Customer Reviews

Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists

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I am studying quantum computing by myself.
Before this book, I studied this field with other school's class website.
Even though the slide and on-line documents I obtained is great, it was hard to understand by just reading!

This book is totally different from other books. It focued on people who are weak to mathematics and have little knowledge of quantum computing.
Even some chapters are still hard (because of the nature of this field), most chapters are so well written that you can read lying on the couch and feel like you read some kind of story.

Since I have been in the technical field for a while,(I am a CS PhD student studying Data Mining and Machine Learning), this book is one of very rarely well written books containing sufficient depth but keeping simplicity.

For anyone who wish to start to study Quantum Computing WITHOUT much pain, this is THE book.

Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists is a great introduction to this new field. (I have a computer degree and work in computers.) I like learning about new hot technologies and what they're all about. I picked this book up on a whim and really loved it.

First, it is a relatively easy read. One does not need to know any physics or higher math. I never studied linear algebra in college (but I saw a lot of it working with graphics) this book does not assume it. I remember high school physics and I did not need more than that to read this book. Everything is clearly laid out and explained. (But remember, it is definitely NOT a popular book. It is a technical book with problems and lots of equations. It does however explain very carefully where the technical details come from.)

Throughout the text there are lots of examples that explain things. This is not a theoretical book. There are also a lot of little programming assignments that one can do (if you have the time and are in the mood) to get a feel for how this is done. This book is definitely made for a computer person. I looked at a few other books on this subject before and could not make any headway. This book flows.

Along the way you learn basic quantum mechanics and some of the fun and strange things about that subject that everyone is always talking about. The book shows that the concepts are not very hard.

Almost every chapter is has a title that refers to some part of computer science. Each chapter has a little review of the some of the main aspects in classical computer science, and then moves on to the quantum computing version. I think the most enjoyable chapter is chapter 3 "The Leap from Classical to Quantum". This starts off talking about little marbles moving around on a graph and ends up talking about quantum mechanics and the double-slit experiment. Another cool chapter is 5 "Architecture". It shows how all classical gates can be seen as matrices acting on arrays and then shows that quantum gates can also been seen looked at in the same way. (I thought Chapter 7 "Programming Languages" is a little hard to follow.) Chapter 10 "Information Theory" also gets rough after the first few pages. All in all though, the chapters are great. There are also several great appendices that have more info including a history of quantum computing looking at the papers that shaped the field.

I've recommended this book to a few of my friends/coworkers. One already bought it and another looks like he will (unless he keeps mine.) I can not recommend this book in a strong enough language to anyone who knows (and works with) computers and really wants to get a feel for what we suspect the next hot topic is. It will go down as a classic in clarity and readability.

Good points about the book:

1) The authors focus on the "what"'s and "how"'s rather than
the "why"'s. They do not waste time with nitty gritty details
of quantum physics. The book is true to it title, and delves
directly into the practical details of quantum computing. In
this respect this book is a welcome exception among a plethora
of similarly titled book that end up bombarding the readers
with alpha particles and magical photons, and leave the quantum
computing topics only vaguely explained. Just as classical computing
is not about understanding semiconductors, quantum computing is
not about chasing photons. This book makes this very clear.

2) The book moves at a very leisurely pace with LOTS of
embedded examples and exercises. Though I skipped most of the
exercises during my firsr reading, these helped me to
consolidate my understanding during subsequent readings. This book
is ideal for self-guided study.

3) The book goes beyond being a mere nice textbook. It also acts
like a tour operator into the wonderful world of quantum
computing with material suitable for audience ranging from
"casually curious" to potential researchers. A list of possible
student projects, and a guide to the quantum computing on the net
are two very useful sections. I have never seen a single book
providing such a broad yet practically useful view about a
subject. Of course, one cannot expect to learn "everything"
about a subject from a single book, but still this book goes a
long way toward that goal. It gives you some knowledge, and
then it helps you to understand how that piece of
knowledge fits in the vast world of quantum computing.

4) The level of details is chosen mainly for readers with
not-too-well-brushed-up math background. Basic familiarity with
complex matrices, along with definitions of eigen values and
eigen vectors is all the math prerequsite.
All formulas are supported by extensive numerical examples.

Not so good points:

1) The index needs to be expanded. It lacks important entries
like Hadamard, Pauli (there are special matrices by these names),
and if you want to quickly look up the exact definitions of
these matrices, it is somewhat hard to navigate yourself
to the relevant pages. However, after you get acquainted with
the layout of the book it is only a minor problem.

2) Such a book needs to have a simulator to go with it, so that the
reader gets a hands-on feel for the subject. The book does have
a pretty detailed discussion about a free Matlab-based
simulator, but unfortunately the simulator is apparently no
more on the web.

3) As the math level of the exposition is deliberately kept
low, certain important ideas have been only glossed over. The
authors have done a commendable job choosing which details to
omit. But I think there is one important concept that is used
but never explained. The book introduces quantum measurements
as Hermitian matrices (much like any other book). To keep the
exposition at an elementary level only Hermitian matrices with simple eigen
values are discussed. The case of repeated eigen values (which
is not a trivial generalization of the "simple" case) is never
mentioned. But in almost all the actual quantum algorithms
discussed later in the book, the measurement matrices have
repeated eigen values. It would help beginners like me
to have an explanation of the special case of a diagonal measurement
matrix (the type that has been used most often).
This could actually be done without ever talking about
eigen values and eigen vectors. This is the only point where I
had to rely on external resources (mainly wikipedia) to
supplement the book.

Despite the minor shortcomings, the book is one of the BEST books
I have ever seen on ANY subject!!

Of a dozen books on quantum programming I have read this one is by far the best. Strongly recommend.

Alan Tatourian

The book is written with great style and with passion for the subject. It assumes very little prior knowledge. While many advanced subjects have been left out or shortly mentioned, the array of subjects covered is quite wide, and suggestions for farther reading are well presented.

This book is very clearly written. It was a very good idea for the authors to put math chapters in the book especially for myself who hasn't touched maths in a while. One good thing is that the book is written with ideas linked in kind of a chain. You read one notion and the next notion is dependent on previously explained notions. I would highly recommend it to someone who is looking for first serious study on quantum computing. The clarity is awesome.

This text served as my first formal introduction to the exciting field of quantum computation. I must say, that I couldn't have asked for a better text to guide me through this wondrous arena of science. The concepts presented within the book were done so in an incredibly clear and concise fashion. The notorious difficulties associated with quantum mechanics were washed away by the very intuitive explanations presented in the book.

Whether or not you are a computer scientist, if you have an interest in learning the rudiments of quantum computing this is a fantastic introductory book that presents these ideas in a very friendly way. No previous knowledge of quantum mechanics is necessary either really, as many of the core concepts are explained throughout. Of course, having a basic understanding going in is helpful.

Book Scope:
The book begins with a look at complex vector spaces and some basics on linear algebra. Most of the mathematics stays within this vicinity with some basic statistics sprinkled throughout later, and only one or two instances of calculus. This makes the text a fantastic introduction to someone who has not yet encountered some of the higher levels of mathematics.
They also introduce tensor products early on so that when the section of composite quantum systems arises, the reader is able to go back and intuitively understand how tensor products can be comprehended in this physical sense.

What I found especially helpful on the mathematical side of things is that the steps to arrive at certain problems were not omitted, and in fact are provided in great detail. This is especially beneficial to those not familiar or rusty with mathematical concepts presented in the book.
From there, the book covers aspects of computer science. For the computer scientists who picked up this book, a lot of this will serve as review. However there are elements presented in the text that do not necessarily come up in the general computer science curriculum. These include actual physical components of computing, and ride more along the pretenses of information theory.
After covering the preliminary computational material, the book progresses into developing some quantum mechanical notions. This includes rudimentary experiments such as the double slit experiment, Stern-Gerlach, etc. They are presented in a very friendly manner and also are accompanied by helpful illustrations and written out mathematical explanations.

Afterward, the actual concepts of quantum computing are presented. They begin with the notion of a qubit, Bloch sphere, entanglement, etc.
From this point on, the book does not really require to be read linearly. Once the core concepts are established, the next few chapters cover topics such as Quantum Circuits, Quantum Algorithms, Information Theory, Theoretical Computer Science, Quantum Cryptography, Quantum Programming etc.

So whatever aspect of quantum computing you happen to be especially interested in, you can dive right in and begin learning. Of course you could also continue in a linear fashion and read it all (as I did) for a good overview of the branching of quantum computation.
Throughout the text, there are a series of exercises for the reader. Most of these are answered in the back of the book (a huge aid to those self-learning). There are also programming drills sprinkled throughout the text. Since the premise of the book is for interested computer scientists, they allow you to establish and reinforce your comprehension through these programming exercises.

What is really beneficial about this is that these exercises are cumulative. So by the end of the book if you continue to work alongside of the text, you will have created a quantum computational emulator.
I did this as well during my reading, and it was incredibly beneficial for gaining an intuitive understanding of the subject matter. I've always thought that you don't really understand something, until you can tell it to a computer. Why? Because it involves covering large sets of cases and explaining it in excruciating detail.
All in all, I'd highly recommend this book to anyone interested in quantum computing. Whether you are a beginner or novice, this book serves as an outstanding primer to comprehending a beautiful subject.

Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists is AMAZING! Such a fantastic book! I love it so much! It's a beautiful, well written tutorial for self-taught students. I've read almost every chapter, and I've done probably a majority of the exercises, especially involving quantum algorithms.

There are a couple errors, but the author is very responsive about them.

Basically, if you understand High-school-level mathematics, and you're comfortable with linear algebra and computer programming, this book is a perfect introduction to the groundbreaking field of quantum computing.

I very much like the book, but I made the mistake of buying it for my large-sized Kindle. Kindle can't handle some of the fonts in the equations, so some of them have missing terms. In other cases, characters from the missing fonts were embedded inside the text as raster images. Sometimes a bra appears embedded in the text as a giant image, while the matching ket appears as a normal-sized character.

The underlying problem is that the typesetting for the Kindle is often extremely sloppy. In this case, there is no evidence of proof reading. For example, in lists of subscripted variables embedded in the text, some subscripts are correctly typeset and some appear as conventional characters. That doesn't cause much confusion, but it is a clear sign that the typesetting was never checked. Elements of mathematical expressions that had been dropped in typesetting, either because of typos or incompatible fonts, had not been spotted, and I spent enough time guessing about missing terms that I am now looking for a hardcopy.

These problems can't be explained by the technical limitations of the Kindle. It's just plain sloppy. Given that I paid $44 for the Kindle version, I think we can expect better. I think the authors of the text can expect better, and I hope they complain about it. I've seen similar problems with other Kindle versions of books that have equations. When talking about the Kindle with friends, I cite typesetting of anything but plain text as a significant limitation.
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Addendum 1/22/2012: I now have a hard cover copy and I have studied it thoroughly and enjoyed the book immensely. I have found it to be much more accessible to computer scientists than competing books I have looked at. One of the readers pointed out that it seemed unfair to give my original rating of four stars over a production issue that does not affect the hardcover version. I found out it's possible to revise a review after it's been posted, and I am changing my rating to five stars.