Product Description
As miniaturization in our modern worl deepens, and nanotechnology and its machines becomemore prevalent in the real world, the need to consider using quantum mechanical concepts to perform various tasks in computation increases. Such talks include: the teleporting of information, breaking heretofore "unbreakalbe" codes, communicating with messages that betray eavesdropping, and the generation of random munbers. To date, there has been no book written which applies quantum physics to the basic operations of a computer. This one does, thus presenting us with the ideal vehicle for explaining the complexities of quantum mechanics to students, researchers and computer engineers, alike, as they prepare to design and create the computing and information delivery systems of the future. This project evolved from a course taught by one of the authors, Colin Williams, to a group of students in teoretical computer science. Both authors have solid backgrounds in the subject matter at the theoretical and research level, as well as experience on a more practical plane. While intended for use as a textbook for senior/graduate level students in computer science, physics, and engineering, this book has its primary use as an up-to-date reference work in the emerging interdisciplinary field of quantum computing. It presumes no background in quantum physics, or theoretical computer science per se, but it does require knowledge of calculus and familiarity with the concept of the Turing machine. The authors have included visual imagery and graphics throughout the book. They also enlist the use of Mathematica code to support their technical discussions in their examples. These features are designed to help readers better grasp the very complex nature of the physical principles involved with quatum computing.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 12 reviews)

perfect for newcomers in the area of QC

I read almost all of the book so far and i have to say this is one of the best books a beginner can buy. The fact that it is for beginners doesnt make it a bad book.

It deals with almost all of the subjects and explains the connections between them. For those who doesnt know quantum physics ( or computing ) it is especially important to understand the basics and connections. This book first gives the underlying methods/concepts and then tries to show how it is/can be implemented on a quantum computer. If you are new in one of the 2 areas ( quantum physics or/and classical computing ), you should be paying attention to understanding of new concepts and connections coming in with the areas itself to gain a solid background in the field. I believe this book is giving the background a beginner needs.

It is true that the book has little mathematics perspective and is more like concepts oriented in physical subjects. So even if you are an undergrad physics student who took quantum pyhsics, the language or explanations used here might seem rather simplistic. Other than that it is perfect.
October 03, 2004

Good but disappointing

This book is disappointing, because it could have been so much better.

There are numerous inexcusable typos, e.g. "hbar" (Planck's constant over 2 pi) is invariably represented as "h", ellipsis "..." show up as "K", vectors appear as a letter with an "r" over them - very sloppy editing.

The presentation is uneven. A lot of time is spent introducing the weirdness of quantum mechanics along with its probabalistic nature - all at the elementary level, and then BAM! Here (Ch. 4) is a Feynman-like Hamiltonian that is a term with creation and annihilation operators plus its conjugate complex, and no explanation of it at all! Even if you have had undergraduate QM, this might be a bit much. Further, the concept of direct product spaces is important for quantum computing, but, although it is used, it is not explained. If you haven't seen it before, you will not figure out much of the stuff in Chapter 4 "Simulating a Simple Quantum Computer" which is the heart of this book. A bit more time spent on the essentials that go into the direct product space, and the use of creation and annihilation operators, Hermitian operators, etc., could have made this book so much better.

The Mathematica simulation is really just a movie. Unless you know enough about QM and Mathematica, you have no hope of doing anything with it other than just watching.

On the good side, the simulation does indeed help scratch the surface of what is different about quantum computing. Also a later discussion of Shor's algorithm for cracking an RSA code is excellent.

If you haven't had an undergraduate course in quantum mechanics, and even if you have, you may find that grasping this book is exceedingly difficult. However, if you skip the rough parts or just accept them, and take a look at the simulation, there is something there to be gained.
June 26, 2000

An excellent book on quantum computing

This book is by far the best dedicated to quantum computing : it is suitable for you even if you are a beginner in quantum mechanics, and will be a good introduction to quantum computing.

I particularly appreciated the treatment of Bell's inequality, and of entanglement in general.
May 11, 2000

Excellent book, comprehensive, and surprisingly fun!

This is a good and pretty comprehensive book on an exciting subject. It interweaves ideas from computer science and quantum physics. That might sound dry but this book made it fun! I found the software an integral part of the experience. I recommend that the authors make more mention of it in the book. It's nifty stuff. I haven't seen another book like it.
April 17, 1999

Popularly written, but shallow and not up to date

Is this a good book? Yes if you want an informal and readable first introduction to quantum computation; No if you want a book that provides you with rigorous up-to-date descriptions of the main results of quantum computation. In particular on the side of computer science there are some errors and omissions. The presentation of complexity theory is not very good, and Grover's quantum search algorithm is not covered. Better grab a good free introduction from the web (for instance John Preskill's notes at Caltech).
March 26, 1999

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