Justin Lebar - Quantum Country interview - 2019-06-12

“Struggler” user
“Stalwart” user

Synthesis + highlights

Justin doesn’t have a strong motivation for learning this material. He was mostly just curious about it.

He found himself not really wanting to stick with the spaced repetition, and I think that’s mostly because of content relevance / interest.

Doesn’t have much emotional connection to progress.

“I know that if I go through this and do the spaced repetition, I will remember these facts. But I have to ask the question: are these facts worth remembering for me? At one point I stopped doing the spaced repetition because I thought: ‘I remember enough of this for me.’”

Prep notes

Justin is both a “struggler” and a “stalwart.” That’s interesting.

He’s done 13 review sessions, but 41% of his deck is <= 1 day. That’s largely because he read 70 cards, then did 9 sessions, then got 40 more.

He’s also not completed some of these session: he has had about 400 cards due, but has reviewed only 180.

His session accuracies have been pretty low, though: 77% initially, 74% a few times afterwards. Recent accuracies have been much higher.

Raw notes

• background
  • sweng at Google
  • interested in CS ed, teaching
  • reading book to relate to a friend who works at a startup
  • took a course in college about it but didn’t understand
  • “It’s something I’ve been interested in but haven’t been able to big picture-wise. … Now I have a much better understanding.”
• found it on HN, maybe?
  • Why stick with?
  • partially gamification
  • “There’s a level of trust between student and educator when you pick up something that’s sizable. I feel like the book was really well upholding its end of the trust. There were points where you break the fourth wall: ‘I’m going to level with you.’”
  • “Out of the gate, it was clear to me that I was going to get something that I wanted out of it.”
• when you see the first interactive element
  • Wondering how the state is going to be saved
  • “The teacher bit in me flipped.” Largely motivated as a teaching tool.
• was there one you had forgotten?
  • “Name three things…”
  • How did that feel?
  • I felt a little annoyed with that one. Does it matter?
  • Other reactions?
  • “A lot of my motivation comes from annoyance”
  • I’m not sure, even having gone through five or six times, that I could remember some of these.
• “I know that if I go through this and do the spaced repetition, I will remember these facts. But I have to ask the question: are these facts worth remembering for me? At one point I stopped doing the spaced repetition because I thought: ‘I remember enough of this for me.’”
  • “There’s a feeling of maybe obligation or questioning as I’m going through them where I’m saying, like, ’some of these are good questions, and if I needed to know it, this would be how I would remember.’”
  • “That’s what keeps me from starting the second part of the book.”
  • “I keep getting this nag email… and I really just don’t want to do it!”
• What would your goal be?
  • Being able to have a conversation with my friend about his work.
  • Well, Google does QC, so I’m reading about Google’s QC stuff. Can I understand it? Now I have that!
• What’s changed in your conversations with your friend?
  • “Now I’m understanding where we hit a wall in the conversation. He’s a physicist, and I’m a computer scientist. But at least we’re actually able to hit the wall.”
• Progress
  • Doesn’t remember what’s on the closing screen of the review session
  • “When I learn something that I find genuinely interesting, I don’t forget it. It doesn’t feel like in one ear and out the other.”
  • Gauges progress based on “an ability to introspect, a way to relate them back, how well I can apply them to related areas”
• When I finish a review session I feel…
  • “I wonder whether I want to do it again”
• How do you feel about a card being stuck at 1 day? Or one having reached 2 weeks?
  • There are cards that I haven’t committed to committing to memory. Others might be truly relevant if I cared to apply them. If I wanted to do the second part of the book, maybe I really would need to memorize the shape of these matrices.
• “What I really liked about the QC book was that it wasn’t just interrupting my flow to ask me questions, but interrupting my flow to introduce flashcards we’re going to come back to.”

Michael’s notes

Michael's notes: Justin Lebar on Quantum Country (June 12, 2019)

Software engineer at Google. Interested in CS education. Going to
teach at Hampton University.

"I have a much better understanding than before."

Probably found on HN.

Liked the gamification, "Oh you're 30 percent of the way there".

Not something he did in one sitting.

He liked the breaking of the fourth wall. Out of the gate he knew he
was going to get it something he wanted. Can't say why, but that he
really had the feeling strongly from the start.

Was interested in the medium as something he might use as a teaching
tool.

Annoyed by questions that felt a little pointless - name three types
of physical systems that can be used as qubits.

Had trouble with dagger, adjoint, conjugate question.

"I know that if I go through this I'll remember the facts... I stopped
because I remember enough about this for me." This has inhibited him
from doing the second part of the book.

Feels that he has a BS meter for Google's internal efforts.

"If I ever wanted to understand how quantum search worked, I could! I
could probably even read and understand it on Wikipedia."

Recommended the book to wife of a Rigetti engineer.

"I have a much better understanding of the complex nature as in
complex numbers] of quantum computers... and how that enables
algorithmic speedups."

Doesn't remember what we say at the end of review sessions.

"When I finish one of these review sessions, I feel like... I wonder
if I want to do it again."

He didn't feel committed to learning some questions, but he didn't
care to remember. And so quite a few cards remained at low levels.

Very interested in being efficient.