Slides from TQC 2008
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Last year, I gave a talk at TQC on “Quantum Algorithms for Evaluating Min-Max Trees”, co-authored by Dr. Richard Cleve, Dr. Dmitry Gavinsky, and myself.
In the talk, I presented an algorithm which combines the Nand tree evaluation quantum algorithm of Farhi, Goldstone, and Gutmann with Grover’s search in a clever way (if I do say so myself) to evaluate Min-Max trees, with the same asymptotic cost in queries as for Nand trees.
I’ve uploaded the slides to SlideShare, and also embedded them in this post below… » [Expand post]« [Collapse post] [Permalink]
The causes of my depression, part 3: “stop wasting money on worthless books”
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Of course, I cannot speak of anyone else’s experience, but my sense is that other students of Chinese background were, like me, also pressured by their parents not to read any books outside of school. The ones I knew always seemed surprised that I was reading books all the time which were not required for school. But more importantly, their parents lead by counterexample: whenever I have visited the homes of my Chinese classmates, I have noticed that by far the majority of books on their parents’ bookshelves were of a serious technical nature. In contrast, whenever I have visited the homes of my university professors, their shelves were filled with books which, by my parents’ criteria, “had nothing to do” with their research. Similarly, the bookshelves in my non-Asian classmates’ homes were filled with fiction or books on subjects which were clearly unrelated to their parents’ work.
In my parents’ house, it was apparent which shelves belonged to my father and which belonged to me: … » [Expand post]« [Collapse post] [Permalink]
Quite appropriately, given the theme of science transcending boundaries, I’m actually writing this from Kish (کیش) island, Iran, in the Persian Gulf, where I am attending the International Iran Summer School on Quantum Information 2008 (IISSQI08). The summer school is a follow-up to the International Iran Conference on Quantum Information (IICQI07) which took place last year, also on Kish island. The reason that both events have been held here is that scientists from some countries have problems getting visas to enter mainland Iran, and conversely, citizens of Iran have problems visiting certain countries. Kish island is a “free zone” and hence the most logistically convenient place for both sides to meet.
Barry Sanders, iCORE Professor of Quantum Information Science at the University of Calgary and one of the organizers, … » [Expand post]« [Collapse post] [Permalink]