User:Eric Toombs

I am a third-year student at the University of Waterloo studying mathematical physics. Of particular interest to me are quantum computing and the physics and technology required to make it happen. I am interested in all areas of physics, though, including quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, general and special relativity, classical mechanics, continuum mechanics, and statistical mechanics/thermodynamics. As more of a hobby, I am also interested in languages, and over the course of my studies I have learned French and Russian. I am currently learning Mandarin.

Not only do I think we can do better than Wikipedia for an encyclopaedia in terms of authenticity. We can do better than written signatures by universally replacing them with digital signatures and cryptography. Moreover, if the technology to do so ever coalesces, we can do better than digital cryptography by implementing quantum cryptography.

I also believe we can do better than English, or than any evolved language for that matter, to clearly express ideas. Lojban shows some promise on this front. I've been learning it intermittently as well. Its simple few and consistent rules make it easy to learn, saving countless hours of primary school memorizing the exceptions and quirks of an evolved language like English (i.e. their, there, they're; kite, bite, flight???).

I am a scientist. I believe an observation, especially a reproducible one, is an indisputable fact and all other facts must follow from observations. Although a conjecture without evidence may be true, until evidence is produced, it might as well be false.