Monthly Archives: September 2018
Problems of Consciousness
Current models of conciseness are incorrectly top-down treating a human as a monolithic unit with clearly defined subsystems and putting brain as the source of consciousness. Most theories of consciousness are based on philosophy and place consciousness outside of the structure of the universe as if mind is made of something else, call it ‘dark […]
Basic concepts and history of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Computing
Three lectures explaining basic concepts and history of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Computing. We are promised all-powerful quantum computers within the next 15 years or so. All these promises that we’ll have a universal quantum computer in 15 years reminded me of a story about Nasreddin who lived some 1000 years ago. Nasreddin Hodja: I […]
Quantum everything, scientific dogma, laws of the universe
Rediscovered a talk by Ross Anderson dismissing quantum mechanics and hence quantum computing. His very first words are: I was invited here to provide a dissenting view. He is basically saying that quantum mechanics are not different from classical physics. That’s what Bohm/De Broglie pilot wave theory argues but it has been dismissed many times […]
Quantum Computing, Its Principles, Capabilities and Challenges
So, I would like to see if there’s some other way out, and I want to emphasize, or bring the question here, because the discovery of computers and the thinking about computers has turned out to be extremely useful in many branches of human reasoning. For instance, we never really understood how lousy our understanding […]
Cryptography for the Post-Quantum World
There’s a good story about Nasreddin who lived some 1000 years ago. Nasreddin Hodja: I promised the Emir (King) of Bukhara that I will teach his donkey to speak like a human being, in 15 years time. He gave me lots of money for it. Friend: Are you crazy? You cannot do it. The Emir […]
Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists
Lecture notes from the talk Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists by Andrew Helwer at Microsoft This talk discards hand-wavy pop-science metaphors and answers a simple question: from a computer science perspective, how can a quantum computer outperform a classical computer? Attendees will learn the following: Representing computation with basic linear algebra (matrices and vectors) The […]
Alan Tatourian 