Sleeping on the job

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Decorative image onlyAt the end of 2023, following my visit to IBM [see ‘Chirping while calculating probabilities‘ on November 22nd, 2023], I spent a significant amount of time trying to understand quantum computing and exploring its potential applications in my research.  It was really challenging because, as one article I read stated, quantum-mechanical phenomena appear to be weird and the mathematical tools used to model them are complex and abstract.  Just to make it harder you have to learn a new language or at least new terminology and mathematical notation.  I have always found that my unconscious mind is capable of solving mathematical problems given sufficient time and sleep.  However, the mathematics of quantum computing took many nights of unconscious thought to assemble into some sort of understanding and left me with mild headaches.  Around the same time I was reading one of Cormac McCarthy’s new novels, Stella Maris, which consists entirely of a psychologist interviewing a mathematician who is a patient in a hospital. They discuss that mathematical work is performed mostly in the unconscious mind and we have no notion as to how the mind goes about it.  They find it hard to avoid the conclusion that the unconscious mind does not use numbers.  I suspect that it does not use mathematical notation either; perhaps it is more a form of synaesthesia using three-dimensional shapes [see ‘Engineering synaesthesia‘ on September 21st, 2016].  A couple of pages before discussing the unconscious mind’s mathematical work, one of the protagonists comments that ‘If we were constructed with a continual awareness of how we worked we wouldn’t work’.  So, perhaps I should not probe too deeply into how I have acquired a rudimentary understanding of quantum computing.

BTW in case you missed my last post at the start of January [‘600th post and time for a change‘ on January 3rd 2024] and have been wondering what has happened to my weekly post – I have decided to switch to posting monthly on the first Wednesday of each month.

Source:

Cormac McCarthy, Stella Maris, Picador, 2022.

600th post and time for a change

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Decorative photograph of a wind-shaped tree on a hillside in fogSimplism is the ideology of simple answers for complex problems and it appears to be gaining popularity as high-level reading skills decline around the world.  People without high-level reading skills also tend to lack high-level thinking skills and their need for simplicity is met by simplism delivered from a range of sources, including politicians. However, complex problems by definition can be viewed from multiple competing perspectives and have multiple possible solutions; so, simple answers are unlikely to be informative or represent reality.  While trying to provide intelligible clear explanations in this blog [see ‘When less is more from describing digital twins to protoplasm‘ on February 22nd, 2023], I have always tried to avoid over-simplification or any drift towards simplism.  I fear that my uncompromising approach to complex issues and the decline in high-level readers globally has led to a steady decline in the readership of this blog over the past twelve months (to about half the number in 2022 and the lowest level since 2015).  Or perhaps I have just run out of interesting original topics to share in posts.  In either case, my decision to stop writing regularly posts announced in September [see ‘Reflecting on the future of RealizeEngineering‘ on September 20th, 2023] seems appropriate.  This is the 600th post and represents 11 years of weekly posting (for those readers working out the mathematics: there were 21 posts before I started weekly posting), which seems an appropriate moment to change the pattern to monthly posts, on the first Wednesday of each month.

Source: Simon Kuper, The end of reading and the rise of simplism, FT Weekend Magazine, October 21/22, 2023.

Happy Holidays!

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Decorative photograph showing a small red house in the snow next to a fjord.

Photo by Sarah

Best wishes during the holiday season to all my readers.  I’m in digital detox over the Christmas and New Year holidays.  So no post today.  If you’re having withdrawal symptoms or want to know more about digital detox then read ‘Digital detox with a deep vacation‘ posted on August 10th, 2016.  Otherwise switch off and do something utterly absorbing, such as deep reading or painting [see ‘You can only go there in your head‘ on November 5th, 2022].

Linear, recycling and circular economies

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I photographed this infographic at Killerton Hall in Devon this summer at the entrance to an exhibition called ‘Thirsty for fashion – circular fashion, past and present‘ which was about how clothes have been altered and repurposed through the centuries.  I hear many references to the circular economy at the moment but I suspect many people do not really know the difference between a recycling and circular economy, and I thought this infographic elegantly illustrated it.  Just a short post this week as we begin to slow down for the end of the year [see ‘Slow down, breathe your own air‘ on December 23rd, 2015].