his passion elevates the soul. For the first time in my life, I've become aware of my own breath and its movement. My challenge has been to regulate my breath each moment of my day. My breath-consciousness grounds my mental discipline which I find indispensable for my scientific and artistic pursuits.

Travis, congratulations on the new store, and thank you for being such a great teacher!

Len Adleman on Mathematical Logic and Quantum Mechanics

My former advisor Leonard Adleman, the 'A' in the RSA encryption algorithm and the inventor of DNA-based computation, has written up an interesting article that he thinks may shed some light on the relationship between mathematical logic and quantum mechanics. You can read about it over at Clifford V. Johnson's blog Asymptotia. Here is the link.

The Quantum Pontiff pontificates on Adleman's article here. The comment section is full of interesting references and insights. I highly recommend reading it.

Dr. Abdul Kalam at USC

Dr. Abdul Kalam, the former president of India visited USC on September 15, 2009, to give a talk on how the Indian youth can lead their country. He outlined his bold vision "Lead India 2020" and talked about what strengths a leader should have. He answered quite a few questions from the audience which was mostly comprised of Indian students. I wish the talk had been organized at Bovard Auditorium so that more students and professors could come and hear him speak. The students were cramped in a small classroom in the Mudd Hall of Philosophy. I think that Dr. Abdul Kalam's visit to USC was organized at the very last minute, and that's why they couldn't find a bigger venue. Regardless, I enjoyed his talk and his sense of humor. The students asked him various questions ranging from India's current problems with corruption, poverty, and infrastructure, to nuclear energy solutions to Indian's growing energy needs. Toward the end I asked him what he did for fun when he wasn't working, or collecting accolades, to which he replied, "I write poetry." He then proceeded to read a translated version of a poem that he had written in Tamil to the audience. It was quite a day for me!

L A S E R - A Film By Clifford V. Johnson

I just watched a short film by Clifford V. Johnson on the science that goes behind the production of a laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). It is well done and explains the concept with clarity. But besides that it is also fun to watch!

Categorically Not! The Worlds We Make Up

I have been waiting all summer for the new season of Categorically Not to begin at the Santa Monica Art Studios. This is an on-going series of salon-style talks that was started by K. C. Cole about three years ago. I am just astounded at her ability to think about various topics and then to bring together speakers with different expertise to talk about their passion.

The event takes place at the Santa Monica Art Studios (The Hangar) located at 3026 Airport Ave, Santa Monica on September 13. While the talks start at 6:30 pm, I highly encourage arriving earlier at 6:00 pm as the place gets filled up rather quickly. There is a $5.00 charge at the door (donation), to cover the expenses for refreshments.

Here is the entire excerpt from the Categorically Not website:

What happens to a person schooled in art, science and “ethical culture” who finds himself a pacifist building an atomic bomb, a physicist exiled from science because of his outspoken efforts to stop the madness, a New York Jew raising cattle and teaching high school in the Colorado mountains? If you’re Frank Oppenheimer, you use what you’ve learned from art and science and teaching and ranching to make up your own world--a “museum of human awareness”—The Exploratorium--which is copied all over the world. You inspire artists, scientists, politicians, writers with your unstoppable optimism, your love of humanity, unfettered sense of fun and intensity of purpose. You convince people that the world is theirs to make up--a better way. To the thousands of people influenced by your ideas, you are Tom Sawyer and Yoda, Jesus and Jon Stewart, Einstein and Forrest Gump.

Frank always wanted to create an ongoing series of events bringing together science, arts, politics, whatnot, and Categorically Not! is probably exactly what he had in mind.

So our September 13th Categorically Not! is dedicated to Frank, and our host KC Cole will talk about her new book, Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up.

The world that artist Dan Mills made up may be even more ambitious: Curator and director of the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University, Mills began his US Future States Atlas in 2003 as a wry letter-to-the-editor type response to the increasingly aggressive political and military stance of the US toward other countries. The US government was invading and threatening other nations for a wide variety of reasons including coveting their resources, disliking their leader, believing (really?) they had Weapons of Mass Destruction. By conceptually pushing this stance a little further, Mills found it possible to justify taking over almost any country. The outcome is an Atlas of the United States Empire (USE),a superpower consisting of nearly 100 states—a grand narrative atlas of global imperialism in which strategies, rules, and doctrines unfold that are at times are absurd, painful, humorous, and also frighteningly believable.

Mills’s creations, in the words of critic Richard Marcus, “provide insightful and intelligent commentary on American foreign policy and how truly ridiculous some of the rationale given for those previous actions has been."

His work will be on view at the gallery.

Finally, the world of Pulitzer Prize winning music critic Tim Page was is in many ways a parallel universe to the one most of us inhabit—a universe he only understood himself at age 45 when he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. As a boy, he could blithely recite the names and dates of all the United States’ presidents and their wives in order (backward upon request), yet lacked the coordination to participate in the simplest childhood games. He memorized vast portions of the World Book Encyclopedia simply by skimming through its volumes, but was unable to pass elementary school math and science. Yet it was perhaps because of rather than despite Asperger’s that he was able to construct a prodigious writing career through his all-consuming love of music—writing the Pultizer board called “lucid and illuminating.”

Tim’s latest book, Parallel Play, is a hilarious and heartbreaking chronicle that revisits his early days through the prism of newfound clarity. The poignant story of lifelong search for answers, the book provides a unique perspective on Asperger's and the well of creativity that can spring forth as a result of the condition.

Shine a Light - Trailer

Over at Asymptotia, Clifford Johnson has been busy directing a new short film entitled, "Shine a Light." I am looking forward to watching this film. Roll out the red carpet, pop the champagne ... Here's a teaser trailer:

Journey from Zanskar

I had the pleasure of watching Frederick Marx's new documentary, "Journey from Zanskar" last night in one of the class-rooms in Taper Hall of Humanities (THH) at the University of Southern California.

The documentary is about two Buddhist monks from the Zanskar region and their quest to take a about dozen kids between the ages of five and twelve from their village to a Buddhist school in Manali. The monks would like to educate the next generation in the Tibetan alphabet, so that they can learn the Tibetan Buddhist scripture and in doing so preserve their language, heritage, and culture. This fantastic documentary gives an account of how these kids along with the monks try to trek through one of the harshest terrains in the world.

Zanskar is the northernmost part of the Kashmir region, and borders Tibet. It lies at an elevation of 13,000 feet, and for most of the year the region is inaccessible to outsiders.

I won't give too much of the film away, but I will mention that Frederick Marx is an excellent film-maker and one can clearly see that this project is a labor of love. What I saw last night was a rough-cut of the documentary, but if that was Marx's rough-cut then I can only imagine what the finished product will look like.

Hiking Along East Canyon Road, Santa Clarita

I took advantage of the beautiful weather in the morning and decided to go for a hike along East Canyon Road which takes one into the mountains surrounding Santa Clarita off of the 5 interstate highway.

What makes for perfect hiking weather you ask? In my opinion, a bit of moistness in the air, a gentle cool breeze, and some precipitation, with sunshine breaking through clouds here are there. I drove along The Old Road and soon after I parked my car, I was walking along East Canyon trail.

The hike was gorgeous and was perhaps the best hike that I have been on around southern California in a long time. Every trail has its own character, its personality - a bend here, a twist there, some beautiful wild flowers along the trail, or a big and wise oak tree sprawling its myriad branches in all of its beautiful glory. This trail was quite shady and was peppered with oak trees and pines when you reached the highest elevation which was around 2,700 feet. This was not an easy hike, but if you are in moderate shape, you ought to get to the top in an hour. There was no one on the trail which was perfect because I was seeking solitude and alone-time.

Less than half an hour into the hike, the East Canyon trail forked into two - itself and Rice Canyon trail. I have not tried the latter, but from what I could make out, I am sure it would be a lovely hike as well. As I slowly, but surely made my way to the top, I came to another fork in the road. There was a trail called Weldon Road that would take me all the way down. If I had taken this road, I would have ended up farther away from Old Road on Coltrane Ave. There's an overpass on the 5 freeway that connects Coltrane to Old Road.

Anyway, I continued on East Canyon Road for a while until it forked yet again, though this time it ended at a metal gate, but the land beyond the gate was private (apparently owned by some southern California Gas Company, as I was told by a fellow hiker whom I met on the trail). I was at an elevation of 2,750 feet, and there was not a soul around. I was surrounded by rain clouds, with the leaves of the oak trees wet, and dripping with water, and the trail underneath my shoes getting muddy. I felt as if I had been transported to another world. The whole scene up there was eerie and mystical. I continued a bit further on Sunshine Motorway as supposedly it afforded a beautiful view of San Fernando Valley and the 118 freeway. However, it was so foggy, and the rain clouds so dense that I couldn't see much and so I decided to head back down.

I have always equated hiking with meditation, and it was so serene at the top of Santa Clarita mountains that on my way down I felt content and full of joy.

I highly recommend this hike, and if you have some free time over a weekday, there's nothing like spending time on a trail with a friend or a loved one. The picture that you see on the left is the one I took at the start of the trail-head where I parked my car.