The Classical Channel

Anonymous

4:18 AM

@Mithrandir24601 Q# is specifically related to quantum computing. New users who might want to ask questions about it, might wonder if they should ask about it on Stack Overflow, or here. By putting it in the meta-faq we are basically making it clear, that "yes", it is perfectly on-topic here. meta-faq should basically act as a rough guideline on what questions are allowed and what is not.

Anonymous

@Mithrandir24601 By the way, how do you write those tags as pop-up buttons?

Anonymous

I forgot the format

Anonymous

It was something like [tag-name:link] ?

DanielSank

4:29 AM

Hi, everybody!

vzn

@DanielSank hey DS welcome to the (cyber) party glad you could make it! =D did you go to that google party in LA? wanna hear all about it!

DanielSank

5:43 AM

@vzn yeah I was there. That party was the spiritual successor to an event I've been putting on for several years, to bring members of the various competing quantum computing teams together.

This year's party was a bit higher production value than my old get-togethers though.

Started when I was in grad school. I think the first year we did it was the APS meeting in San Antonio.

I remember Vinay drank a lot of beer...

The Wired article uses some exaggeration in describing this year's event.

Mithrandir24601

8:39 AM

@Blue Ah, see, I'd make that argument about virtually every on-topic meta question, which would defeat the point on having that tag :P - I'm going to hesitantly suggest you're jumping the gun a bit - out of 22 meta questions, 6 are already 'faq', so 1. I think saying a question is 'frequently asked' when it's only been asked once is pre-empting something that may never happen again,

2. cf. with physics, which has a mere 15 faq questions, despite the size and maths SE, which is even bigger and only has 17. interpersonal skills on the other hand, which is a bit newer, has none. This leads me to 3. where I say that having lots of questions tagged faq makes those questions hard to navigate, which does defeat the point to some extent. Just my opinion :P yeah, it's [tag:tag-name]

(without the space. So much for code snippets :P

Aha! There we go :)

Anonymous

@Mithrandir24601 I was thinking of merging those two tags. You're right that technically 'faq' should be used only when the questions in those tag have actually been asked "frequently".

Anonymous

7

Q: Tutorial: How to use TeX/MathJax?

$\TeX$ is a markup language that allows us to insert content like equations and tables. It is enabled on StackExchange sites like Quantum Computing through an addin called MathJax. To use it, we put $'s around things to be rendered. For example, $x$ renders as $x$. While $x$ renders in-line, ...

Anonymous

But what would you do for a question like this? ^

Anonymous

Maybe only keep these type of questions as faq ?

Anonymous

And remove the faq tag from the questions tagged with on-topic ?

Mithrandir24601

8:53 AM

@Blue perhaps a 'tutorial' tag or something?

Anonymous

That's a good idea. But then we'd have to request the individual OPs of the meta posts to change the tags accordingly. The problem with meta is that normal users can't suggest edits.

Mithrandir24601

@Blue Yeah, this kind of thing is maybe best left right now - we're just starting off, so there's probably going to be lots of little things that a mod'll need to go through later

Anonymous

3:08 PM

@Mithrandir24601 True, let's leave it as it is for now. Gotta wait till some mods are appointed for this site

user129412

6:28 PM

I was referred to here to ask this, but I don't feel like it constitutes an actual question as I'm just looking for a referral, not for someone to come up with something.
Transmon qubits can be described in the language of a charged quantum rotor in a constant magnetic field. Does anyone know of any visualizations/animations/demo's that allow people new to transmons to play with this analogy, to build intuition?

Anonymous

@user129412 You can ask under the resource-request tag I guess

Andrew O

7:17 PM

What would be the best metric to go by for a potential giveaway? Reputation? I brought up sending out some shirts and stickers to people that are working hard to make this place useful.

Nat

Hey folks, made a related Meta post at SE.Math to ask them about MathJax functionality: "Can custom TeX/MathJax commands be defined by default for a site?".

I figure that, if we can add custom MathJax commands for the site, then we could have a discussion about which ones would be most useful.

But, I figured it'd be best to look into if we're able to do it before worrying about the details.

Anonymous

The best metric would be the amount of "positive" contribution and active participation. Whether reputation is a good measure of that depends on your opinion.
(P.S: I'd personally love to have a t-shirt with the site-tag! I'm greedy :P)

Anonymous

@Nat Upvoted it. Let's wait for the responses

Nat

@AndrewO Reputation's kinda tricky. It's generally understood on SE sites that reputation doesn't well-correlate with, say, effort or insight. More commonly, easy questions/answers that have simple, well-agreed-upon answers get the most rep.

Here's a related on post on SE.Math: "Should we encourage upvotes on more advanced questions, that are seemingly well written, even if you don't understand it?".

And one from SE.Academia: "My “Then fix it dear Henry”-type answer get massively upvoted".

(But those are just two recent examples I happened to remember off-hand; seems to be a commonly discussed problem through the SE network overall.)

I guess it'd depend on what ya want the giveaway to encourage. I mean, rep could work as a metric. Activity might be useful, too.

Actually, nevermind, I'm overthinking it. For a fun giveaway, rep works. =P

Mithrandir24601

9:21 PM

@Blue if you want to discuss about if a specific tag should be removed, it's probably a better idea to discuss here, then make a meta post (or you could make a meta post straight off if you're sure), instead of commenting under an answer discussing a different tag :P

Also, relax! - we're still in early days yet, so I don't think there's a particular need to rush through mass tag editing until everyone's had a chance to give an opinion

Anonymous

9:33 PM

@Mithrandir24601 I'm sorry for that one. It would take a lot of effort to write a meta post for each controversial tag that comes up. So, I'll try to discuss it here, on chat, from next time. I've deleted my irrelevant comments discussing about the other tags.

Mithrandir24601

@Blue Relax! These are just my opinions! If you think it's better to do it differently, that's up to you :P I'm completely new to the whole 'beta SE' thing - I've been a member of Worldbuilding for nearly 2 years and I still haven't built up the privileges that I got within 4 days here either, so I'm really just going on the odd bit and piece I've heard from other sites and what I feel makes sense. That doesn't mean I'm right

Anonymous

Lol, yeah. Tbh, I do realize that I've somewhat let my excitement of the new site opening up take the better of me, and made a lot of edits without taking the consent of the other community members. :P

Anonymous

I'll try to let the site evolve more naturally I guess

Mithrandir24601

@Blue Scary thought: We are the site evolving naturally

Anonymous

Heh, well, technically :)

Nat

9:42 PM

@Mithrandir24601 Pft, evolution's a myth designed to scare us into supporting Big Oil.

Mithrandir24601

@Nat Hydrogen fuel cells for the win! :P

Nat

@Mithrandir24601 =D

Regarding "Can a Turing machine simulate a quantum computer?", I'm still wondering about how to discuss the issue with randomness. I mean, there's a fairly common myth that quantum mechanics is a source of fundamental randomness. It's easy enough to denounce it, though I dunno if there might be a common source to link on the topic that explains some of the issues going into it?

Anonymous

@Nat Could you elaborate a bit on what exactly you want to be discussed? QM is fundamentally random (within some constraints of course)

Nat

@Blue Trying to figure out how to explain the difference between model-randomness and reality-randomness. This is, yeah, the QM model has irreducible randomness, much like a die-rolling model in D&D does. However, the conceptual mistake is when folks take that to imply that randomness is intrinsic to reality itself, rather than merely to the model.

It seems that the distinction's a tad subtle for some?

I guess that, more broadly, it might be an issue of Platonic realism? I mean, not too long back, folks used to think that Newtonian mechanics was fundamentally and absolutely true and complete; and, today, it seems many have the same misconception about Quantum Mechanics.

Anonymous

8

A: Can randomness exist?

You should look at the link that Qmechanic gives, as it is closely related to your question. The "randomness" in quantum mechanics is widely misunderstood. There is nothing random in the wavefunction (or quantum field theory description) and as long as all interacting systems stay entangled the ...

Mithrandir24601

9:53 PM

@Nat I still don't know exactly what you mean by 'randomness' - to me, randomness (in this context) means that we may know, or be potentially able to find out if we can make repeated measurements (to within some error) the probability distribution of whatever we're talking about, without knowing for certain what the result will be on any single run, while ignorance isn't even knowing that

Anonymous

There are already a few answers relating to that issue on PSE

Mithrandir24601

@Nat Personally, I take the view that it's a more philosophical question than maths or physics

Anonymous

Well, you do seem to be diving into the deep waters of "interpretations" at this point :P

Anonymous

I'd surely like to see an answer regarding the explanation of the model-randomness thing though. It would be a good Q&A to have

Anonymous

Maybe frame a question on that, as relevant to QC

Mithrandir24601

9:56 PM

@Nat I think though, the word you were looking for in this comment might be counterfactual?

Nat

@Blue Awesome, that should be a helpful link!

Mithrandir24601

@Blue Pretty much [sorry, getting confused with who's who :P]

i.e. This makes it [non-determinism] a non-concept

Nat

@Mithrandir24601 I dislike the notion of "true randomness" a tad more than being counterfactual; rather, it seems inconsistent, and so it's prone to the principle of explosion.

It'd be a bit hard to explain in short, but I guess I see it as an ontological poison. This is, because it's subtly inconsistent with itself, then arguments based on it are prone to acquiring subtle internal inconsistency. It's like building a logical system on a broken axiom. ...actually, I suppose that that is the basis of my contempt for it; since it's a broken concept, it pollutes all arguments built upon it.

Mithrandir24601

@Nat All I mean by 'counterfactual' here is "something that can't be directly measured", whether or not it's true. As in the universe may or may not be deterministic, but ironically, we're unable to determine that with current knowledge of physics and may never be able to determine that

Nat

I mean, it's a really nice simplification in the limited scopes in which we might employ it. Just, when folks start to take it too seriously and building concepts on it.. that's when I see it as problematic.

Anonymous

10:04 PM

If I were to explain it, I'd just go the math way and explain it terms of probability distributions and perhaps an analogy with dice throwing

Mithrandir24601

In my case, after discovering the delights of quantum reference frames, I have started to wonder if the different interpretations (non-local hidden variable vs. non-determinism) are the same at a deeper level than just being 'different interpretations', but then I realise I'm not actually that bothered, as I find less philosophical physics more interesting :)

Nat

Heh I love the philosophical stuff. =P Incidentally, @Blue, I regret describing my work as "CS-like" the other day; I actually like the field of "Natural Philosophy" most (which my alias is meant to hint at), but I figure that most folks don't know what that is. =P

Anonymous

I avoid philosophizing about physics due to the amount of existential crisis it generates in me. (Guess I already told that before) :P

Nat

Yeah, it certainly does lead to a lot of emotionally problematic existential concerns...

Anonymous

@Nat Hehe. I sort of understand your situation. Same happens with me when I tell people that I'm an electronics engineer who's interested in pure mathematics.

Anonymous

10:14 PM

I do understand what you mean by NP though

Anonymous

Although it's not a formal stream of study in the modern times

Anonymous

Somewhere at the intersection of Logic, Philosophy and Natural Sciences

Nat

@Blue Hah I used to tell the folks back in my Physics program that I was an engineer; that got a lot of interesting reactions, too. =P

Anonymous

"Shoo! Shoo! Don't make us impure" ;)

Anonymous

Sleepy now. Biya, people!

Mithrandir24601

10:33 PM

@Blue Night!

Discrete lizard

11:41 PM

Is it just me, or does the strangeworks logo at the top remind anyone of Big brother, watching your quantum comps? It doesn't help that the strangeworks website doesn't look very friendly either...

heather

the website, in my opinion, does not have the best design, no. =P

Discrete lizard

I think they're trying to be 'mysterious'. I think they are succeeding in the same way as goths. That is, they're just looking kinda creepy.

Anyway, as people seem to be keen on introductions here: I'm a CS+math student that reads Aaronsons blog once in a while. I've no particular QC knowledge beyond popsci-level or prerequisite CS and math. I could have taken a QC course, but ah, so many courses, so little time. Such is the fate of a masters' student.

Also, I really should go to bed.

Transcript for

The Classical Channel