Category Archives: Computer Science

Q: Is it possible to create an “almanac” of human behavior that predicts everything a person will do?

Posted on February 28, 2021 by The Physicist

The original question was: “Furthermore, you say, science will teach men (although in my opinion a superfluity) that they have not, in fact, and never have had, either will or fancy, and are no more than a sort of piano … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Biology, Entropy/Information, Machine Learning & A.I., Paranoia, Philosophical | 10 Comments

A Quantum Computation Course

Posted on January 31, 2020 by The Physicist

Physicist: I’ve been a little busy to post much here for a while, but you may be interested in what I’m working on, so here it is.  I’m teaching an introductory course on quantum information and computation, and the primary … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Computer Science, Entropy/Information, Experiments, Math, Philosophical, Physics, Probability, Quantum Theory | 9 Comments

Q: What is quantum supremacy? Is it awesome or worrisome?

Posted on October 31, 2019 by The Physicist

Physicist: Mostly awesome.  Eventually. Recently, some of the folk at Google claimed to have achieved “quantum supremacy” (here’s what they had to say about it).  Google has, like many other big companies and nations, been very gung-ho about research into … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Computer Science, Engineering, Quantum Theory | 9 Comments

Q: Do we actually live in a computer simulation?

Posted on September 30, 2019 by The Physicist

Physicist: This has become a whole thing.  Although it has shown up in a lot of incarnations throughout history, the most recent is something like this: Computers are getting better all the time and some day artificial reality will be … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Computer Science, Paranoia, Philosophical, Skepticism | 16 Comments

Q: Is it possible to write a big number using a small number? Is there a limit to how much information can be compressed?

Posted on December 13, 2017 by The Physicist

Physicist: Although there are tricks that work in very specific circumstances, in general when you “encode” any string of digits using fewer digits, you lose some information.  That means that when you want to reverse the operation and “decode” what … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Combinatorics, Computer Science, Entropy/Information, Math | 11 Comments

Q: Why are numerical methods necessary? If we can’t get exact solutions, then how do we know when our approximate solutions are any good?

Posted on September 20, 2017 by The Physicist

Physicist: When a problem can be solved exactly and in less time than forever, then it is “analytically solvable”.  For example, “Jack has 2 apples and Jill has 3 apples, how many apples do they have together?” is analytically solvable.  … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Computer Science, Equations, Math | 13 Comments