Midway through the week-long UCNC conference, today we had two great talks, a group photo, and the conference outing.
First up, Mika Hirvensalo gave a (remote) presentation on "41 years of quantum computing" as an introduction to the QC workshop to come on Friday. The "41 years" refers to Feynmann's 1982 paper of simulating quantum physics. Of course, quantum mechanics itself is somewhat older than that, but Feynmann was arguably the first to consider it as the basis for a computational use. Mika's talks covered a variety of historical themes: quantum computing itself, from von Neumann's (pre-Shannon) definition of quantum entropy, via Feynmann, the Deutsch and Shor algorithms, and more recent work on quantum complexity theory; some pre-history of quantum physics itself, starting with Young's two slit experiment; and practical milestones in building (small, noisy) quantum computers, from 2 bit NMR, via ion traps and photons, D-Wave's annealer, to qubit circuit machines. A fascinating perspective.
Next up, Lila Kari gave a keynote on using mathematical analyses of DNA sequences to investigate environmental adaptations of extremophile genomes. There was a lot of fascinating detail here about the biology of the bugs, and how to analyse them. I really loved the use of the "chaos game" algorithm to turn a genome sequence into a 2D fractal plot, where differences and similarities are clearly apparent on visual inspection.
We moved outside into the warm Florida sunshine for a photograph. (The locals kept apologising for the bad weather: although it was sunny, it was "only" in the low 20s (Celsius), which as far as I was concerned is perfect weather!) In olden days a conference photograph was a formal affair, all lined up with a proper photographer taking the picture. Nowadays, loosely group everyone on a convenient staircase, snag a passer-by to be the photographer, and snap a few pictures on a smartphone.
Then off to the conference outing, to the "old" town of St. Augustine. The campus is deserted this week, because it is spring break; St Augustine was packed, for similar reasons. But we had a good walk round, enjoying the old town (which looked suspiciously new in places), the fort, the shore, and some key lime pie.
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| the old fort |
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| panoramic view: there were fewer people here, probably because it was quite breezy and nicely cool |
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| a view across the bay |
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| trees in the town centre, draped in Spanish moss; beautiful |
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