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Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

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Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#71

Post by morgante »

dnautics wrote: post #68
morgante wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe technical competence is uncorrelated to adminisitrative effectiveness. I don't. Many Asian nations (including Singapore, China, etc.) are largely governed by engineering majors and I do believe this has been helpful for improving administrative effectiveness. This stands in stark contrast to countries where governance is dominated by either lawyers (the US) or military members (many other developing natio…

Of course in those asian nations you describe there is also a stronger tendency to view society as something to be "engineered". Herbert Hoover was the US's most prominent Engineer-president, and although history has been revised to make him seem like a laissez-faire president, he was (especially compared to his predecessor Coolidge) an economically interventionist president. The Hoover presidency did not turn out so…

> Of course in those asian nations you describe there is also a stronger tendency to view society as something to be "engineered".

Indeed.

It's important to keep in mind that a technocratic leader will likely not do well or have effective results in a political system dominated by lawyers (as Hoover shows).

Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#72

Post by dnautics »

wnewman wrote: post #49
dboreham wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know for sure, but I think it is reasonable to assume Jimmy Carter knows a fair bit about quantum mechanics.

Why would Carter know about QM? As far as I know, little in a nuclear reactor can be usefully analyzed at the quantum level even today. (And FWIW, even if some things in flight can be usefully analyzed in terms of simple limiting cases of the Navier-Stokes equations, I'd be surprised to hear someone assuming that a Republican president "knows a fair bit about fluid mechanics" just because he was an officer and pilot.…

The US Naval Academy has a pretty good science program, and (IIRC) during Carter's era, all midshipmen were trained as engineers first, with the requisite science background, including (presumably) what QM was known in 1946. Moreover, as a nuke officer during that era he was personally vetted by Adm. Hyman Rickover, who had placed legendarily[0] high demands on the intellect, technical skill, moral integrity, and ingenuity of the Nuclear corps.

Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#73

Post by GuiA »

Jonathan Blow tweeted about this last night - I particularly agree with him about how everyone ridiculed the old politician who said the Internet was a "series of pipes", but here everyone is praising the young, hot Trudeau for his knowledge of quantum computing when really the two display a similar level of basic understanding about that subject.

In any case, it's not about the politicians' knowledge - it's not Trudeau's job to know about QC - but how the public's .

https://mobile.twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/721407108852...

Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#74

Post by sayler »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #34
stevehiehn wrote: post #20

I think the take-away here is not what so much what PM Trudeau knows or doesn't know about quantum computing. It reveals how low our expectations are of our leaders.

Agreed. But... Honestly I love Justin but I couldn't care less if he understood quantum computing. As long as he has the sense to surround himself with the right people . JFK probably didn't know a single thing about the science of getting to the moon, if you catch my drift. i.e., I don't think our expectations ought to be much different, and not expecting a politician to understand quantum computing isn't a 'low exp…

Not directly relevant, but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIM-49_Nike_Zeus#Kennedy_and_Z...

"Kennedy was fascinated by the Zeus debate, especially the way that scientists were lined up on diametrically opposed positions for or against the system. He commented to Wiesner, 'I don’t understand. Scientists are supposed to be rational people. How can there be such differences on a technical issue?' His fascination grew and he eventually compiled a mass of material on Zeus which took up one corner of a room where he spent hundreds of hours becoming an expert on the topic. In one meeting with Edward Teller, Kennedy demonstrated that he knew more about the Zeus and ABMs than Teller. Teller then expended considerable effort to bring himself up to the same level of knowledge. Wiesner would later note that the pressure to make a decision built up until 'Kennedy came to feel that the only thing anybody in the country was concerned about was Nike-Zeus.''

Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#75

Post by wmoxam »

James001 wrote: post #56

Jesus... I was hoping atleast HN wouldn't give Trudeau a press blowjob. I'm from Canada and he is the most incompetent PM we've ever had. If you want to know what the future has for Canada with him as PM, look no further than the most indebted sub-sovereign in the world: Ontario. These guys are corrupt as fuck

> look no further than the most indebted sub-sovereign in the world: Ontario

This isn't surprising, provinces are responsible for the largest share of public spending amongst the 3 levels of government in Canada

https://www.quora.com/Why-has-Ontario-become-the-worlds-most...

Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#76

Post by bparsons »

Walkman wrote: post #2

Someone on FB speculated that it was a trick just for this video: > the person asking the question probably works for Trudeau and Trudeau had previously memorized the whole quantum explanation just for this video. and after reading an article about this claimed that: > Trudeau had actually learned the definition of quantum computing that very morning before this conference and admitted to the fact. Source: https://ww…

The person asking the question is a reporter for the Canadian Press.

Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#77

Post by canistr »

martythemaniak wrote: post #21

Trudeau did complete two years of engineering at a decent school and worked as a math teacher. While we don't know if he was prepped or regurgitated a paragraph, he probably has the faculties and interest to have a general understanding of what he was talking about. Oftentimes it's easier to actually learn something than to cheat convincingly.

I can't seem to find much information with regards to his time studying engineering at Montreal. One article (albeit, the Toronto Sun so take it with a grain of salt) claims he dropped out. And I can't find anything that mentions what type of engineering he studied. It does seem a bit strange to go from studying English Literature, to becoming a teacher, to suddenly studying engineering before switching to environmental geography.

Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#78

Post by neurotech1 »

dnautics wrote: post #72
wnewman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Carter know about QM? As far as I know, little in a nuclear reactor can be usefully analyzed at the quantum level even today. (And FWIW, even if some things in flight can be usefully analyzed in terms of simple limiting cases of the Navier-Stokes equations, I'd be surprised to hear someone assuming that a Republican president "knows a fair bit about fluid mechanics" just because he was an officer and pilot.…

The US Naval Academy has a pretty good science program, and (IIRC) during Carter's era, all midshipmen were trained as engineers first, with the requisite science background, including (presumably) what QM was known in 1946. Moreover, as a nuke officer during that era he was personally vetted by Adm. Hyman Rickover, who had placed legendarily[0] high demands on the intellect, technical skill, moral integrity, and ing…

Rickover was promoted to the rank of vice admiral in 1958, the same year that he was awarded the first of two Congressional Gold Medals. Rickover exercised tight control for the next three decades over the ships, technology, and personnel of the nuclear Navy, interviewing and approving or denying every prospective officer being considered for a nuclear ship.

Adm. Rickover [0] certainly set the standard with personal vetting of nuclear offices, but with the stakes of a reactor mishap being so high, who can really blame him?

Contrast Adm. Rickover's tough stance with the managers in charge of the shuttle program [1] that led to STS-51L Challenger disaster.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...

Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#79

Post by amelius »

weinzierl wrote: post #64
amelius wrote: post #36

I'm wondering if massive bacterial computation will beat quantum computing on tasks like factorizing large integers. https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jul/24/bacteri...

No, the amazing thing in the article you linked is that bacteria colonies can solve complex mathematical problems at all . No one said they will be faster than other classical computers. If you like to read about this kind of problems: Many of Scott Aaronson's other post are about the limits of efficient computation. If you are interested especially in the limits of alternative approaches like protein folding, analog…

Well, thanks for the link, but I meant "faster" in the sense of being the first to provide a practical solution. By the way, I'm assuming that with bacterial computing, it (somehow) becomes simple to exponentially duplicate your computation building blocks.

Re: Grading Trudeau on quantum computing

#80

Post by archgoon »

GuiA wrote: post #73

Jonathan Blow tweeted about this last night - I particularly agree with him about how everyone ridiculed the old politician who said the Internet was a "series of pipes", but here everyone is praising the young, hot Trudeau for his knowledge of quantum computing when really the two display a similar level of basic understanding about that subject. In any case, it's not about the politicians' knowledge - it's not Trud…

Well, here's the original Steven's quote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE

He was mocked more at the time for the email bit, namely the idea that the reason why he didn't get his email for 4 days was because of people streaming videos on the internet.

However, it's not clear that he had a good understanding of the analogy himself (I'm sure that revisionists like Mr. Blow, who do understand how the internet work, can justify it, but it's not Mr. Blow's understanding that we're interested in here, as Mr. Blow is not proposing legislation to block Net Neutrality). In addition to the email bit, he seems to believe that the internet used to be a point to point communication network, whereas now the "industry wisely provided streaming, in effect, a kind of long distance, which is what we've got now". Given this, it's really not clear at all what "it's not a truck, it's a series of tubes" is supposed to clarify.

Now, if Mr. Trudeau was using his understanding of Quantum Computing to justify a large government subsidy of DWave, there would be good cause to look at this throwaway quote in more detail.

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