Hacker News Reader

Comment by emtel | Hacker News Reader

Here is a direct quote from one of Vivek's comments:

"Please give me 1-2 sentences that your children could understand that explains the possibilities of quantum computing and I will use these in future articles. I acknowledge that I am not as smart as most of you are. I struggle with the concepts of quantum computing, these just don’t make sense to me."

Is there any other field in which someone would profess complete ignorance about a topic, and go on to write about it in a national newspaper anyway?

View on HN

I would take Vivek's line to indicate not "ignorance" but humility, or, possibly, a slightly sarcastic jab at what he may perceive as arrogance from his critics.

There's also a difference between complete ignorance, and the ability to perfectly frame a field's possible impact in language that the general public can understand.

Considering that he is unlikely to be so humbled by this experience to immediately change careers, the wish to improve journalism may be best channeled not at trying to take this guy down, but to actually acquiesce and simply provide him that summary he is asking for. I, for one, would be interested.

They have provided those summaries multiple times over. And Wikipedia has some of them too.

> Is there any other field in which someone would profess complete ignorance about a topic, and go on to write about it in a national newspaper anyway?

Yes, this happens in every field. This isn't a problem specific to computing, it's specific to journalism.

I don't think so. Yes, journalists make errors in every field, sometimes big ones. What's weird here is the professed ignorance. You won't find a middle east correspondent saying "I'm sorry, could you give me 1-2 sentences on the difference between Sunni and Shia again? I just can't understand this stuff."

"These are two sects of Islam fighting with each other for centuries, mainly over dogmatic issues: all Muslims believe in the Sunnah, but for the Sunni the Sunnah is of primary importance. There are also other differences between the two."

This is what I'd explain to a child, and I believe it's more or less correct. Once they get more interested, they'll be able to consult more precise although less accessible descriptions.

The problem is that this looks like an explanation but it doesn't explain anything, After reading it, the reader is as confused as before. For example, if you replace "Sunnah" with "Jesus" this is an explanation of the difference between Muslim and Christians.

I take it that theoretical physics tends to get similarly butchered.

Math, probably.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com