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Title: Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Michael A. Nielsen, Isaac L. Chuang ISBN: 0521635039 Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr (Pap Txt) Pub. Date: September, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $55.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4
Rating: 3
Summary: Good for reference, poor for teaching,self-study
Comment: I am actually teaching a course involving Quantum Computing. I am using this book because it is better than other books I have seen. However that still doesn't mean this is a good book!
I have a BSc in Physics and a PhD in mathematics and I work in a Computer Science Department so one would expect that it would be relatively easy to follow this text. However often nothing could be further from the truth! The book appears to be VERY hastily written with certian passages being absolutely impregnable to understanding. The authors often appear to have forgotten to define all their terms, so some arguments are as difficult to decipher as the Rosetta Stone. I give an example: page 226 equation 5.36 they define a unitary transformation U|y> -> |xy(modN)>. They talk about y and its relation to N (I presume that x and N are integers) but NOWHERE do they define what values x can take. So in principle x could be bigger than N. it is easy to demonstrate that some values of x give an operator that is not unitary. This isn't allowed so therefore it implies that x has some restrictions placed upon it. WHAT ARE THOSE RESTRICIONS? WHY DO THE AUTHORS NOT STATE THEM?
The above example is just an illustration of the main fault of the book: Extremely sloppy definitions of many things (or absent definitions). They cultivate an air of rigour but it is all a sham.
Verdict: Be prepared to spend a phenomenal amount of time on this book if you are going to use it for teaching. You will have to fill in many gaps and consult many research papers to make sense of it. BTW: there are no worked examples and exercises that often are incredibly difficult (presumably because the authors have omitted many definitions)
Rating: 5
Summary: Qubits away!
Comment: This is a terrific book. The first truly comprehensive, in-depth and fully integrated textbook on the recent surge of ideas at the interface of physics, computer science and information theory. Concepts are lovingly developed and presented in their most essential and unencumbered forms, the prose is sparkingly clear and there are enough exercises, at all levels, to keep even researchers in the field busy. Most importantly, perhaps, it brilliantly manages to convey all the excitement of a field still very much in its infancy. Read it, and hop on!
Rating: 5
Summary: Interdisciplinary!
Comment: Classical computation follows the model of A. Turing,-- strings of bits, i.e., 0s and 1s; a mathematical model, now called the Turing mashine. Analogues based instead on two-level quantum systems were suggested in the 1980ties by R.P. Feynman and D. Deutsch. But it wasn't until Peter Shor's qubit-factoring algorithm in the mid 1990ties that the subject really took off, and really caught the attention of the math community. That there is a polynomial factoring algorithm shook the encryption community as well, for obvious reasons. New elements of thinking in the quantum realm, and not part of the classical framework, include superposition of (quantum) states, and (quantum) coherence. This makes a drastic change in the whole theoretical framework when one passes from the classical notion of bit-registers to that of qubit-registers. In passing from logic gates to quantum gates(unitary matrices), the concept of switching networks changes. It introduces new challenges, and new truely exciting opportunities. It is not easy for authors to make everyone happy;-- this is especially so in a new field,--one which has grabbed headlines, and one which is at the same time interdisiplinary. In this case, the authors succeed as well as anyone, I believe.-- This lovely book covers several of the appropriate areas of physics (quantum theory, (some) experiment...), of computer science (the mathematical side of the subject), and of math (operators in Hilbert space, and the theory of algorithms);-- each member of the particular scientific specialty has very definite ideas of his/her own subject,-- and that of the others. Nonetheless, in this readers opinion, the two authors did a great job;-- they explain math to the physics community,-- and they sucessfully teach quantum theory and theoretical CS to mathematicians. The book is suitable for grad students: has lots of great exercises, but it could perhaps have used some more worked examples. (Fortunately they can be found in other books on quantum computation.) The Nielsen-Chuang book is most certainly a great entry for students into this exciting new subject. There are other books,-- but they, for the most part, take a more narrow view. The material in Nielsen-Chuang is timeless,-- and I expect the book will also be popular ten years from now.
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Title: The Physics of Quantum Information: Quantum Cryptography, Quantum Teleportation, Quantum Computation by Dirk Bouwmeester, Artur Ekert, Anton Zeilinger, Dik Bouwmeester, Arthur K. Ekert ISBN: 3540667784 Publisher: Springer Verlag Pub. Date: 15 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $54.00 |
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Title: Quantum Computing by Mika Hirvensalo ISBN: 3540667830 Publisher: Springer Verlag Pub. Date: 16 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $44.95 |
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Title: An Introduction to Quantum Computing Algorithms (Progress in Computer Science and Applied Logic, V. 19) by Arthur O. Pittenger ISBN: 0817641270 Publisher: Birkhauser Pub. Date: 12 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $46.95 |
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Title: Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods (Fundamental Theories of Physics, Vol 57) by Asher Peres ISBN: 0792336321 Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $87.00 |
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Title: Quest for the Quantum Computer by Julian Brown ISBN: 0684870045 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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