Interview with Amit Katwala, author of Quantum Computing (WIRED GUIDES): How It Works and How It Could Change the World
Amit Katwala, author of Quantum Computing (WIRED GUIDES): How It Works and How It Could Change the World recommends a fascinating set of books! Before jumping into the interview, please check out Amit's book:
An interesting read that frames the possibilities & opportunities that quantum computing may unleash, within the real constraints & current progress of development in the field. This book is a useful stepping stone for anyone who wants to learn more about quantum computing, past the simplification of a three state qubit, and into an introduction to implementation methods & initial applications. (All affiliate links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Quantum Computing (WIRED GUIDES): How It Works and How It Could Change the World
Buy On:
Book Depository €9.26
Waterstones £8.99
Wordery $12.47
Q. Do you have a favourite smart thinking book (and why that book)?
I really like Other Minds, by Peter Godfrey-Smith, which is about animal intelligences – a subject that I find endlessly fascinating. It’s full of great anecdotes about smart corvids, and octopi that can hold a grudge.
Review from Book Depository:
What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?
In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself - a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared.
(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Tracking the mind's fitful development from unruly clumps of seaborne cells to the first evolved nervous systems in ancient relatives of jellyfish, he explores the incredible evolutionary journey of the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous molluscs who would later abandon their shells to rise above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so - a journey completely independent from the route that mammals and birds would later take.
But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually 'think for themselves'? By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind - and on our own.
Buy On:
Easons €14.00
Book Depository €8.68
Waterstones £9.99
Wordery $10.43
Q. What's the most recent smart thinking book you've read (and how would you rate it)?
Apart from the other books in the WIRED series – which are all great, obviously – the most recent ‘smart thinking’ book I read was The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova, which is about her journey from poker novice to professional and merges three things I really like: psychology, poker and great writing.
Review From Book Depository:
It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker.
(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win
But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player. She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.
Buy On:
Easons €14.00
Book Depository €13.04
Waterstones £9.99
Wordery $13.20
Q. Do you have a favourite childhood book?
I didn’t have particularly refined tastes in popular culture as a child (and still don’t) – I loved the Animorphs series of books by K.A. Applegate, which are about an alien invasion by mind-controlling slugs, and a group of kids who gain the ability to transform into animals. Still waiting for the gritty HBO television series.
Review From Book Depository:
The Earth is being invaded, but no-one knows about it. When Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie and Marco stumble upon a downed alien spaceship and its dying pilot, they're given an incredible power they can transform into any animal they touch. With it, they become Animorphs, the unlikely champions in a secret war for the planet. And the enemies they're fighting could be anyone, even the people closest to them. So begins K.A. Applegate's epic series about five normal kids with a limitless amount of forms and abilities.
(All links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
The Invasion - Animorphs No. 1
Buy On:
Book Depository €6.54
Waterstones £4.99
Wordery $11.13
Q. Do you prefer reading on paper, Kindle or listening to an audiobook?
It almost feels blasphemous to admit this, but I actually much prefer reading on Kindle. I like physical books a lot, and nothing beats the feeling of seeing something you’ve worked on in a bookshop or a newsstand, but I find e-readers much more practical for reading at night, and for making notes and highlights during research.
Q. Do you have a favourite bookshop (and why that shop)?
I quite like my local bookshop but it is, alas, a fairly run of the mill Waterstone’s in Clapham Junction. I am also a big fan of Stanfords, a central London institution that sells travel books and old maps and has a huge map of the city covering the ground floor.
Many thanks to Amit for recommending a fascinating set of books! Please don't forget to check out Amit's book Quantum Computing (WIRED GUIDES): How It Works and How It Could Change the World.
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Quantum Computing (Cornerstone, Penguin Random House), HarperCollins Publishers (Other Minds, The Biggest Bluff), Scholastic US (Animorphs).
< Home
