Podcast appearances and mentions of Alan T Waterman

Scott Aaronson is a professor of computer science at University of Texas at Austin and director of its Quantum Information Center. Previously he received his PhD at UC Berkeley and was a faculty member at MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 2007-2016. Scott has won numerous prizes for his research on quantum computing and complexity theory, including the Alan T Waterman award in 2012 and the ACM Prize in Computing in 2020. In addition to being a world class scientist, Scott is famous for his highly informative and entertaining blog Schtetl Optimized, which has kept the scientific community up to date on quantum hype for nearly the past two decades.   In this episode, Scott Aaronson gives a crash course on quantum computing, diving deep into the details, offering insights, and clarifying misconceptions surrounding quantum hype.   Part I. Introduction (Personal) 00:00: Biography 01:02: Shtetl Optimized and the ways of blogging 09:56: sabattical at OpenAI, AI safety, machine learning 10:54: "I study what we can't do with computers we don't have" Part II. Introduction (Technical) 22:57: Overview 24:13: SMBC Cartoon: "The Talk". Summary of misconceptions of the field 33:09: How all quantum algorithms work: choreograph pattern of interference 34:38: Outline Part III. Setup 36:10: Review of classical bits 40:46: Tensor product and computational basis 42:07: Entanglement 44:25: What is not spooky action at a distance 46:15: Definition of qubit 48:10: bra and ket notation 50:48: Superposition example 52:41: Measurement, Copenhagen interpretation Part IV. Working with qubits 57:02: Unitary operators, quantum gates 59:03: Hadamard gate 1:03:34: Philosophical aside: How to "store" 2^1000 bits of information. 1:08:34: CNOT operation 1:09:45: quantum circuits 1:12:43: circuit notation, XOR notation 1:14:55: Subtlety on preparing quantum states 1:16:32: Building and decomposing general quantum circuits: Universality 1:21:30: Complexity of circuits vs algorithms 1:28:45: How quantum algorithms are physically implemented 1:31:55: Equivalence to quantum Turing Machine Part V. Quantum Speedup 1:35:48: Query complexity (black box / oracle model) 1:39:03: Objection: how is quantum querying not cheating? 1:42:51: Defining a quantum black box 1:45:30: Efficient classical f yields efficient U_f 1:47:26: Toffoli gate 1:50:07: Garbage and quantum uncomputing 1:54:45: Implementing (-1)^f(x)) 1:57:54: Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm: Where quantum beats classical 2:07:08: The point: constructive and destructive interference Part VI. Complexity Classes 2:08:41: Recap. History of Simon's and Shor's Algorithm 2:14:42: BQP 2:18:18: EQP 2:20:50: P 2:22:28: NP 2:26:10: P vs NP and NP-completeness 2:33:48: P vs BQP 2:40:48: NP vs BQP 2:41:23: Where quantum computing explanations go off the rails   Part VII. Quantum Supremacy 2:43:46: Scalabe quantum computing 2:47:43: Quantum supremacy 2:51:37: Boson sampling 2:52:03: What Google did and the difficulties with evaluating supremacy 3:04:22: Huge open question   Further Reading: Scott Aaronson's Lecture Notes: https://www.scottaaronson.com/qclec.pdf Scott Aaronson's Blog: https://scottaaronson.blog Nielsen & Chuang. Quantum Computation and Quantum Information   Twitter: @iamtimnguyen   Webpage: http://www.timothynguyen.org   If you would like to support this series and future such projects: Paypal: tim@timothynguyen.org Bitcoin: 33thftjoPTHFajj8wJFcCB9sFiyQLFVp8S Ethereum: 0x166a977F411d6f220cF8A56065D16B4FF08a246D

Young, top-notch scientists have a shot at recognition from the National Science Foundation. Each year the NSF names an early-career scientist to its Alan T. Waterman award. This year it named three. For what the award is all about and why the foundation has it, Tom spoke to program manager Gayle Pugh Lev.

Podcast: Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas (LS 69 · TOP 0.05% what is this?)Episode: 127 | Erich Jarvis on Language, Birds, and PeoplePub date: 2020-12-14Many characteristics go into making human beings special — brain size, opposable thumbs, etc. Surely one of the most important is language, and in particular the ability to learn new sounds and use them for communication. Many other species communicate through sound, but only a very few — humans, elephants, bats, cetaceans, and a handful of bird species — learn new sounds in order to do so. Erich Jarvis has been shedding enormous light on the process of vocal learning, by studying birds and comparing them to humans. He argues that there is a particular mental circuit in the brains of parrots (for example) responsible for vocal learning, and that it corresponds to similar circuits in the human brain. This has implications for the development of intelligence and other important human characteristics.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Erich Jarvis received his Ph.D. in Animal Behavior and Molecular Neurobehavior from Rockefeller University. He is currently a professor in the Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language at Rockefeller and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Among his many awards are the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation, an American Philosophical Society Award, a Packard Foundation fellowship, an NIH Director's Pioneer award, Northwestern University's Distinguished Role Model in Science award, and the Summit Award from the American Society for Association Executives.Web siteRockefeller web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsWikipediaTalk on vocal learning and the brainTwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sean Carroll | Wondery, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

Many characteristics go into making human beings special — brain size, opposable thumbs, etc. Surely one of the most important is language, and in particular the ability to learn new sounds and use them for communication. Many other species communicate through sound, but only a very few — humans, elephants, bats, cetaceans, and a handful of bird species — learn new sounds in order to do so. Erich Jarvis has been shedding enormous light on the process of vocal learning, by studying birds and comparing them to humans. He argues that there is a particular mental circuit in the brains of parrots (for example) responsible for vocal learning, and that it corresponds to similar circuits in the human brain. This has implications for the development of intelligence and other important human characteristics.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Erich Jarvis received his Ph.D. in Animal Behavior and Molecular Neurobehavior from Rockefeller University. He is currently a professor in the Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language at Rockefeller and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Among his many awards are the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation, an American Philosophical Society Award, a Packard Foundation fellowship, an NIH Director’s Pioneer award, Northwestern University’s Distinguished Role Model in Science award, and the Summit Award from the American Society for Association Executives.Web siteRockefeller web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsWikipediaTalk on vocal learning and the brainTwitter

This week we are speaking with Christopher Brinton and Mung Chiang, both experts on the subject of networks. In fact, the duo recently paired up to write a book called, The Power of Networks: Six Principles That Connect Our Lives. Mung Chiang is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University. His research on networking received the 2013 Alan T. Waterman Award, the highest honor to US young scientists and engineers. He founded the Princeton EDGE Lab in 2009, which bridges the theory-practice gap in edge networking research by spanning from proofs to prototypes. Chiang is the Director of Keller Center for Innovations in Engineering Education at Princeton University and the inaugural Chairman of Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Christopher Brinton is the Head of Advanced Research at Zoomi Inc. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University. He is also an adjunct professor in the School of Engineering at The College of New Jersey.

Scott Aaronson is the TIBCO Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at M.I.T. This year he received the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation in recognition of his work on computational complexity which explores the limits of quantum computers. He has also received the Junior Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching from M.I.T.