{"id":741,"date":"2011-08-13T23:25:18","date_gmt":"2011-08-14T04:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741"},"modified":"2017-01-12T20:35:03","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T01:35:03","slug":"ask-me-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"Ask Me Anything"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Update (8\/16):<\/strong><\/span> Phew! By my count, I&#8217;ve answered 139 questions over the past few days. Thanks so much to everyone for submitting them, and <em>please<\/em> don&#8217;t submit any more!<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, to those of you who complain (correctly) that I no longer update this blog enough, there&#8217;s a simple solution that should carry you through <em>at least<\/em> the next year.\u00a0 Namely, just read a few &#8220;Ask Me Anything&#8221; answers every week!\u00a0 To help you with that, I&#8217;ve compiled the following abridged table of contents to my uninformed spoutings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26256\">Whether P=NP would let you violate the Second Law<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26265\">Whether mathematicians will (still) like complexity theory in the year 2100<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26267\">Transhumanism and its relation to quantum computing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26272\">The hardness of simulating Newtonian physics<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26276\">How much I&#8217;d pay for a D-Wave One<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26277\">My views on mathematical definiteness, favorite areas of CS, and favorite philosophers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26283\">How hard can problems in P get?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26290\">The &#8220;higher education bubble,&#8221; and whether people should think twice before going to college<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26292\">Will the center of scientific gravity shift from the US to China?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26299\">My &#8220;creative process&#8221; (such as it is), and whether I&#8217;d leave academia<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26310\">Israel, Libya, Egypt<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26313\">Worst-case versus best-case running time<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26316\">Favorite ice cream<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26317\">Favorite sci-fi writer<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26346\">The status of my &#8220;$25 Challenge&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26348\">Wikipedia, and &#8220;nerd versus Jew&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26350\">How Umesh Vazirani manages students<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26351\">Free jazz<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26352\">Neanderthal-level machine intelligence<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26365\">The value of oracles<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26368\">Decision problems versus function problems<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26372\">Software patents<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26376\">Quantum computing and complexity breakthroughs of the past decade<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26381\">Super-strong derandomization, and what I&#8217;d ask an alien<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26383\">Terry Tao<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26384\">How I justify attending conferences<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26388\">Scientific work in languages other than English<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26392\">Simple things in math and CS that I don&#8217;t understand<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26394\">Whether I&#8217;d rather solve P vs. NP or meet aliens<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26397\">Borders of a Palestinian state<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26400\">Why 20% of Americans can&#8217;t locate the US on a world map<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26401\">My greatest fears<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26405\">Open-access journals<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26409\">The existence of God<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26410\">MIT undergrads<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26420\">The history of complexity theory, and &#8220;why&#8221; IP=PSPACE should hold<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26424\">Favorite movie, favorite novel, favorite theorem<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26426\">Which charity I&#8217;d donate $1,000,000 to<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26455\">Favorite quantum information results of the last year<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26458\">My location on the political spectrum<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26460\">The 1-year anniversary of the Deolalikar Affair<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26461\">Teaching people the difference between rationalism and empiricism<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26465\">What happened to &#8220;Physics for Doofuses&#8221;?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26466\">What happened to &#8220;Quantum Computing Since Democritus&#8221;?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26467\">Proving P!=NP by exploiting structure of specific NP-complete problems<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26471\">Zionism, pacifism, Iraq, Vietnam, death penalty, abortion<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26492\">Drugs and alcohol<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26493\">Computer-assisted theorem proving<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26496\">Why to care about P vs. NP, and whether computers will solve it first<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26497\">Obama<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26499\">Whether I ever worked on P vs. NP<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26502\">Yellow books<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26503\">Interpreting barriers to proving P!=NP as logical independence statements<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26505\">The nature of time<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26528\">She believes in ghosts, he&#8217;s a scientific rationalist<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26529\">Research projects for undergrads<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26532\">Classification of polynomial-time algorithms<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26534\">Is the universe finite or infinite?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26536\">Quantum algorithms beyond Shor\/Grover\/quantum simulation<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26538\">Will theoretical computer science &#8220;converge&#8221; with psychology?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26539\">Are sexual preferences &#8220;socially constructed&#8221;?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26540\">Should religions be judged by their scriptures?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26541\">What to do if you think you can multiply matrices in near-linear time<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26542\">MathCamp<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26543\">Would I <em>want<\/em> P to equal NP?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26561\">My late cat<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26563\">Bosons versus photons<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26564\">The relativization operator and Leibniz&#8217;s Law<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26573\">Do I feel guilty about my advantages, as I &#8220;dine in exclusive Boston eateries&#8221;?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=741#comment-26578\">The Aaron Swartz case<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Update:<\/strong><\/span> Thanks for the many, many, many great questions!\u00a0 To keep things <em>slightly<\/em> under control, I&#8217;ll be fielding questions that are asked <em>before 9PM EST<\/em> tonight.<\/p>\n<p>Also, sorry my blog went down for an hour!\u00a0 I always count on Bluehost to not be there when I need it.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Alright, I put it off for most of the summer, but I guess it&#8217;s as good a time as any, now that (a) I&#8217;m finally done philosophizing for a while and (b) my wife Dana is away at a workshop, her civilizing and nerdiness-moderating influences temporarily absent.<\/p>\n<p>So, by popular demand, and as promised a couple months ago, for the next 24 hours (with intermittent sleep breaks), I&#8217;ll once again be fielding any and all questions in the comments section.\u00a0 Four simple ground rules:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>No multi-part questions: one question per comment and three total per person.<\/li>\n<li>While you can <em>ask<\/em> anything, if it&#8217;s too hostile, nosy, or irritating I might not <em>answer<\/em> it&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ll only answer the first three questions about academic career advice (since in previous Ask Me Anything posts, that topic tended to drown out everything else).<\/li>\n<li>No questions that require me to read an article, watch a video, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update (8\/16): Phew! By my count, I&#8217;ve answered 139 questions over the past few days. Thanks so much to everyone for submitting them, and please don&#8217;t submit any more! Incidentally, to those of you who complain (correctly) that I no longer update this blog enough, there&#8217;s a simple solution that should carry you through at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[34,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-me-anything","category-nerd-interest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1386,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/1386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}