[FRIAM] Aborted project by Errol Morris for the year 2000

[Marcus Daniels]

I saw Chuang in a recent panel discussion about QC, and he pitched the idea of computers that could grow from seeds.  People on the panel acted like he was nutty.  He seems to have many wild ideas on many topics.   Maybe for someone like that everything is easy, and they don’t feel trapped in the channel where they started.   They are bouncing around MIT or Stanford, etc. and are endlessly entertained and entertaining and “of course” they are an expert on something.

I am often initially impressed by a publication record of a professional researcher (especially in more technology oriented areas), and then once I meet them and try to work with them felt that they were quite fixated on adapting the (funding) opportunity into something that would fit their career needs rather than exploring the (scientific or applied technical) opportunity for its own sake.   They are far less dazzling then the generalists who seemingly can tackle any problem once they decide to.

So if one is participating in fusion energy or cancer research, or whatever it is, the progress may be very slow and the payoff may not come during your career.   I’m not sure where the motivation comes from other than fear of the consequences of disengagement to their specialty.  Sometimes it seems the offramp is management of some kind, and that really seems like a dark outcome.

For any technology connected scientific field, it could be that most of the rocks will get turned over and the world may not really change much.   A burst of investment from industry could bring closure to the vision, if the burst didn’t show an return on investment.   I liked that video and found it more inspirational than the usual QC hype because, like Aaronson, it just focuses on trying to understand the world rather than exploiting it.   I guess that just shows I’m one of those useless ruminative lefties.

Marcus

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
Sent: Wednesday, October 6, 2021 12:53 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Aborted project by Errol Morris for the year 2000

"It almost seems cautionary. He still talks optimistically"

I remember getting his book out of the CSU library when I was 20, about the time of this interview. I remember feeling hope that while others around me were so concerned with the boolean question of whether there would one day be such computers, here was a manual for how they will work in plain linear algebra.

Cautionary, how? Would you hum a few bars?
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