Quantum Computer Science: An Introduction

Book Preface

In the 1990s it was realized that quantum physics has some spectacular applications in computer science. This book is a concise introduction to quantum computation, developing the basic elements of this new branch of computational theory without assuming any background in physics. It begins with a novel introduction to the quantum theory from a computer-science perspective. It illustrates the quantum computational approach with several elementary examples of quantum speed-up, before moving to the major applications: Shor’s factoring algorithm, Grover’s search algorithm, and quantum error correction.

The book is intended primarily for computer scientists who know nothing about quantum theory but would like to learn the elements of quantum computation either out of curiosity about this new paradigm, or as a basis for further work in the subject. It will also be of interest to physicists who want to learn the theory of quantum computation, and to physicists and philosophers of science interested in quantum foundational issues. It evolved during six years of teaching the subject to undergraduates and graduate students in computer science, mathematics, engineering, and physics, at Cornell University.