My Nutty, Extremist Beliefs

Important Announcement: I don’t in any way endorse voting for Jill Stein, or any other third-party candidate. But if you are a Green Party supporter who lives in a swing state, then please at least vote for Harris, and use SwapYourVote.org to arrange for two (!) people in safe states to vote for Jill Stein […]

I was sure my next post would be about the election—the sword of Damocles hanging over the United States and civilization as a whole. Instead, I have sad news, but also news that brings memories of warmth, humor, and complexity-theoretic insight. Steven Rudich—professor at Carnegie Mellon, central figure of theoretical computer science since the...

Yes, he’s the guy from The Elegant Universe book and TV series. Our conversation is 1 hour 40 minutes; as usual I strongly recommend listening at 2x speed. The topics, chosen by Brian, include quantum computing (algorithms, hardware, error-correction … the works), my childhood, the interpretation of quantum mechanics, the current state of AI, the...

For weeks I agonized over what, if anything, this post should say. How does one commemorate a tragedy that isn’t over for millions of innocents on either side? How do I add to what friend-of-the-blog Boaz Barak and countless others have already written? Do I review the grisly details of Black Shabbat, tell the stories […]

The other night I spoke at a quantum computing event and was asked—for the hundredth time? the thousandth?—whether I agreed that the quantum algorithm called QAOA was poised revolutionize industries by finding better solutions to NP-hard optimization problems. I replied that while serious, worthwhile research on that algorithm continues, alas, so...