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Quantum Computing Since Democritus

4.13  ·  Rating Details ·  335 Ratings  ·  36 Reviews
Written by noted quantum computing theorist Scott Aaronson, this book takes readers on a tour through some of the deepest ideas of maths, computer science and physics. Full of insights, arguments and philosophical perspectives, the book covers an amazing array of topics. Beginning in antiquity with Democritus, it progresses through logic and set theory, computability and c ...more
Paperback, 370 pages
Published March 2013 by Cambridge University Press (first published February 26th 2013)
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Gwern
Dec 11, 2014 Gwern rated it really liked it
Aaronson's book is based off his online lecture notes which I hadn't read before though I've read his blog for years. I was really excited when the book was announced, since I hoped for expanded better version of his incredibly interesting paper/monograph "Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity" (abstract: "...In particular, I argue that computational complexity theory - the field that studies the resources (such as time, space, and randomness) needed to solve computational ...more
Jason
May 19, 2013 Jason rated it really liked it
"You can't actually build a working computer whose radius is more than 20 billion light years or whatever. It's depressing, but true." -- Scott Aaronson (*)

(* - What causes a sad for Scott Aaronson may differ from most people)

I'm going to likely re-read this one some time later when I find all the bits of cerebellum which squirted out my ears. After finishing this book I had a revelation about my favorite intellectual hobby; Quantum mechanics and computational complexity have a lot of interestin
...more
Robb Seaton
This reads a bit like, "Hey, I'm Scott Aaronson and here's my perspective on a bunch of topics," which -- don't get me wrong -- is entertaining because Scott has an, uh, impressive intellectual batting average. He's managed to glean a fair bit of insight about the sort of topics that mathematicians would call philosophy and philosophers would call mathematics.

The book suffers from lack of a really cohesive theme, though, which is what we're all chasing, right? Some beautiful, consistent theory t
...more
Peter Mcloughlin
Fairly good book lots of new ideas but not for the mathematically lazy. There are exercises and ideas that are not the easiest to digest. This is not an easy peasy popularization. It is an interesting book with lots of cool ideas in quantum mechanics, computation theory, Mathematics and quantum computation. It is a book I will have to return to later but even on a cursory first reading I got a lot out of this book. Definitely something to look into.

10/11/15
Read the book a second time. Grasped
...more
Alireza Shafaei
Aug 30, 2015 Alireza Shafaei rated it really liked it
It took me a long time to finish this book, mainly because I had to re-read some chapters several times; and even now I cannot claim I understand nearly 20% of it.

This book is a fascinating bridge between physics, computer science, and philosophy. As a CS student I've been exposed to many of the presented ideas before, but I couldn't comprehend the same material when it was written by Scott. Maybe it was presented at a higher level, or maybe I'm plainly stupid. Now imagine the times when I was
...more
Amar Pai
Jul 31, 2014 Amar Pai rated it liked it
Not casual reading... but seemed worthwhile. I need to come back to this when I have more time and patience. It was too deep for me this time around. Couple of takeaways from skimming:

* quantum physics = what happens when you allow negative probabilities, and use a '2-norm' instead of '1-norm'. using 2-norm, all probabilities for an event = all points at a distance of 1 from origin. probability is an amplitude, can be positive or negative.

* quantum computing != 'try all possibilities at once'. i
...more
Ibrahim
Aug 23, 2015 Ibrahim marked it as to-read
Scott as a theoretical computer scientist said: "Quantum mechanics is actually contrary to its reputation unbelievably simple once you take all the Physics out!". He scorns Physics in every possible way; his disdain to Physics even takes a more repugnant shape when he says: "I hope they are right [about there will be fundamental physical obstacles that would prevent Quantum computers from ever being built!] because that would be way more exciting than building a Quantum computer .. if you could ...more
Benjamin
May 06, 2016 Benjamin rated it really liked it
On free will:
"STUDENT: Can we even define free will?

SCOTT: Yeah, that's an excellent question. It's very hard to separate the question of whether free will exists from the question of what the definition of it is. What I was trying to do is, by saying what I think free will is not, give some idea of what the concept seems to refer to. It seems to me to refer to some transition in the state of the universe where there are several possible outcomes, and we can't even talk coherently about a probab
...more
Luke Paulsen
May 29, 2016 Luke Paulsen rated it liked it
First, the big warning: This book is basically the annotated lecture notes for a graduate-level course in theoretical computer science. I've taken an undergrad CS theory course, *and* taken a fair bit of higher math (set theory, linear algebra, and so forth), *and* read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid several times cover to cover-- and still half the things in here were a complete mystery to me. Aaronson makes very optimistic assumptions about the reader's technical competence-- he ...more
Sang Park
Sep 26, 2016 Sang Park rated it liked it
Shelves: science
As someone who barely knew anything about the theoretical fundamentals of computing, the concepts introduced were interesting. By no means were the ideas presented easy to understand, but this is not due to the incompetence of the writer but rather due to the amount of rigorous abstract logic required. Although well educated in physics, some mathematical concepts were difficult to understand and I cannot say that I have understood even half the material. Nevertheless a very interesting read, but ...more
Sheldon Fernandez
Jun 17, 2015 Sheldon Fernandez rated it it was amazing
This book is, quite simply, a tour de force, one of the best science books I’ve read in years. Scott Aaronson is that rare author: a noted expert in his field with a talent for elucidating impenetrable concepts with confidence, clarity and wit.

This book is required reading for anyone wishing to truly understand Quantum Computing, the obscure field of computer science where things are neither on or off, bits neither one nor zero. In the opinion of some, we are decades away from the first commerc
...more
norfdagoi
May 19, 2015 norfdagoi rated it really liked it
Scott Aaronson, a theoretical computer scientist at MIT specializing in complexity theory and quantum computing, attempts to bring his fields of expertise to bear on some deep questions in contemporary science and philosophy.
The bulk of the book might be subdivided into four parts: First, the classical theory of computation (chapters 2-8) where we start with set theory and logic, but ultimately this prepares us for Gödel's theorem, which gets us to the principal limits of computation: Gödel's th
...more
Ari
Nov 03, 2014 Ari rated it really liked it
This is an odd book. I had vaguely expected it to be a relatively accessible and popular treatment of quantum computing, or failing that, an advanced introduction to the topic. It is neither. (See David Mermin's Quantum Computer Science if you want that)

Instead, this book is Scott Aaronson trying to explain what he does and why he does it, emphasizing the big ideas and surprising insights in modern complexity theory and particularly quantum complexity theory.

The exposition is quite technical. Al
...more
S142857
Dec 20, 2015 S142857 rated it it was amazing
it is great, especially for quantum computing enthusiasts, prof.Aaronsons style is awesome he adds humor to one of the most theoretical fields in all of computer science.
He parallels he draws and how he relates quantum computing to philosophy is only possible for someone like prof.Aaronson.
all in all great book, and to those who said it was not easy to understand, it is meant to be that way, it is made for people with a strong understanding of computer science.
Great book!!
Riley Holmes
Apr 24, 2016 Riley Holmes rated it it was amazing
Great tour of the most important questions in math/philosophy/theoretical computer science. He discusses the significant results of the last 50 years, and the open issues that are being researched heavily. One example I enjoyed was the evolution of the algorithm for testing primality. In 1975 it was proven to be in the complexity class NP. In 1977 it was downgraded to coRP, and in 1992 downgraded again to ZPP. Finally in 2002 it ended up at the bottom of the complexity hierarchy, in P, thanks to ...more
Alasdair Reads
Mar 13, 2015 Alasdair Reads rated it it was amazing
The maths in the majority of the book was too hard for me to follow after several years of not doing any maths. Those sections which it was possible to follow with just logic and careful reasoning and what remained of my maths brain were superb. Ideally the ability to read, understand and get excited by a book like this is what we should be equipping children to do when they leave school. We have a long way to go
Kyle Bunkers
Feb 20, 2014 Kyle Bunkers rated it really liked it
Will have to reread to truly get all the points. Not being familiar with all the complexity classes and oracles, I feel that I need to think about and understand them better in order to get all that I can out of this book. It is a very good book, though, and Aaronson does a good job of keeping the reader engaged with interesting insights and applications. I especially like when he talks about interesting puzzles like Newcomb's paradox, or the Doomsday argument.
Kyle
Nov 11, 2013 Kyle rated it really liked it
This is a fairly comprehensive overview of quantum information theory and related disciplines including set theory, logic, computation theory, complexity theory, quantum mechanics, relativity and quantum gravity. Some background in some of these is a loose prerequisite; the level at to which concepts are explained varies throughout but some basic knowledge is often assumed.

Some of the complexity theory alphabet soup got a bit boring but the bulk of the book was spent on interesting subjects and
...more
Morgan
May 16, 2016 Morgan rated it liked it
Quantum Computing Since Democritus is based on lecture notes for a class the author taught a few years ago. The class was a survey of quantum computing topics for people that were already taking other quantum computing related classes. If that describes you, this book will be pretty interesting. If you're not already studying quantum computing, this book will be pretty confusing.

The book does cover the important results from the ground up, but the explanations aren't geared towards people with n
...more
Will Nalls
Mar 20, 2014 Will Nalls rated it really liked it
Nice overview of computational complexity and introduction to the concepts underlying quantum computing. Requires a bit of skill in logic or math to fully follow some parts, but otherwise very approachable.

Also, incredibly entertaining, considering the material being presented. Aaronson is a witty writer, fun to read.
Lewis Cawthorne
May 20, 2014 Lewis Cawthorne rated it it was amazing
Nice "big picture" book, and fairly accessible if you have a reasonable mathematical background (equiv to an undergraduate degree in CS or Physics should do). Probably more accessible to CS students that have seen some of the basic complexity classes.
Dustin Anderson
Aug 14, 2016 Dustin Anderson rated it really liked it
Fun and full of good discussions on nerd-questions about science, computing, and philosophy. It's not very cohesive and I skipped some sections that had too many proofs about computational complexity, but overall I'm very glad I read it.
Mark Liu
Oct 06, 2015 Mark Liu rated it really liked it
Quantum Computing since Democritus, by Scott Aaronson, blends together theoretical computer science, physics and philosophy in a fascinating way. The book is a little too heavy and difficult to follow at times, reading more like a textbook than a novel, but has lots of surprising insights into the deep relationships between disparate fields. Aaronson takes results from theoretical computer science and asks what implications these have for the physical world. He goes on to address the issues of d ...more
Ilya
Dec 29, 2015 Ilya rated it really liked it
Shelves: computer-science
A bird's-eye overview of computational complexity theory and quantum computing. You can't actually learn either from this book; you need proper textbooks; yet you can get a pretty good idea of what you are going to learn if you set out to.
Emily Bragg
Mar 10, 2015 Emily Bragg rated it really liked it
I now have a papers-and-books-and-topics reading list that might take a few years to complete. Pretty sure I didn't understand half of the interactive proofs chapter, and my takeaway (as it often is) is that I really need to know more math. One always needs to know more math...
Arun
Well, clearly half of the book is over my head but I gained quite a few insights on efficient computation at classical and quantum levels and also few areas of physics. I have to study more LinearAlgebra and basic quantum physics to understand more math-heavy parts of the book. This book may not be an introductory level like I initially thought but nevertheless the writing was funny (uniformly at that) at times when I decided to give up on it and so I persisted till the end :) .. I give 3 stars ...more
Santino Maguire
May 21, 2014 Santino Maguire rated it liked it
Shelves: interest
This book had the interesting property of making me think bigger thoughts without making me think about any big thoughts in particular. There is notably no central theme, and large, seemingly inconsequential mathematical tangents, but it was a useful study in watching the author constantly generalize over concepts.

I can't say I enjoyed it, and I can't say I'd recommend it to anyone, but it definitely improved my understanding of computation. There are probably better and faster ways of doing tha
...more
Zarathustra Goertzel
Apr 19, 2014 Zarathustra Goertzel rated it it was amazing
This was a great book. There were so many topics covered in detail that I've been meaning to get around to. (fortunately without full mathematical rigor, lest the book be far, far longer and less approachable). You'll get your quantum information theory and computing, but you'll get even more complexity theory. You'll also get insights on other topics (free will, time travel, cosmology, etc.) and how they are related to complexity and quantum theory.

Definitely recommended to anyone who doesn't m
...more
Adam
Jul 21, 2015 Adam rated it really liked it
Shelves: nonfiction
I learned a lot from reading this, but a lot is still inaccessible to me! I've got a much better understanding of exotic complexity classes, and I really liked his treatment of QM as a generalisation of probabilities to allow for subtraction.

Sometimes I found he used more confusing examples than necessary. E.g. I couldn't follow his explanation of diagonalization and uncountable sets, despite understanding it perfectly when a professor explained it in class a few years back.

Something I will rere
...more
Alican Buyukcakir
Sep 29, 2016 Alican Buyukcakir rated it really liked it
I'll come back to this book after I get better at theoretical computer science.
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“What's the point of talking about philosophical questions? Because we're going to be doing a fair bit of it here – I mean, of philosophical bullshitting. Well, there's a standard answer, and it's that philosophy is an intellectual clean-up job – the janitors who come in after the scientists have made a mess, to try and pick up the pieces. So in this view, philosophers sit in their armchairs waiting for something surprising to happen in science – like quantum mechanics, like the Bell inequality, like Gödel's Theorem – and then (to switch metaphors) swoop in like vultures and say, ah, this is what it really meant. Well, on its face, that seems sort of boring. But as you get more accustomed to this sort of work, I think what you'll find is...it's still boring!” 3 likes
“Even there, something inside me (and, I suspect, inside many other computer scientists!) is suspicious of those parts of mathematics that bear the obvious imprint of physics, such as partial differential equations, differential geometry, Lie groups, or anything else that's “too continuous.” 1 likes
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