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Anyone here able to recommend a primer on quantum computing? I have a high-level understanding of the physics involved, but I get lost as soon as people start d

Anyone here able to recommend a primer on quantum computing? I have a high-level understanding of the physics involved, but I get lost as soon as people start discussing the algorithms.

hdivider 13y ago
Drop me an email and I can send you 20+ short PDFs worth of lecture notes from a quantum information course I took at Imperial College, if you wish. They're probably as good a 'primer' as any, since they basically go from undergraduate quantum mechanics to quantum computing (& other topics). Should certainly make some of the basic quantum algorithms clear (e.g. Grover's). Failing that, I think Nielsen & Chuang's textbook is really good: http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computation-Information-Anniversary-Edition/dp/1107002176/ http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computation-Information-Annive... It's thorough, naturally, but it does zoom out from time to time.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  Drop me an email and I can send you 20+ short PDFs worth of lecture notes from a quantum information course I took at Imperial College, if you wish. Any chance you'd be willing to just put that stuff "out there" somewhere, link to them all in a blog post, and submit that here? I'm guessing there would be more than a few people who would find that interesting...
  - hdivider 13y ago
    I'd love to. I'm just not quite sure where lecture notes stand, legally speaking. If I send the files to just a few people I theoretically know, I guess it's like lending a book to a friend. But putting them all up for public download feels like quite a different matter. Thoughts?
    - mindcrime 13y ago
      I'm not really sure. I've always tended to assume that if you wrote notes, paraphrasing content that you sat through a lecture on, then you own the copyright on those notes. But I do think I recall at least one case where a professor or a university tried to stop a student from distributing notes, but I don't remember the details... Here's a couple of articles on the topic: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/04/prof-sues-note/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/04/prof-sues-note/ http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/02/do-students-have-copyright-to-their-own-notes/ http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/02/do-students-have-cop... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/04/aclass-of-copyright-thieves-a-lawsuit-over-lecture-notes/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/04/aclass-of-copyrig... Unfortunately, IANAL.
fiatmoney 13y ago
This computer won't let you do "quantum computing" of the kind that's usually discussed - eg, you can't implement Shor's algorithm for factoring. It does claim to be able to solve optimization problems via "true" quantum annealing / tempering, so you'd want to look up what kinds of problems are particularly well suited for those optimization approaches. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_quantum_computation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_quantum_computation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_tempering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_tempering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_annealing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_annealing
zodiac 13y ago
I highly recommend the quantum computing MOOC from UC Berkeley. I took it when it was on Coursera but now it's on edx. https://www.edx.org/course/uc-berkeleyx/uc-berkeleyx-cs-191x-quantum-mechanics-1033 https://www.edx.org/course/uc-berkeleyx/uc-berkeleyx-cs-191x...
- krohling 13y ago
  +1, excellent course. I took it via Edx and really enjoyed it.
mirajshah 13y ago
Check this out: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/algorithms/chap10.pdf http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/algorithms/chap10.pdf. Vazirani and Dasgupta's Algorithms textbook is amazingly elegant and concise; since Vazirani is an expert in quantum computing, he included a chapter on the fundamentals of quantum in his book!

Anyone here able to recommend a primer on quantum computing? I have a high-level understanding of the physics involved, but I get lost as soon as people start discussing the algorithms.

hdivider 13y ago

Drop me an email and I can send you 20+ short PDFs worth of lecture notes from a quantum information course I took at Imperial College, if you wish. They're probably as good a 'primer' as any, since they basically go from undergraduate quantum mechanics to quantum computing (& other topics). Should certainly make some of the basic quantum algorithms clear (e.g. Grover's). Failing that, I think Nielsen & Chuang's textbook is really good: http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computation-Information-Anniversary-Edition/dp/1107002176/ http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computation-Information-Annive... It's thorough, naturally, but it does zoom out from time to time.

mindcrime 13y ago
Drop me an email and I can send you 20+ short PDFs worth of lecture notes from a quantum information course I took at Imperial College, if you wish. Any chance you'd be willing to just put that stuff "out there" somewhere, link to them all in a blog post, and submit that here? I'm guessing there would be more than a few people who would find that interesting...
- hdivider 13y ago
  I'd love to. I'm just not quite sure where lecture notes stand, legally speaking. If I send the files to just a few people I theoretically know, I guess it's like lending a book to a friend. But putting them all up for public download feels like quite a different matter. Thoughts?
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    I'm not really sure. I've always tended to assume that if you wrote notes, paraphrasing content that you sat through a lecture on, then you own the copyright on those notes. But I do think I recall at least one case where a professor or a university tried to stop a student from distributing notes, but I don't remember the details... Here's a couple of articles on the topic: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/04/prof-sues-note/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/04/prof-sues-note/ http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/02/do-students-have-copyright-to-their-own-notes/ http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/02/do-students-have-cop... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/04/aclass-of-copyright-thieves-a-lawsuit-over-lecture-notes/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/04/aclass-of-copyrig... Unfortunately, IANAL.

fiatmoney 13y ago

This computer won't let you do "quantum computing" of the kind that's usually discussed - eg, you can't implement Shor's algorithm for factoring. It does claim to be able to solve optimization problems via "true" quantum annealing / tempering, so you'd want to look up what kinds of problems are particularly well suited for those optimization approaches. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_quantum_computation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_quantum_computation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_tempering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_tempering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_annealing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_annealing

zodiac 13y ago

I highly recommend the quantum computing MOOC from UC Berkeley. I took it when it was on Coursera but now it's on edx. https://www.edx.org/course/uc-berkeleyx/uc-berkeleyx-cs-191x-quantum-mechanics-1033 https://www.edx.org/course/uc-berkeleyx/uc-berkeleyx-cs-191x...

krohling 13y ago
+1, excellent course. I took it via Edx and really enjoyed it.

mirajshah 13y ago

Check this out: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/algorithms/chap10.pdf http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/algorithms/chap10.pdf. Vazirani and Dasgupta's Algorithms textbook is amazingly elegant and concise; since Vazirani is an expert in quantum computing, he included a chapter on the fundamentals of quantum in his book!