pontus

18 ms·

121.
by pontus 6y ago
Correct, cloning in even the simplest sense of a single particle state (let alone a whole human) is impossible in quantum mechanics.
122.
by pontus 6y ago
Great question! This gets to the heart of why quantum teleportation has any value at all. So, before QM there was already a sense in which you could teleport an object: simply measure its state perfectly and send that information to another
123.
by pontus 6y ago
In some sense the two systems that are entangled are connected instantaneously. The problem is that the information doesn't reside in either system but rather in them as a whole. So, if you were in space with one part of your "wal
124.
by pontus 6y ago
No, while entanglement acts instantaneously across a large distance, there's no way for that "signal" to carry any information. In order to complete the teleportation the two parties must somehow communicate in order to conve
125.
by pontus 6y ago
You entangle two systems but in order to actually complete the teleportation you need to measure one system and then convey the outcome of that measurement to the other party. This information is needed by the second party in order for them
126.
by pontus 6y ago
Yes, I agree. I just suspect that the people involved here are not like that. If what they really wanted was to improve things at Google, they would not be asking for her to be rehired and promoted. There is literally zero chance that will
127.
by pontus 6y ago
Yes, I think if people were really trying to improve their companies from within that's a great idea. I don't think that's what's happening here though. I like to pose the following thought experiment to people who like
128.
by pontus 6y ago
My god, people need to calm down. I understand that some may be upset about things their employer does and that's well within their rights. If their employer is knowingly engaging in illegal activity then by all means, be a whistle blo
129.
by pontus 6y ago
I would say that this is a very low risk investment. The price, like you say will inch up slowly from 98 to 100. I can then sell this security at any point with very low but steady return. This is the hallmark of a low risk investment. It&#
130.
by pontus 6y ago
I guess it's dangerous to use words like "nobody" or "everyone" or "always" or "never" on the overly pedantic Hacker News. I would hope that the sentiment of my point came across either way. If n
131.
by pontus 6y ago
That together with the fact that nobody gets promoted and nobody collects revenue by simplifying or refactoring code.
132.
by pontus 6y ago
Yeah, I know, it just reminded me of this general thought I've had for a while (that being said, it's still limited once you throttle it so the same argument would apply.)
133.
by pontus 6y ago
A side note on this: I always wondered when there'll be a lawsuit to this effect (the thing that originally prompted this thought was one of the carrier networks throttling download speed after some amount of data). In the extreme case
134.
by pontus 6y ago
Yeah, exactly
135.
by pontus 6y ago
The point is not that the probability needs to hit zero, it's that it's not correct to say that you receive a quarter of the power as you move twice as far from the source. It's still true that the expected number of photons
136.
by pontus 6y ago
The probability can then get arbitrarily small, meaning that the expected amount of time needed before the probability of having observed a photon would get progressively larger. My argument above is semi-classical, but it shouldn't ch
137.
by pontus 6y ago
Great point, thanks! Makes perfect sense. Turns out though that the intensity actually falls off faster than 1/r^2 toward the end due to quantization effects. Feels silly to include quantization, but I guess when were talking about sta
138.
by pontus 6y ago
I guess the fall-off is even worse. At the beginning the intensity falls off as 1/r^2, but eventually the intensity becomes so small that you're talking about individual photons. At some point the intensity will then fall from a s
139.
by pontus 6y ago
Isn't this just an issue of comparing a countable and uncountable infinity? The number of points on the unit sphere is uncountable, but the number of stars is countable. As such there are in some sense more points on the sphere than th
140.
How the Slowest Computer Programs Illuminate Math’s Fundamental Limits(quantamagazine.org)
154 points by pontus 6y ago|61 comments
141.
by pontus 6y ago
By not being an Amazon clone. If you want to sell a lot of different types of items in a searchable way for low prices with fast shipping, you're probably going to have a hard time. If you want to compete with Amazon, you'll have
142.
by pontus 6y ago
Perhaps you're talking about the east or south bay, but SF proper has awful weather. Moved there from NYC expecting the climate you describe only to find rugged and overcast weather year around. Moved to Los Angeles after a year and ca
143.
by pontus 6y ago
I'd like it if the trend became to write business books as a collection of essays rather than around a single topic. I'm sort of imagining Paul Graham's essays bound into a book or something similar. That way it's not un
144.
by pontus 6y ago
My experience is that books come in two forms: ones that can be summarized by a blog post (e.g. any Malcolm Gladwell book) and those that contain content of irreducible complexity (e.g. history books or textbooks). I usually get bored with
145.
by pontus 6y ago
You can't hand in your resignation effective at a future date. That's not how it works. If you resign, you resign. It's then up to the employer whether or not to hold you to whatever notice period is set out in your contract.
146.
by pontus 6y ago
Yes, that's right. I haven't verified it but suspect that you might be able to improve on this by generating the coordinates in order, constantly decreasing the range to ensure that the point falls within the sphere. Then, to ensu
147.
by pontus 6y ago
The method described in the article does not produce a spherically symmetric distribution since each value of z is equally likely. This means that a small circle near the north pole will contain as many points as the equator. Instead the di
148.
by pontus 6y ago
I meant that each person had to disclose the single reason they wanted to take the course. Out of all responses, one of most common #1 reasons was to expose issues in other people's thinking. In other words, some people may have ranked
149.
by pontus 6y ago
One of the issues that companies like Waymo will have to face is that it's not going to be enough to be better than a human driver, you actually have to be better than a human driver with lane assist, blind spot checkers, adaptive crui
150.
by pontus 6y ago
Ironically the biggest cognitive flaw is believing that these apply to other people but not to yourself. I saw a comment from someone at the center for applied rationality a while ago that said that one of the top reasons why people want to

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