Posted in June 2010

I’m back from Altai, the trip took 33 hours from door to door. Time to summarize things learned and impressions collected.

1. Qubits and nanomech grow closer and closer together.  Recent works of NEC group in collaboration with Munich prove this. 

2.  Astafiev from the same NEC group bets to re-do all non-linear atomic optics with a qubit and is close to completion of this challenging plan. If accomplished, qubits as artificial atoms will acquire all the functionalities of traditional atoms. So we do not need old atoms anymore: we can safely replace them with qubits.

3. Theorists can be useful in revealing and studying problems the engineers of Intel corporation will enconter next year (talk of V. F. Lukichev, Institute of Physics and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences)

4.  Varelii Vinokour from Argonne National Lab has made a major contribution to the art of scientific presentation. First half of his talk has been devoted to scrupulous description of wrongdoings of his scientific opponents. He also mention that these wrongdoings were instrumental for his accelerated promotion to Argonne Distinguished Fellow. Unfortunately, I appeared too conservative for this novel type of talk and so-extended introduction did not help me to gasp the scientific side of the conflict described.

5. Fluctuation-dissipation theorem is wrong: this was a claim of prof. Averin from  Stony Brook. Yet during the talk we have learned that FDT is ok: rather, there seem to be a problem with description of high-frequency thermal conductance with Kubo formalism.

do occur. It’s a second day I am here, in the heart of Altai, mysterious craddle of all turkish nations, among mistly forests, rocky hills, and unbelievably wild rivers: water seem to be boiling at all times.

There is a workshop in nanotech organized by people from Novosibirsk State Technical University. It is dominated by quantum superconducting devices and Russian-born scientists who work and live in West. The hidden agenga is perhaps the organizers wish to run a full-scale international conference, not sure about the place and use former compatriots as testers. 

This is an unnecessary precaution: the place is well-run despite being in real wildreness, welcoming and the surroundings are magnificent. The only point it is a bit difficult to reach. We flew to Novosibirsk, that is an adventure by itself. Then we made a 10-hour bus ride through Siberian steppes. Those are usually dubbed cold. I wished it were true on that day: there were thirty in shadow, and there was hardly a shadow. It begun to rain only soon after we have reached the place…