Amir Ebrahimi - Quantum Country interview - 2019-11-19

Amir Ebrahimi Quantum Country interview 2019 11 19 - YouTube

Amir’s done three review sessions. He’s read all of QCVC and none of the others. He’s almost finished the 5-day level. https://quantum.country/debug/userJourney?email=amir@unity3d.com

I’m particularly interested in: what’s his serious use, if any? Why does he keep reviewing? What does he understand about what’s happening to him on Quantum Country? What does he believe about it? Then, separately, since he’s a new user: how is the messaging going? What has he noticed? How’s it made him feel?

Highlights

• Amir’s fairly serious about learning QC: he’s been at it for a year or so and is writing a big white paper for others to dig into QC at his company.
  • But his attitude about learning has typical Silicon Valley leanings: he wants the API, not the implementation details. That makes him somewhat skeptical of the level of detail of Quantum Country’s cards.
  • He’s trying to play with this material socially, but he appears to be having trouble finding outlets.
• He feels pretty clearly that if he’s able to explain things to others, then his efforts will be going well. He’s been able to do that to some extent through his white paper.
  • When I asked him if he felt comfortable explaining the Hadamard gate, he had a lot of interesting things to say. High-level: “I can explain how it works and what it does, but I can’t completely explain the significance of it.”
  • He saw implications of the way that the Hadamard produces entangled states in QFT circuits. I don’t know enough to know if that was a meaningful leap, but he portrayed it as something exogenous to the resources he’d been engaging with.
• He raises the big question: “My critique of the questions is that they still are a bit rote. I believe I’ll remember the form of those questions, but I don’t know if I’ll know how to utilize that knowledge.”
  • But he buys the declarative memory stuff: “I do believe that I’m gonna remember this. It’s gonna stick.”
  • He starts to walk back the critique based on his instinctive interpretation of his experiences, but he’s pretty unsure.
• He’s finding the user journey communications motivating so far. I didn’t dig in too much here since he’s quite early still.

Raw notes

• Why read?
  • Curious about QC. Has been reading for a year
  • Also likes Joe Latone’s [sp?] resources (whoa, these are neat!)
  • And Q is for Quantum ofc
  • Enrolled in MIT continuing ed course
  • microcredentials: 2 courses for each mini degree
  • no textbooks for this—videos and supplementary texts on the site
    • “their site sucks”: old discussion forums, wants contextual discussions
  • Writing a white paper about QC for Unity internal purposes
  • “Hard to get a big picture”
• Discussing with colleagues?
  • Made a small Slack group (6 people)
  • Doesn’t sound like it’s doing much for him yet (I should have dug in here more)
• “Your resource is amazing. The writing, the level of detail, how it unfolds—it was probably the most easily digestible resource I’ve used”
  • One thing missing from other resources is the “telling of the story of quantum”
• What are you hoping to get with all these resources?
  • Understanding the field itself, so that he can then dig into narrower detail
  • Trying to gauge whether he needs to go back to university to pursue this, or whether he can learn on his own
  • Initial thought was that he’d have to go back. As he learns more, feels that maybe he can apply these topics.
  • “I don’t know that I’ll be writing any papers…”
  • One litmus that works for him: wants to be able to explain things to others
  • His white paper has been a good exercise for him
• “I don’t care as much about the quantum hardware”
  • “I don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of quantum mechanics”
• What’s your gut feel about your understanding of the Hadamard gate?
  • “It’s possible though I don’t completely know why, but I understand its utility.”
  • The 2 qubit QFT involves two Hadamard gates and a CNOT. Made a synthesis here.
  • “I can explain how it works and what it does, but I can’t completely explain the significance of it.”
• On the mnemonic medium:
  • Had read something a while back about spaced repetition. “It’s cool to actually see it in form: up until now, it was something that I could use if I wanted to.”
  • “My critique of the questions is that they still are a bit rote. I believe I’ll remember the form of those questions, but I don’t know if I’ll know how to utilize that knowledge.”
  • How much core declarative knowledge have you felt you needed to absorb?
  • Hasn’t tried to do it seriously until Quantum Country
  • “Is it important to know a specific matrix operation?” “My gut is: not entirely. I could always look that up. My bigger point is to understand the concepts.”
  • “I do believe that I’m gonna remember this. It’s gonna stick.”
  • Do you need to know the Hadamard matrix representation to do the applied stuff you want?
  • Not sure. Skeptical.
• Did you notice the progress stuff?
  • Noticed the “almost 5-day” alert
  • “I like the emails. I like that there’s a bigger plan for sticking to the content.”
  • “I feel good when I’m making progress.”
  • “I like the interface on the side. … All those little things add up.”