A fascinating book and a topic that may be easily misunderstood: the application of quantum mechanics to computing. The author does not shy away from A fascinating book and a topic that may be easily misunderstood: the application of quantum mechanics to computing. The author does not shy away from the maths of linear algebra and matrix computations, but if you stick with it and work through or think about the maths, you'll get a better understanding of how quantum computing works, instead of getting a 'hand-wavy' non-mathematical view.
The book starts with the basics of quantum mechanics: how the act of measurement alters the properties of a quantum object like light (photons) or electrons. Next, linear algebra and matrix computations are introduced, and it is probably best for the reader to work through or become familiar with this, or much of the rest of the book will be incomprehensible. Next, the mathematics are then used to show how measurements of quantum objects cause them to take on the measured states: this is the 'shut up and calculate' form of quantum mechanics, where not much is said about what quantum mechanics is, but only about what it does.
Using mathematics, the author then shows what happens when two particles are entangled and their states measured. He carefully shows how measuring the state of one entangled particle 'instantaneously' causes another particle to take another known state, and why this does not lead to 'faster than light' communication. He also shows the calculations on how Bell's Inequality shows that quantum entanglement is real and not a due to a 'hidden variables' form involving classical particles.
The author then switches topics to introduce logic gates, which leads to the topic of quantum gates. Again, mathematics is used to show how such quantum gates work. These quantum gates are then combined to produce quantum circuits, which are then used to show how 'superdense coding' and quantum teleportation work.
Finally, the work culminates by looking at quantum algorithms and how they achieve 'better' results and classical algorithms. Finally, a brief look at how quantum computers could perform better than their classical counterparts is given....more
A fascinating book looking at the history of the Chinese Computer, or attempts to enable the input and display of Chinese characters in the early daysA fascinating book looking at the history of the Chinese Computer, or attempts to enable the input and display of Chinese characters in the early days of computers. Now known as IMEs (input method editors), it was not a given that the most popular method now used for Chinese, Hanyu Pinyin, would be the dominant one, nor that it is now so efficient that is can rival, or even exceed, the speed of entering words using Latin alphabets. Early IMEs used numeric coding, codes based on the structure of Chinese characters, and other methods which might have become dominant. But Hanyu Pinyin would win in the end due to politics and an advantage, compared to other methods, at entering multiple characters.
What follows is a chapter by chapter summary of the book.
"1: When IMEs Were Women: IBM, Lois Lew, and the Dawn of Electronic Chinese" looks at the history of one of the first Chinese entry systems used. It uses four-digit codes to represent the most popular Chinese characters and the ability of a typist to memorize the codes and enter them to generate the words. This was based on the telegraph system which also uses four-digit codes for Chinese characters, so it was possible for a typist to memorize most of them. And a Chinese woman, Lois Lew, would become the main person to demonstrate this ability in demonstrations by the inventor of the input method.
"2: Breaking the Spell: Sinotype and the Invention of Autocompletion" covers entry system based on the characteristics of Chinese characters. These break down Chinese characters into subcharacters and strokes and assigned to certain keys. These keys were then entered in combination to reproduce the Chinese character. Efficiency in entering characters was by arranging for the most often used strokes to be most easily accessible. More efficiency by achieve by allowing Chinese characters to be selected based on a minimum set of key entries that uniquely identify it. This was, essentially, a form of word prediction and autocorrecting. A display would show the selected character to the typist for confirmation before it was finally entered.
"3: Farewell, QWERTY: The Quest for a Chinese Keyboard" covers the period when non-Qwerty keyboards were used to input Chinese characters. At this time, many keyboards were proposed, all with hundreds of keys, with different ways of mapping a combination of keys to each Chinese character.
"4: The Input Wars: Zhi Bingyi and the Return of Hypography" covers the rise of minicomputers and microcomputers used in China, usually ones imported from the West. This gave new impetus to entering Chinese character entry using a Qwerty keyboard. It covers various schemes for generating characters based on various input schemes. Many were proposed during this period, but only a few made it to market, as they needed to work with the manufacturers of the computers to implement them.
"5: The Search for Modding China: Printers, Screens, and the Politics of Peripherals" looks at the microcomputer era with the introduction of Apple II and IBM-PC like computers. These microcomputers came with peripherals, like monitors and printers, pose new challenges to producing Chinese characters. Made for Western alphabets, they lack the resolution or ability to show or print Chinese characters. It was the rise of modders and hackers who worked to modify printer hardware to make them produce Chinese characters. Operating systems also had to be hacked or modified to handle Chinese input systems, and to display and print Chinese characters. These changes propagated back to manufacturers of the operating system, leading to the rise of 'international' operating systems that have the built-in ability to display Chinese characters and other languages.
"6: Connected Thoughts: Chinese in the Age of Predictive Text" covers the rise of Hanyu Pinyin as the most used input system today. Compared to other Chinese input systems at the time, it was less efficient at entering individual Chinese characters. But Hanyu Pinyin overcomes this due to the capabilities of modern computers for predicting input, allowing computers to quickly enter well-known multi character phrases faster than other input methods that were optimized for generating single characters. Multiple domain specific databases of Chinese characters also allowed Hanyu Pinyin to quickly produce output for specific purposes. It also didn't hurt that the Chinese Government encouraged the use of Hanyu Pinyin as an alternative writing method to traditional Chinese characters.
The book ends will a note that even today, people are still inventing input systems for Chinese and other non-alphabetic written languages. Globally, computers with such input systems now outnumber Western style entry systems (one key for each character). Now, with AI chatbots, one-letter-per-key entry systems may even see a decline in the future, as people now use chatbots to enter words on their behalf based on a prompt....more
An interesting collection of translated essays and short stories by Liu Cixin. The essays cover his opinions on SFF in China and his thoughts on the fAn interesting collection of translated essays and short stories by Liu Cixin. The essays cover his opinions on SFF in China and his thoughts on the future of technology and humanity. The short stories featured here are mostly hard SF stories that explore the implications of a particular technology on people or on society....more
A fascinating book that looks at why people often fall for tricks and scams that, usually on hindsight, appear so obvious. As the authors explain, it A fascinating book that looks at why people often fall for tricks and scams that, usually on hindsight, appear so obvious. As the authors explain, it is due to our natural tendency to believe what we see or accept what we have being told as the truth. What this book does is show how scammers take advantage of this tendency, and also try to equip the reader with the necessary ways to look closer or dig deeper for more information to reveal the scam.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part covers the habits we use that make us fall for scams. These habits are:
- focusing too much on what is being presented. This leads us to exclude or ignore other information that would reveal the scam. A prime example is survivorship bias, where we only have information on those who make it (how to be a non-graduate billionaire), but not on those who don't (excluding the experience of numerous non-graduates that never go on to become billionaires).
- predictions that follow our expectations, leading us to not scrutinize the actual results, leading to researchers to falsify data so that the results are what are expected for the study to fulfil their research grants or get better positions on the strength of the studies.
- being committed to our version of events, leading us to discount evidence that contradicts it. This could lead to false memories of events and belief in conspiracy theories because reality doesn't match the false memory. We also become more critical only of views that don't match our expectations.
- efficiency is the tendency for us to accept things at face value, rather than trying to look for more information to back up the views, like accepting that some people may be good at chess or exams without realizing they may be cheating. If we are already committed to a course of action, even if it is a scam, we may find it hard to back out, because the 'sunk costs' makes it more efficient to continue the course of action.
The second part looks at the hooks scammers use to make us believe whatever is being presented.
- consistent data that makes us believe that something must be correct (because it is consistent). Only, in real life, there is always noise in data, so data that is too consistent should be considered suspicious.
- familiarity with the way things are advertised allows scammers to present something that looks familiar but is actually a scam: fake websites that look similar to actual bank websites, for example.
- precision makes us think the results must be true because the results are so precise. Perhaps too precise: studies that present impossibly precise results should be suspect, as the data cannot back up the precision.
- the potency of a social intervention to make us believe it must be valid since it has such a huge effect. Again, the data may show that this potency was exaggerated or only done on a small scale and thus, may not be valid for the general population.
The authors also present ways to see through the scams, from asking for more data, asking the right questions or looking at the scam presentations in a new way that would reveal the contradictions or missing information that would show that what is being shown is not the truth....more
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