Oh dear, it’s too true.

Via Computational Complexity

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It’s just too cool to be a scientist these days.

Via Pharyngula:
I was thinking after the LHC rap that a QC rap video would be cool to do, but I don’t think anything I could do could possibly match the standards set by the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO):

I also now want a giant gold medallion with [...]

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Carl Sagan – ‘A Glorious Dawn’ ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

OK, this may be even cooler than the violation of Bell’s inequalities in Phase qubits.
(Via Bad Astronomy)

“The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars”
Almost makes me cry… Here’s to the amazing Carl Sagan.

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Coffeebreak links 070809

Quantum Happenings
Reliable quantum operations performed on an ion trap QC:
Complete Methods Set for Scalable Ion Trap Quantum Information Processing
Here’s a Science Daily writeup of the article
More work towards scaling up macroscopic quantum behaviour:
Observation of strong coupling between a micromechanical resonator and an optical cavity field
Error correcting codes are robust against errors!
Thresholds for Topological Codes in [...]

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Woo-rant: Mystics invade my Sunday morning

I spent some of my Sunday morning watching a program called ‘The big questions’. This is usually fairly good, they invite a general audience and some people considered knowledgeable in their field of speciality, and debate political issues. This week one of the questions was about ‘Life after Death’.

When I first heard the premise [...]

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Fusion power and climate change

I’m really confident someone will have fusion technology working pretty soon. There are so many people now getting interested in this area. Just in the past few weeks I’ve found this article covering progress at General Fusion, and this follow up article from Next Big Future. There’s also this article about progress with Polywell-style reactors, [...]

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Quantum computing fail…again.

Courtesy of Quantum Bayesian Networks, an article entitled “The Quantum Leap of Quantum Computing” on Penny Sleuth. It’s great to see a wider business and market audience becoming interested in QC.
However, this is slightly irritating:
“This means computers would become exponentially more powerful because each “quantum bit” (qubit) could store a much greater range of numbers [...]

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An Inconvenient Truth

I’ve recently watched the film AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, directed by Davis Guggenheim, featuring Al Gore.
I’d highly recommend watching this film. I found it really moving. Here is the Wikipedia entry for the film, including quite a few opinions from film critics. Trying to normalise away any potential political spin here, Al Gore seems like a [...]

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RI Christmas Lectures

I’ve been watching the Royal Institution Christmas lectures on FIVE, with Professor Chris Bishop: Hi-tech Trek – The Quest for the Ultimate Computer. The lectures are fun, and especially great for kids. Unfortunately, they seem to have been scheduled at the worst possible time. The lectures are broadcast from 7:15pm-8:00pm. Whilst this may be a [...]

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The coolest music video ever

Via Chris:

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I have a bit of a strange fab fetish. That waferstepper is just too sexy. I think I’d be happy to work in a fab if I ever decided that Physics just wasn’t for me; I miss my lithography. The bit with the autobonder gives me goosebumps

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