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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe - Podcast 352 - 4/14/2012
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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, LLC - dedicated to promoting critical thinking, reason, and the public understanding of science through online and other media. The first episode of the SGU podcast went online on May 4th, 2005. It soon became a popular science/skeptical podcast, and remains one of the most popular science podcasts on iTunes.
SGU Podcasting Awards: SGU on XM: You can listen to the SGU on America's Talk XM 166 every Saturday night from 8-9pm Eastern.
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Podcast
352
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April 14, 2012
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This Day in Skepticism: Titanic Disaster
News Items: Blow Up Space Junk, Aristolochia Nephropathy, Homophobia, Toilet Water, Monkey Bill Update
Who's That Noisy
Your Questions and E-mails: Grover's Algorithm, Gulf of Cambay Ruins
Science or Fiction
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Segment: This Day in Skepticism
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April 14, 1912
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Titanic Disaster
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Segment: News Items
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Segment: Who's That Noisy
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Who's That Noisy
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Answer to last week: Tony Legget
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Segment: Questions and Emails
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Question #1 - Grover's Algorithm
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Hi skeptics, really enjoy the show, but as a computer science student I just wanted to correct something Steve said in the explanation of one of the Science or Fiction items from the show for April 7. In the item about the quantum computer in a diamond, Steve said that the scientists tested it with an algorithm that finds an element in an unsorted database on the first try. I don't blame Steve, as it said this in the article too, but this is wrong. The algorithm used is called Grover's algorithm, and it does indeed search an unsorted database much faster than a classical computer, but not in one step. As Steve said, with a database with n elements, a classical computer would take on average n/2 steps to search it, or as we say in computer science, it has a time complexity of order n (represented as O(n) ). Using Grover's algorithm, a quantum computer can search the database with a number of steps that is the square root of the number of elements in the database, ( O(n^(1/2)) ), which is much faster but still not 'on the first try'. Too bad you couldn't have Gripp on for Science or Fiction, I'm sure he would have corrected this as well. Cheers,
George Daole-Wellman
Sunderland, Massachusetts
http://www.bell-labs.com/user/feature/archives/lkgrover/
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Gulf of Cambay Ruins
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OMG What will young earth creationist say. Then again now the believers of atlantis will be insufferable. http://www.spiritofmaat.com/announce/oldcity.htm.
Theron from Battle Mtn NV
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Segment: Science or Fiction [ Click Here to Show the Answers ]
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Segment: Skeptical Quote of the Week
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Superhero Pseudoscience
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"One sure mark of a fool is to dismiss anything outside his experience as being impossible."
-Farengar Secret-Fire
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