Andyʼs working notes
About these notesCraig Fratrik - Quantum Country interview - 2019-12-17
Craig registered in early July. He’s done 20 review sessions, and he’s almost at 2 months on QCVC. He hasn’t read the other essays.
Highlights
- Craig’s reading this out of straight curiosity, and because he’s interested pedagogically. He’s an econ grad student.
- Broadly speaking, it’s working for him: he feels confident in his growing memory, and he connects that confidence to the review sessions and to the progress mechanics.
- He doesn’t have a context of use at all, and it seems to really hamper the meaning of that progress.
Raw notes
- Background
- Went to a magnet school, focused on science. Loved physics and computer science, ended up competing in physics competitions
- Went to law school, now getting an econ PhD at Duke
- Has been teaching basic econometrics to grad students
- Challenging because huge range of backgrounds
- Course pushed him to review linear algebra
- This was procrastination from research he didn’t enjoy
- Isn’t sure whether he found Quantum Country via Michael’s twitter or Andy’s EconTalk episode. Had read ALTM
- Was motivated by curiosity in QC and by pedagogy
- “I already bought into this idea of spaced repetition”
- Felt a sense that he could do so much more with spaced repetition. Reading MN’s thread: “I wish my game was there”
- On first impression:
- Felt unsure about what was going to happen after the first set of questions—wasn’t clear to him how many questions there would be
- Wasn’t sure what would happen if you did reviews before he had finished the essay
- “I was unsure about the flow”
- “I didn’t have the confidence that I can sample in small pieces and that would be OK”
- “I was uncertain at first about what questions they’d be”
- “I didn’t mind the quizzing as I went along at all”
- Appraisal of fluency
- Solid grasp of building blocks and potential of quantum computing
- Could you explain the Hadamard gate to someone else?
- “I’m pretty sure I could.”
- Then he tried to actually do it… but had trouble for a minute. He picked up some steam and managed to explain some elements.
- Do you have a grasp of why it matters?
- “I have a reason why it matters”; explains the impact of entanglement to some extent
- “I feel I know a few of the building blocks, but I don’t know how they’d be used to be useful”
- Thought I might quiz him in the moment, was curious how he’d do on an oral exam “because passing these quiz questions isn’t the same as really understanding”
- Feels unsure about all this because he hasn’t read any of the other essays, hasn’t used the material for anything
- How has your grasp of the material changed over time? You said you have a solid grasp now. What was it like before?
- “Short-term vs long-term”
- “The review sessions make me believe I’ll remember this for a long period of time”
- Initially felt he could remember things which were in the essay but which weren’t really captured in the review questions, but now feels he mostly only know what’s in the questions.
- How would you quantitatively describe your progress
- “I’m trying to remember how far along I am in that graph—like two months now!”
- Recalls quite accurately where he is in the progress graph!
- I’d also describe “number of fact” I’d learned: about 30-50. Don’t mean # of cards… sometimes there are several cards for each fact.
- I told him his real progress
- Wasn’t really surprised
- The progress “confirms my sense that I’ve already remembered this stuff for an extended period of time”
- Mentions that Peter Attia is doing boiled-down snippets from his podcast. Wishes they’d have spaced repetition.
- Nitpick
- Wishes the questions were shuffled! Feels “it wasn’t a fair test of the third one”