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Category Archives: Controversies and debates
Amy Triumphs* at the Shtetl
It was not until the 144th comment by a participants named Amy on Scott’s Aaronson recent Shtetl-optimized** post devoted to a certain case of sexual harassment at M. I. T. that the discussion turned into something quite special. Amy’s great … Continue reading
Posted in Controversies and debates, Women in science
Tagged Amy, feminism, Shtetl-optimized
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Test your Intuition/Knowledge: What was Lord Kelvin’s Main Mistake?
The age of the earth (Thanks to Yeshu Kolodny) We now know that the age of the earth is 4.54±1% Billion years. From Wikipedea: In 1862, the physicist William Thomson (who later became Lord Kelvin) of Glasgow published calculations that … Continue reading
Posted in Controversies and debates, Geology, Physics, Test your intuition
Tagged Earth, Geology, Lord Kelvin, Test your intuition
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My Quantum Debate with Aram III
This is the third and last post giving a timeline and some non technical highlights from my debate with Aram Harrow. Where were we After Aram Harrow and I got in touch in June 2011, and decided to have … Continue reading
My Quantum Debate with Aram II
This is the second of three posts giving few of the non-technical highlights of my debate with Aram Harrow. (part I) After Aram Harrow and I got in touch in June 2011, and decided to have a blog debate about … Continue reading
My Quantum Debate with Aram Harrow: Timeline, Non-technical Highlights, and Flashbacks I
How the debate came about (Email from Aram Harrow, June 4, 2011) Dear Gil Kalai, I am a quantum computing researcher, and was wondering about a few points in your paper… (Aram’s email was detailed and thoughtful and at the … Continue reading
Meeting with Aram Harrow, and my Lecture on Why Quantum Computers Cannot Work.
Last Friday, I gave a lecture at the quantum information seminar at MIT entitled “Why quantum computers cannot work and how.” It was a nice event with lovely participation during the talk, and a continued discussion after it. Many very … Continue reading
The Quantum Debate is Over! (and other Updates)
Quid est noster computationis mundus? Nine months after is started, (much longer than expected,) and after eight posts on GLL, (much more than planned,) and almost a thousand comments of overall good quality, from quite a few participants, my … Continue reading
The Quantum Fault-Tolerance Debate Updates
In a couple of days, we will resume the debate between Aram Harrow and me regarding the possibility of universal quantum computers and quantum fault tolerance. The debate takes place over GLL (Godel’s Lost Letter and P=NP) blog. The Debate Where were … Continue reading
Updates, Boolean Functions Conference, and a Surprising Application to Polytope Theory
The Debate continues The debate between Aram Harrow and me on Godel Lost letter and P=NP (GLL) regarding quantum fault tolerance continues. The first post entitled Perpetual motions of the 21th century featured mainly my work, with a short response by Aram. … Continue reading
