Quantum Computing without Magic: Devices

by Zdzisław Meglicki

How quantum computing is really a primer for future quantum device engineers. This text offers an introduction to quantum computing, with a special emphasis on basic quantum physics, experiment, and quantum devices. Unlike many other texts, which tend to emphasize algorithms, Quantum Computing Without Magic explains the requisite quantum physics in some depth, and then explains the devices themselves. It is a book for readers who, having already encountered quantum algorithms, may ask, “Yes, I can see how the algebra does the trick, but how can we actually do it?” By explaining the details in the context of the topics covered, this book strips the subject of the “magic” with which it is so often cloaked. Quantum Computing Without Magic covers the essential probability calculus; the qubit, its physics, manipulation and measurement, and how it can be implemented using superconducting electronics; quaternions and density operator formalism; unitary formalism and its application to Berry phase manipulation; the biqubit, the mysteries of entanglement, nonlocality, separability, biqubit classification, and the Schroedinger's Cat paradox; the controlled-NOT gate, its applications and implementations; and classical analogs of quantum devices and quantum processes. Quantum Computing Without Magic can be used as a complementary text for physics and electronic engineering undergraduates studying quantum computing and basic quantum mechanics, or as an introduction and guide for electronic engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists, or scholars in these fields who are interested in quantum computing and how it might fit into their research programs.

Genres: Physics

422 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2008

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books starts as an introduction to quantum computing, focusing mainly on the different (but equivalent) representations of the qubit. After that, it quickly becomes very technical and significantly diffused. It appears to be geared towards professional physicists who want to be introduced to the field. The book has more humor that one would normally expect from this sort of textbook, but is also highly opinionated and the author often drifts into philosophical tangents, esoteric interpretations of quantum mechanics, and admonitions for his fellow physicists.

Humor example:

"If there is a fermion nearby that does something and we happen to be an identical fermion, we'll do our best to dress differently, drive a different car, look the other way, and preferably get out of the neighborhood as soon as the opportunity arises. On the other hand, bosons love to be together and to be alive: 'I'm having what she's having'.

and so on...

After some point, I only kept reading the book just for the jokes. Perhaps I will revisit it after I learn a bit more about quantum computing from a different book.