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QUBIT*
Having grown up on an island on the coast of the Adriatic, minutes away from the beach and less than an hour away from round hills and green forests, I have a lot of colorful childhood memories. In one, it is a warm summer day and my dad, my uncle and I are picking cherries in my grandmother’s cherry grove. I am hoisted on somebody’s shoulders. We are all complaining about the cherries being small but still having a good time. My hair is really curly. I am no older than five but I still eat my weight in cherry strudel afterwards. The scene might as well be colored in sepia tones, a flashback in a whimsical movie.
In another, it is also summer (but earlier and less warm) and my father is picking me up from kindergarten. Instead of going straight home we stop at a small grocery store in our neighborhood. Locals are sitting on the steps nearby, drinking Ožujsko beer straight out of glass bottles. A few of my kindergarten friends live next door to the store. We are buying bread for dinner and ice cream (a vanilla pop in a chocolate shell for me and something on a stick, swirled with rum and studded with raisins for my dad) for dessert, but the cashier can’t check us out because her register has frozen. She used to work with my dad so he hops behind the counter and tries to help. She is making a silly mistake, typing in her nickname instead of her full name in an attempt to unlock the machine. Once this becomes obvious, we all laugh, my dad pays with colorful Croatian bills and we walk home, just a few blocks away. I could have seen this whole situation in a sitcom. Cue in the canned laughter and cheerful synth music as the closing credits roll.
In comic books and TV shows writers sometimes use a device called ‘retcon’ or ‘retroactive continuity’ to reframe past plot points in a way that is consistent with the current storyline. It is a device that allows superheroes to be so many people at once and never run into themselves. It is also part of the reason why every once in awhile the big franchises will publish whole books dealing with merging of parallel universes and other more complicated schemes that force various stories to fit together even though they might have never been intended to. Recently, a friend jokingly suggested the same could be conducted in real life – how hard can it be to convince yourself that you carried out a particular action for some reason other than the one that was true at the time? Memories are, after all, extremely malleable.
Many of my memories, especially the very picturesque ones, do not feel real at all. I know I was there and, rationally, I know that the images accompanying those memories were recorded through my eyes, but often replaying them in my mind is reminiscent of watching a home video in third person. They all seem to be clichés, and the more I try to remember them the more I am convinced I am just molding them into the shapes I would expect to encounter in a well-executed TV show or a movie.
People like storytelling, and people like telling themselves stories about who they are and who they used to be. Most of us could sit down and write a movie sequence showing our own ‘coming of age’: something sweet from the very early years, some gloomy scene on the steps of a high school, a snippet of a kiss, another snippet of tears, all ending with a determined walk to a new job, camera panning from the old shoes to the now older, more determined face. A framework for our past composed of such images makes that past easier to understand. Actions and feelings make more sense once they are a part of a story, especially if we can retroactively fit the story to the temporary ‘ending’ our current state can serve as. Knowing the characteristics that a good story, a narrative with a protagonist one can get invested in, has to possess helps us put our memories in order and boost our present self. It is identity building through mild retcon.
There are many things that I have a hard time remembering, and there are things that I know I have forgotten but do not want to put an effort into reconstructing. Sometimes I can feel myself over-explaining a past event that is slightly out of alignment with who I am now or who I think I used to be. When I replay those cinematic childhood scenes, I know that there is much more complexity to them than just ice cream and cherry picking. I do not question the memory itself as much as I question my motivation for actively remembering and re-remembering it. There is a utility to knowing I was once that curly haired girl eating strudel, and that once my father was just a neighborhood store patron helping a confused cashier. The people that we are now are much more complex, and the people we were then were equally complicated and, at times, conflicting. By remembering them in such a third person, sitcom-cliché way I am giving myself an opportunity to erase the conflict and embrace the two-dimensional cut-out that is easier to deal with. Moreover, I am giving myself an opportunity to think that I have grown much more linearly than I really have; or maybe just grown much more overall. The curly haired girl getting ice cream becomes a device in a plot I would like to fit myself into, and I have to think about doing her justice, giving her more credit, once the vivid, film-worthy memories start rushing in.
Here is another. It is winter, ten days before Lent and my kindergarten is participating in a kids’ carnival parade. It is the first year we are participating and we are dressed like bees, in striped yellow and black costumes with thin orange wings held together by homemade wire frames. I am sick, running a fever, walking sluggishly. My mom is giving me sips of juice and it tastes terribly sour because my throat is inflamed. She is dressed like Pippi Longstocking, wires in her braids holding them at an unnatural angle as she towers above all of the little bees. Other moms are wearing bee costumes but they are there because of their insecurities, not because of a sick kid that didn’t know how to give up and stay at home. It is cold and loud. At the end of the parade we all go to a big party tent for some donuts filled with off-brand Nutella and a music performance. I can’t really taste the donut and we leave very quickly. I end up being sick for the rest of the week, and then my mom picks up my infection, but at least we walked in the parade. Clearly, I have always been stubborn and relentless, not letting anything hold me down.
Best,
Karmela
*In quantum computing, a qubit is an analogue of a classical bit. A classical bit can be physically imagined as a switch – it is either off or on so it can ‘store’ values of 0 or 1, respectively. A quantum bit, or a qubit, can store far more information because it is not constrained to only these two values. This is often explained by saying that in addition to being in a 0-state or a 1-state, the qubit can be in a quantum superposition of the two. (At the most basic level, this is a consequence of the mathematical structure of quantum mechanics and for most systems follows from the properties of Schrodinger’s equation. On a conceptual level, marrying superposition states and realistic experimental observations has been giving philosophers headaches since the time of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.) To illustrate this, imagine an arrow on a sphere. If the arrow points vertically upwards, from the center of the sphere to its north pole, it is in the 0-state while if it points down, from the center of the sphere to its south pole, it is in the 1-state. A classical bit is then an arrow that can only discretely flip between these two positions. A qubit is an arrow that can continuously map from pointing upwards to pointing downwards, tracing many point on the surface of the sphere as it moves. Each of these points can then be thought of as being able to store information thus implying that a memory unit composed of qubits would have a much larger capacity than any classical memory device. There are many experimental and theoretical studies of qubits and many proposals for realizing them in a concrete physical way – with polarized photons, coherent states of light, Josephson junctions in superconductors, quantum dots, vortices in nanowire junctions and so on. While some of these methods have yielded preliminary results, fully functional quantum memory devices had not been realized on any large scale yet.
***
ABOUT THIS WEEK
LISTENING: On the topic of memories, Stuff to Blow Your Mind recently ran an episode about the Mandela effect which explores false or partly false memories not only in individuals but in whole groups of people. This effect is something I was familiar with but I was still struck by the discussion of some of the research on how easy it is to implant memories, even in very simple studies. Thinking about trusting or not trusting memories also made me consider whether we should trust things like photographs and records to correctly remind us of the past. Episode 6 of Radiotopia’s Showcase: Ways of Hearing explores this in one specific way – deletion of noise in music records. Digital recordings are much less noisy than vinyl or magnetic tapes and, in a sense, the lack of noise obscures the reality of the past recording processes. Further on the topic of both keeping and losing records, this episode of Lost in the Stacks about a punk archive in a Washington DC library was just really fun (and the music sets were great) while this episode of The Memory Palace provides a nice summary of what a radio station can do for our feelings and our memories.
On the music side of things, I recently realized I have sampled almost no new releases in 2017 so to remedy that, this Qrixkuor album is quite good, as is this effort from Wormwitch.
LEARNING: This has been a long and tiring week, but it has also felt somewhat more productive than the last few so looking back on it I am not too upset about just how exhausted it has made me.
My advisor was travelling for a few days so I gave one of the lectures in the class that she is teaching (and I am assisting with) and that was really great. Giving a lecture instead of just writing problem sets and grading mid-term exams felt almost like a treat, and I was happy to have a chance to interact with students and answer questions in real time. Hopefully, I will get to do this again before the end of the semester. For good measure, though, I did also spend about almost two days on grading exams, which was significantly less uplifting.
On the research front, I actually had a few very productive moments mid-week and came up with an idea about how to answer one of the research questions that has been haunting me since the summer. I have not fully fleshed out the details yet, but my advisor seems to like and agree with my thought process, which is rather encouraging. Ultimately, it just feels very good to stare at old notes and see something that was previously missing and not at all obvious. Hopefully, I will not find anything contradictory to this new line of attack in the next few days. I also learned how to generate a Hofstadter’s butterfly plot as it shows up in one of the systems we are studying and fractal structures like that are always exciting.
Finally, I saw two talks this week, one on spintronics applications and one on dualities in conformal field theories. Both were rather technical and hard to describe but, as always, I am hoping that even just mere exposure will at some point work to my benefit. (Dualities in CFTs are actually really interesting and a really powerful tool for attacking difficult problems, just not problems that are currently the focus of my work.)
WATCHING: Last weekend I finished watching the second season of Mr. Robot and within a few days more or less forgot all about it and the twists in its finale. I think I still like the show but by the end of it, Esmail’s heavy rhetoric and jerky tension building just stopped being exciting. The shocking revelation was either not shocking enough or too cartoon villain-esque and the final cliffhanger seemed even more ham-fisted than what one would expect from a TV shows that occasionally takes itself way too seriously. Having said all of that, despite already having forgotten most of what the season finale was intended to do plot-wise, I remain quite invested in the characters and will likely return to the series just to see where they end up. The notion of trying to figure out who you are and how to be a functional person in the world that has gone terrifyingly insane is, after all, more relatable than ever.
EATING: I continue to be absolutely obsessed with various squash and pumpkins so the delicata squash and lentil bowl recipe I am sharing below is really not out of the ordinary. The lentils, adapted from Food 52, are really the key here (they are bursting with umami) and the rest can be adjusted so I am sharing a variation with broccoli and cashews as well.
It is slightly disheartening to see fewer and fewer tables at the farmer’s market but I am set on enjoying the produce as long as I can. In addition to this meal, which I have eaten as both lunch and dinner, I have also been rather obsessed with roasted Long Island cheese pumpkin. This farmer’s market gem’s taste is a really enjoyable combination of sweet and savory and I could probably eat it with absolutely anything. I also discovered that I like tahini and have been enthusiastically eating it with roasted butternut squash, Brussels sprouts and roasted red peppers. Additionally, after quite some time I did some baking and the carob raisin rolls and banana breakfast muffins I made (both adapted from Dessert for Two) were a smashing success, which made for a nice pick-me-up and a decent supply of snacks. Hopefully I will share some of those soon as well.
For four servings of lentils, you will need:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 small red or yellow onion, finely diced (or a shallot)
1teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 cup green lentils
1 can (13.5 oz) unsweetened coconut milk (light or full fat)
For serving: roasted delicata squash or roasted broccoli, cucumber, cooked brown rice or quinoa, cilantro, toasted cashews
Roast your veggies: If using squash, cut it in half along its long side, scoop out the seeds with a spoon and cut into half moons. Toss with olive oil and salt (I use about 2 teaspoons for a single medium-sized squash) and bake on a sheet lined with parchment paper for 25 minutes at 450 F. After 25 minutes flip the pieces, rotate the sheet and roast for 10 or 15 more minutes, until the squash is caramelized to your liking. If using broccoli, cut it into bite-sized pieces, toss with olive oil and salt and roast at 450 F for roughly the same time, checking after 25 minutes. (The broccolis will likely cook faster than squash so take it out once it is fork tender and slightly charred but not burned). To toast cashews add them to the sheet with broccoli for the last 3 minutes of roasting, checking often and shaking the pan so that they do not burn.
Make the lentils: In a large pot, over medium heat, warm the olive oil then add the onion, ginger, garlic and spices and cook, stirring often, until the onion softens and the mixture starts to resemble a fragrant paste, about 10 minutes. Add the lentils, coconut milk, salt to taste and about two cups of water. Stir and bring to a boil, then lower the heat and let simmer for 20-35 minutes, until the mixture thickens and lentils are soft.
Assemble: Spoon about a quarter of the lentil mixture over ½ cup of cooked grains and serve with a quarter of a cucumber worth of thin slices, roasted veggies* and cashews (if using) and a sprinkle of finely minced cilantro
Tips: This is another meal that is great for making ahead of time. Make the lentils, cook the rice and roasted the veggies during the weekend and just add cucumber slices and cilantro for a quick weeknight dinner or a lunch. (I know it sounds gross but even if you put everything, including cucumber, in the same box and microwave it all together, it will still taste good)
As most assemble-in-a-bowl meals, this can also be customized in many ways. Swap the broccoli for cauliflower or delicata squash for whichever other squash you love. Add some roasted carrots or serve over potatoes instead of rice. Use green or yellow split peas instead of green lentils. Add a diced hot pepper to the onion, ginger and garlic mixture to make the lentils spicier and serve with a dollop of soy yogurt or cashew cream**.
As far as shortcuts go, you can buy cashews pre-roasted and you could us frozen vegetables instead of fresh – roast them without thawing for 45 minutes or longer, after tossing with olive oil and any desired spices.
* I ate this four times this week: twice with delicata (about half a squash at a time) and twice with broccoli (about 2 cups of broccoli florets at a time)
** I tend to forget that not everyone who reads this follows the same plant based diet as me, but classic, dairy yogurt would naturally work here as well, and I imagine adding some roasted chicken breast to this bowl would not be bad either.