Useful Thoughts and Actions Taken

List of videos mostly

Links

• Quantum Entanglement and Spooky Action at a distance
• Video: Spooky Actions At A Distance?: Oppenheimer Lecture – David Mermin   –  Note the 3 particle "stuff left behind" part of the talk.  It is used again in the next video
• Video: KITP Lecture : Putting Weirdness to Work: Quantum Information Science
• Leonard Susskind 2006 Quantum entanglement video lecture page – highly recommended – Susskind is rather gravid in comparison with Feynman.  Now we are starting to get serious. 
• Mermin presentation on Shor's algorithm
• Shor's algorithm explanation with source code of classical computer simulation of the algorithm
• Grovers algorithm explanation
• Algorithms – Dasgupta, C. H. Papadimitriou, and U. V. Vazirani   See chapter 10 for very rapid to understand explanation of quantum gates and Shor algorithm – My backup location for this

Have you ever heard anyone saying "it can not get any worse!"   Anyone with common sense knows it can always get worse unless you are buried 6 feet under.  It appears to me that getting worse is exactly what happens.  To get better would require some marvel of science where in the third law of thermodynamics is violated.   Thus arises my theory of how to predict the future.   Think of the worst change that could happen to your society and assume that is the future.  Well maybe not but it sure is not going to get any better. 

    Alice:   " She can not get any worse "

    Bob:  " Things with her are not going to get any  better! "

    Eve: " I heard that ! "

I was called for jury duty in the early 1990's.  It was for murder case against Ray Krone.   I remember thinking to myself jokingly when I saw Ray Krone trotted in for a plea in front of the judge "I am going to fry that guy".     Since I am a rational human ( aka engineer ) I was not and would never be selected for jury duty.   It appears lawyers like people with ill formed minds that can easily be twisted by their foolish words.   Years later Ray Krone was exonerated after sitting in prison for 10 years.   Part of that time he was on death row for a murder he did not commit.    Maybe my  "fry that dude" joke was in poor taste.

Originally when Howard Hughes went to Las Vegas he wanted to buy an airport, radio station and land.  There was no intention of buying a casino.  But when it came time to leave the hotel he was staying in Hughes did not want to give up his top floor room in the mafia own casino hotel.  He was threatened with bodily removal from the premises.  Mayhew told Hughes jokingly "If you want a place to stay tonight you better start negociations to buy a hotel"  Which Hughes and company in a manner of sorts.

Later Howard Hughes phoned Robert Mayhew and asked  "Bob – How many more of these toys are available?"

Mayhew responded with "What do you mean by toy?"

Hughes "how many more of these casinos are available?"

What is of note is that the mobsters thought the casinos were really something.  In contrast Hughes was so much larger than them that he considered them "toys".  The lesson is that which you already know.  An engineer is a person that can do with 1 dollar what a thief does with 100.  And in this case the engineer has much money in addition thus making him all the more potent in contrast.  Remember this next time you vote.  Those that would offer you free government cheese to buy your vote is doing you no favor.  You are better working hard in part of something that a Howard Hughes builds than playing the part of petty thief under the direction of some political mob boss. 

In short it is a sign of our cultures problem that we watch 100 movies about gangsters for every 1 movie about a creator.  When you worship the destroyers you get what you deserve.   On the other hand what an amazing creator Hughes was.

YouTube: Howard Hughes Documentary