The Hive Overmind is ever growing. Say hello to Cosmic Variance! This is a premier astrophysics group blog, which has been subsumed by the neuronical empire of Discover Magazine.
I’m glad to see it. Sean Carroll, one of the seven cosmically variant writers on that blog, may very well be a Nobel Laureate someday (either that or eventually wind up standing in Hyde Park on a box yelling at passersby about tiny sinusoidal supermode wave asymmetries). And he’s just one of the bloggers there; the others actually talk about stuff I understand.
I’m glad to see them come here! So reset your feed readers, update your links, sit back, and revel in the notion that smart people are out there, thinking about cool stuff, and eager to tell you about it.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Thanks, Phil!
(What makes you think those two options for my future are mutually exclusive?)
November 11th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Funny thing happened when I went to Cosmic Varience: There was a weird back ground noise ( white noise???) and a lot of action on my DSL(data transfer going on). I wonder what that was all about???
HAs anyone here been involved with Quantum computation? I recall reading an article(several years ago) that claimed a 64 bit quantum computer could simulate the entire known universe.
Nice links, Phil,,,
GAry 7
November 11th, 2008 at 10:20 am
“tiny sinusoidal supermode wave asymmetries”
I’m so there. Supermodels!
Oh, wait…
November 11th, 2008 at 10:41 am
“The Hive Overmind is ever growing”
Just like Entropy
November 11th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Hey Phil, are these guys smarter than you? ‘Cause that would be really cool!
November 11th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Gary, that “64-bit quantum computer” story sounds like hokum to me. Quantum computers are very good at specific things, such as determining certain global properties of a problem (factoring falls in this category) and simulating other quantum systems (classical computers are very bad at this). However, quantum computers do not give exponential speed-up for every problem you can construct, let alone the entire known universe.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Sean Carroll isn’t really an astrophysicist.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Sean, well if you ever make it to Hyde Park Corner, I hope you post a schedule for us UK fans
November 11th, 2008 at 11:46 am
How long until Universetoday joins the Hive Overmind I wonder?
November 11th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Pieter Kok: Check out the link below. This isn’t the article I remember but it does cover SOME of the particulars of quantum comp.
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Computing/quantcomp.txt
GAry 7
November 11th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
He also isn’t very little.
And if that physicist, whose name escapes, could sit at a desk and explain physics to PitS, I don’t see why dr Carroll couldn’t do just smashing in Hyde Park.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Nice, you need to add it to your Blogroll on the right!
November 12th, 2008 at 8:39 am
For anyone who’s totally new to CV and Sean, you should read “Endless Forms Most Beautiful.” It’s a fantastic book.
I’ve been reading this and his blog for a few years now, back before these blogs were too cool for the rest of the internet and had to find a special podium at discover.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Gary, sorry for the late posting. Thanks for the link. The article (email?) seems quite old, and our thinking has evolved significantly since then. Also, even for the time of writing this was perhaps a bit over-optimistic and somewhat inaccurate.