Recent content by pascal12

The few gigs I've seen over Winter Break are just shadowing somebody's job. This would probably only take place at a smaller company. I don't know how common these are, but if you want to do this, then your best bet is probably to ask a family friend or other connection.

When you say increase your employability, do you mean open up the possibility to a wider range of non-physics-related jobs, or have a better chance at a physics-related job?

Just in case anybody needs this thread in the future, here are a couple of the resources I used to brush up on some of the basic theory behind VASP calculations: http://cmt.dur.ac.uk/sjc/thesis_prt/thesis.html - General DFT calculations, not specifically VASP...

I'll be starting a summer research thing soon which involves using VASP to do materials science/electron structure calculations. I've only taken a semester of quantum mechanics. What are some good intro resources for this subject area?

I'm planning on taking a computer science course this fall on Theory of Computation. However, one of the prereqs is "experience in formal mathematics at the level of [course on Discrete Mathematics]." I've done a little bit of discrete math before (The Art of Problem Solving covers some discrete...

As Bipolarity stated, these books are meant for Olympiad level and would not be suitable for tutoring according to a high school curriculum, as they only cover the basics briefly and would likely frustrate you even more. I believe they has some excerpts on their website if you would like to...

I am looking for a good book that covers magnetic properties in materials. I've taken E&M (we used Purcell), and it only covered magnetism in materials briefly.

Thanks, I already know at a basic level how quantum computers work. However, the D-Wave computers are clearly not quantum computers, although they are labeled as such, so I'm wondering exactly how the D-Wave computers work and what makes them "quantum".

Would it be fair to compare a place like Singapore or Hong Kong to the US and say that they have a comparable standard of living even though their population density is so much higher? I thought they import most of their food, while much of midwest US is dedicated to crops.

Bump-ish? Can someone clarify a little more about these "quantum" computers? I'm not an expert in this area, and I only know the basic concepts of what quantum computers are. But I'm very curious, and it would be awesome if someone could explain in easier terms.

Thanks for the replies... the Youtube video where he was explaining what the chip was supposed to do and all those mathematical functions really went over my head. I think they mentioned that they built several of these in labs, but people would access it remotely - did I understand this right...

So is there anything "quantum" about their chips? Or did they take a regular chip and completely lie about it? Even though that it is likely they are misleading the public in implying the qubits are entangled and all, surely they can't be outright lying?

D-Wave has claimed that they offer a commercial quantum computer, using a 128-qubit chipset. What exactly is going on here? I'm sure that this is not the traditional quantum computer, since the record of http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-quantum-bits-physicists-limits.html" was reached only a...