Mea Culpa from the Priesthood

D-Wave kicks Goals
D-Wave: The Quantum Computing Company That Could

I continue to be enthused by the efforts of D-Wave Systems from Burnaby, Canada:

The Quantum Computing Company That Could

These intrepid folks have overcome the most extreme and vitriolic attacks from other members of the physics community. Rather than welcome the new approach signified by quantum annealing and adiabatic computing, the Academic Physics community issued a constant stream of negative commentary, ridicule and invective.

In their minds, the idea was pure poison, an idea to be opposed because it undermined their faith that a quantum computer should look like a classical computer! It must use gates and support the belief in quantum parallelism. Any other ideas about what constitutes computation were Verboten!

To anybody, like me, who researched quantum computing in the early days (for me starting in 1986) who was familiar with other approaches, this extreme fixity of mind always seemed as foolish as it was ignorant. Unknown, to quantum computing zealots, von Neumann himself had rejected the model of computation embodied in the von Neumann architecture. He did not think gates, or circuits based on switches, were anything but an interim idea. Physical computing is engineering, it requires creativity.

Not so for the Zealots! They had imbibed Feynman and they knew that gate based computing was the way to do things properly. Such certainty must be Bliss!

It is Bliss until it becomes a Living Hell.

Now we are at the very early stages of One Giant Backlash.

Perhaps the most manful of the early detractors to step up is Seth Lloyd. A researcher of significant accomplishment in quantum computing theory, Lloyd was recently quoted in a BBC story on the D-Wave-NASA-Google tie up as saying:

“I was probably wrong, and [Lockheed and D-Wave] were probably right”

This is in reference to his opinion that the device would not work, in spite of his own early involvement in the theoretical development of adiabatic quantum computing.

It is to be hoped that other scientists have the decency and honesty of Seth Lloyd.

The last two decades in quantum computing and quantum information sciences research have been ones of stupendous Lost Opportunity.

Very early in the development of the subject, somewhere around 1990, there was an unwarranted “closing of the mind”. We saw a select few approaches, a few among many, anointed as conventional wisdom. These select few ideas then garnered all the attention and funding dollars. The result has been an unmitigated disaster of scientific puffery of the worst kind. It has been a dreadful period of unscientific misadventure.

Thankfully, one very committed group of researchers and their investors have now shattered that world for good. Creativity is now unbound and possible.

I had gotten heartily fed up with the claims made by a few defending their “superior” knowledge and insight to distort the scientific landscape of what is “known” and what is considered “fact” and what is held as “viable” for research purposes.

This has led to a greatly distorted and warped research agenda which is overly narrow and has proven to be spectacularly unsuccessful as compared with the committed program of exploration pursued by Geordie Rose and his team at D-Wave.

Hat’s off to D-Wave!

They may well end this suffocating Dark Age which has so restricted scientific progress over the last twenty years. There is so much more that can be done in taking physics to the next level of scientific inquiry.

If we are to take those giant leaps forward we must end the Zealotry and Academic Feather-Bedding which has so bedeviled research in quantum measurement, quantum information, quantum computing and quantum cryptography.

We need a return to principles of honest scientific discourse. A properly engaged dialogue that is not caught up in the endless perpetuation of whatever dogmatic viewpoint serves the self-interest of so-called leaders in the field.

There are real advances to made in quantum theory.

Hell, in the field of self-field electrodynamics we already have a candidate new theory of quantum fields! In the work of Barut and others, you have an actual live body of referred work going back twenty-five years, which lays out a cogent and very credible basis for a new version of QED that is non-perturbative.

Why has nobody heard of this? Why are funding dollars not committed to figuring out experimental signatures of that theory and its fuller development?

I think I know why… it is the same reason D-Wave attracted such opprobrium. Those reckless Canadians at D-Wave dared to back the Dark Horse and it came home.

They were punished mercilessly for breaking ranks and trying something original!

Elsewhere, you now have a bunch of overweight, overfed and inbred Nags to put down.

It is the same in many fields of Academic physics. Money goes to whomever can form the greatest and most vocal Mystery Cult. It is not science anymore to back crap when there are better avenues available, however unpopular they may have been.

Those are the actions of a self-perpetuating Priesthood, not a community of minds who are committed to find the truth. Once you allow such attitudes to take root, as they have done, then you are left with a stupid H-Index Fueled Fund Feast:

Who can garner the most Funding Heat for the least amount of Scientific Light.

The contemporary patterns of behavior are insane!

I am hopeful that the D-Wave affair, once the true scale of it becomes public, will at least shame a few of the worst perpetrators to clean up their own scientific act.

It has been a shambles for two decades and the time for real change is now upon us.

I have my own wee challenge to get on with. When that is done, I think we can put a whole stable full of Old Nags down and fire up the glue factory.

Science and Engineering will be better for it.

All hail those Reckless Canadians from Burnaby!

They may well have saved the very soul of physics.

Introduction to Mongol Physics

Mongol #1: Erwin SchroedingerMongol #1: Erwin Schroedinger
In my view, the Academic Physics Community remain light years from comprehending their task to Fix Quantum Theory. This is why we embarked on the idea of Privateer Science and the Mongol Physics project.

The issue is not any lack of intelligence on the part of Academics. On the contrary, it is probably an acute excess of misspent brain power and a marked deficiency in practical commonsense. In particular, the Academic community seem to be unprepared for the idea that they will need to rebuild the entire quantum theory. Yes, you heard me right… all of it. Not incremental improvement, but radical improvement.

This may seem a little drastic, but I for one am quite convinced that this is necessary. Not only do I think it is necessary, I also think it is feasible within five years from now.

In actuality, I think it could happen a lot faster than that. However, Academics are slow learners and seem poor at taking direction. They are unlikely to comprehend the need or the necessary focus for effort. They are all trying to be brilliant in small ways rather than wise in expansive fashion. This has made them: discovery ineffective.

Hence my target of five years is really a target that calls on the skills of dedicated amateurs. Ordinary Mongols like you, out foraging on the Steppes of the Internet.

I will write more on this in the next weeks and months, but I also have businesses to run and revenue to raise. People in the Real World do not have the luxury of Pontificating from an Ivory Minaret. We Mongols actually have to work for a living!

However, to kick things off please consult this resurrected conference post-print:

Quantization as a Nonlinear Eigenvalue Problem

In it you will find a statistical interpretation for nonlinear field theories.

In Academic land, you would spend a few centuries debating whether this was a good interpretation. In the world of Mongol Physics, this one is perfectly adequate for all practical purposes. If it is simple and works, just use it!

The important thing about it, the statistical interpretation that is, is that it functions fine as a means to compute the observable quantities of the theory. These are not spelled out in great detail in the above paper, but are generally things like one-body charge densities and currents. The very things Maxwell knew how to observe.

One does not actually need to dwell on this very much, because the real work comes when you re-build quantum field theory. To do that one has to accomplish several additional tasks. These are mainly to do with re-tracing the history of the original development of QFT and taking a different road at each major turn.

That you can do this represents the fun part of Mongol Physics.

The Academic Community don’t know there may be an alternative quantum field theory because they never actually looked for it. They always assumed there could not ever be one, which is why we don’t ask them for help. They are certain there is none.

In short, they won’t help with this project because they can’t help. Their mental blinkers prevent them from even looking and you won’t find it if you don’t look!

However, you, my Good Mongol, can help.

All you need to do is start thinking like Erwin Schroedinger

The above paper deals with the first steps along that road: realizing that the problem of quantized values can be understood as a nonlinear eigenvalue problem.

That means: no operator fields required.

Once you get past that first hurdle, things get a lot easier.

Think of this whole Mongol Physics caper as being like the plot of that very cheesy war movie: The Final Countdown. The one where the Nimitz Aircraft Carrier goes back in time to fight the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.

The Mongol Horde go back in time and come back with a Superior Quantum Field Theory! Superior in every way… non-perturbative, and finite, with added gravity.

The rest, as they say… is History.

The Color Blue

Faster than Light TravelAdvanced_Test_Reactor.

Physics seems in desperate need of a Religion of its Own.

You see this every day.

Theories of Everything.

Theories of Anything.

Theories of Nothing.

This is a group of people who desperately want to believe in Something.

The Mongol feels the Pain of this Community.

The Mongol has decided to give Physics a Religion of Their Own.

It is called the color Blue.

Henceforth, the Physics Community will worship the color Blue.

It is no ordinary color. It is a special color. Only to be rejected under Pain of Death!

There may be some dispute, but there is only one True Shade of that color.

It is the True Color Blue.

It is Čerenkov Blue

It is the Blue of Eternal Heaven.

All true Mongols can appreciate the color of Faster than Light Travel.