Reviews from Amazon

Quantum Computing

Quantum Computing by Josef Gruska is a wide ranging textbook dealing with quantum computational topics at a level suitable for advanced undergraduates or those pursuing independent study who have a similar level of experience.

The book has eight chapters and an appendix. The first chapter introduces the subejct, but it does . The second chapter looks at the elements of quantum computation such as qubits. The third chapter gets on to algorithms for quantum computers, and will form the most important part of the book for many readers. The fourth looks at automata such as quantum turing machines, and the fifth at computational complexity - we expect quantum computers to be faster than classical ones, but it is important to know what sort of improvement to expect. The next three chapters have a more applied viewpoint, looking at quantum cryptography, methods of error correction in quantum computers, and the transmission of information with quantum devices. The appendix has extra details of quantum theory, as well as an introduction to complexity in classical and probabilistic computation.

This is the sort of book that you need to study in detail - the reader is given a lot of challenging material early on, so its not the sort of book that you get anything out of just by browsing through. Also it doesn't have as much of the physics of quantum computers as some similar books. But if you've got plenty of experience with computer science for classical computers then you will find this book gives you a way to get a comparable knowledge of their quantum counterparts.

Amazon.com info

Paperback 300 pages
ISBN: 0077095030
Salesrank: 1337032

Published: 2000 Mcgraw Hill Book Co Ltd

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Amazon.co.uk info

Paperback 300 pages
ISBN: 0077095030
Salesrank: 1046908

Published: 1999 Osborne/McGraw-Hill,U.S.

Marketplace::Used from £62.25

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Amazon.ca info

Paperback 300 pages
ISBN: 0077095030
Salesrank: 865590

Published: 2000 Mcgraw Hill Book Co Ltd

Marketplace::Used from CDN$ 228.28

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New quantum directions. *****
There is, by now, some variety of textbooks to choose from, covering quantum computing and quantum information;-- the output of research papers has been explosive since Peter Shor discovered his algorithm. From the start, one book stood out as being especially ready for use in the class room, the one by Nielsen-Chuang, but by now there are others. The present one covers more ground in physics (theory), but it has fewer exercises;-- other books (for example Hirvensalo) stress more the math and the CS side of the subject;-- the other books also have more worked examples, and are perhaps more immediately readily for the classroom. This book should still go over well with well motivated students in both math and in CS. The level is even, and a beginning student can progress in steps, following the text. Background: On the classical side, the subject started with Alan Turing and John von Neumann: Classical computation, as is well known, follows the model of A. Turing,-- strings of bits, i.e., 0s and 1s; a mathematical model, now called the Turing mashine. Why not two-level quantum systems? The thought was long in coming. It finally arrived, and with vengeance. An analogues model for computation based on two-level quantum systems was 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. The 'unbreakable' codes might be breakable afterall! That there is a polynomial factoring algorithm, as Shor showed, shook up the encryption community as well, for obvious reasons. New elements of thinking in the quantum realm, and not part of the classical frame of mind, include superposition of (quantum) states, the EPR paradox, and (quantum) coherence. Although these concepts are at the foundation of quantum theory, they make a drastic change in the whole theoretical framework as far as computation is concerned: Now when one passes from the familiar classical notion of bit-registers to that of qubit-registers, the rather non-intuitive laws of quantum mechanics take over. Mathematical physicist and computer scientists revisit the old masters: Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli, and Dirac. In passing from logic gates to quantum gates(unitary matrices), the concept of switching-networks from computer science changes drastically. The changes introduce new challenges, and new truely exciting opportunities. It is not easy for authors who break with tradition 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. This is a great book to start with! Reviewed by Palle Jorgensen, August 2004.

New quantum directions. *****

There is, by now, some variety of textbooks to choose from, covering quantum computing and quantum information;-- the output of research papers has been explosive since Peter Shor discovered his algorithm. From the start, one book stood out as being especially ready for use in the class room, the one by Nielsen-Chuang, but by now there are others.
The present one covers more ground in physics (theory), but it has fewer exercises;-- other books (for example Hirvensalo) stress more the math and the CS side of the subject;-- the other books also have more worked examples, and are perhaps more immediately readily for the classroom. This book should still go over well with well motivated students in both math and in CS.
The level is even, and a beginning student can progress in steps, following the text.
Background: On the classical side, the subject started with Alan Turing and John von Neumann: Classical computation, as is well known, follows the model of A. Turing,-- strings of bits, i.e., 0s and 1s; a mathematical model, now called the Turing mashine. Why not two-level quantum systems? The thought was long in coming. It finally arrived, and with vengeance. An analogues model for computation based on two-level quantum
systems was 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. The 'unbreakable' codes might be breakable afterall! That there is a polynomial factoring algorithm, as Shor showed, shook up the encryption community as well, for obvious reasons. New elements of thinking in the quantum realm, and not part
of the classical frame of mind, include superposition of (quantum) states, the EPR paradox, and (quantum) coherence. Although these concepts are at the foundation of quantum theory, they make a drastic change in the whole theoretical framework as far as computation is concerned: Now when one passes from the familiar classical notion of bit-registers to that of qubit-registers, the rather non-intuitive laws of quantum mechanics take over. Mathematical physicist and computer scientists revisit the old masters: Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli,
and Dirac. In passing from logic gates to quantum gates(unitary matrices), the concept of switching-networks from computer science changes drastically. The changes introduce new challenges, and new truely exciting opportunities. It is not
easy for authors who break with tradition 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. This is a great book to start with!
Reviewed by Palle Jorgensen, August 2004.

Approachable, up-to-date coverage of a difficult subject ****
Though probably best used by those with a solid background in mathematics and quantum physics, this book can be useful to the technologically curious due to the fact that the author successfully distills less-than-obvious proofs into meaningful basic concepts. Warning: some of the introductory 'basics' are not. This, however, does not diminish the usefulness of this book.

Approachable, up-to-date coverage of a difficult subject ****

Though probably best used by those with a solid background in mathematics and quantum physics, this book can be useful to the technologically curious due to the fact that the author successfully distills less-than-obvious proofs into meaningful basic concepts. Warning: some of the introductory 'basics' are not. This, however, does not diminish the usefulness of this book.

Lucid, thoughtful text on quantum information & computing ****
This is the best text I have seen on quantum information and computation theory, covering all major areas clearly, thoughtfully and thoroughly: quantum algorithms and computational complexity, error-correction and fault-tolerant computation, cryptography, communication complexity, quantum channels, theory of entanglement and (very briefly) potential physical realizations. Although much of the interest in this field has been driven by hope of eventually building a quantum computer able to crack otherwise unbreakable codes, Gruska places the discoveries in a broad context: "...historically much of fundamental physics has been devoted to discovering the fundamental particles of Nature and the equations which describe their motions and interactions. Now it appears that a different program may be equally important. Namely, to discover the ways Nature allows, and prevents, information to be expressed and manipulated, rather than particles to move." Although intended for computer science students, Gruska's text can be read profitably by anyone with an undergraduate mathematical background who wants a lucid but uncondescending explanation of quantum mysteries, physicists' historical efforts to make sense of them, and the amazing uses they can be put to in information processing. There is a live web site for errata and updates.

Lucid, thoughtful text on quantum information & computing ****

This is the best text I have seen on quantum information and computation theory, covering all major areas clearly, thoughtfully and thoroughly: quantum algorithms and computational complexity, error-correction and fault-tolerant computation, cryptography, communication complexity, quantum channels, theory of entanglement and (very briefly) potential physical realizations. Although much of the interest in this field has been driven by hope of eventually building a quantum computer able to crack otherwise unbreakable codes, Gruska places the discoveries in a broad context: "...historically much of fundamental physics has been devoted to discovering the fundamental particles of Nature and the equations which describe their motions and interactions. Now it appears that a different program may be equally important. Namely, to discover the ways Nature allows, and prevents, information to be expressed and manipulated, rather than particles to move." Although intended for computer science students, Gruska's text can be read profitably by anyone with an undergraduate mathematical background who wants a lucid but uncondescending explanation of quantum mysteries, physicists' historical efforts to make sense of them, and the amazing uses they can be put to in information processing. There is a live web site for errata and updates.

The first real textbook on the subject. *****
Quantum Computing is a new and quickly expanding area of research both for physicists and for computer people. If you visit Amazon.co.uk web site, you see that only a couple of books related to Quantum Computing is available, and none of them can be used as a textbook. Strangely enough, Internet contains much more information. You can find good lecture notes at Umesh Vazirani (Berkeley), John Preskill (Caltech), Michaelmas Term Seminar (Oxford) home pages. However Jozef Gruska's book "Quantum Computing", McGraw Hill, 1999 seems to be the first real textbook on the subject.The text covers basic quantum mechanics needed to understand the strange behavior of the objects considered, the mathematics of Hilbert space, the notion of entanglement, Quantum Fourier Transform, the surprising algorithms by P. Shor and L. Grover , results on quantum automata and complexity of quantum algorithms, quantum information theory and much-much more. In 1982 Nobel prize winner physicist Richard Feynman noticed that a precise simulation of quantum processes by a deterministic computer demands an exponential slowdown. He explicitly turned everybody's attention to the fact that we can look to this effect from another point of view. There are some processes such that they can be speeded up enormously if we use a quantum simulation of them instead of a computation on a classical computer. There are rather strange features of quantum information processing. The most striking one is that nobody is able to copy the information. In the classical world the possibility to make a copy of your data to a personal floppy disc is considered as essential. Not so in a quantum computer. Only unitary operations with the data are possible. Of course, this is only one distinction from the classical computation. On the other hand, quantum computers (when they will be built) may be most efficient in some cases. After preceding discoveries by Bernstein/Vazirani (1993) and Simon (1994) Peter Shor (Bell Labs) surprised the world in 1994 showing quantum algorithms for factorization of integers and computation of discrete logarithms in polynomial time. These algorithms immediately turned the problem of building a quantum computer into a highly practical and even strategic problem because most of the Public Key Cryptography is based on the assumption that the above-mentioned algorithms demand VERY MUCH TIME. The problems of Quantum Computation became interesting for Theoretical Computer Science as well. Much research is done on quantum finite automata. There are languages recognizable by deterministic finite automata but not recognizable by quantum finite automata (A. Kondacs and J. Watrous , 1997). On the other hand, there are languages for recognition of which quantum finite automata are more concise than both deterministic and and probabilistic finite automata (A. Ambainis and R. Freivalds, 1998).

The first real textbook on the subject. *****

Quantum Computing is a new and quickly expanding area of research both for physicists and for computer people. If you visit Amazon.co.uk web site, you see that only a couple of books related to Quantum Computing is available, and none of them can be used as a textbook. Strangely enough, Internet contains much more information. You can find good lecture notes at Umesh Vazirani (Berkeley), John Preskill (Caltech), Michaelmas Term Seminar (Oxford) home pages. However Jozef Gruska's book "Quantum Computing", McGraw Hill, 1999 seems to be the first real textbook on the subject.The text covers basic quantum mechanics needed to understand the strange behavior of the objects considered, the mathematics of Hilbert space, the notion of entanglement, Quantum Fourier Transform, the surprising algorithms by P. Shor and L. Grover , results on quantum automata and complexity of quantum algorithms, quantum information theory and much-much more. In 1982 Nobel prize winner physicist Richard Feynman noticed that a precise simulation of quantum processes by a deterministic computer demands an exponential slowdown. He explicitly turned everybody's attention to the fact that we can look to this effect from another point of view. There are some processes such that they can be speeded up enormously if we use a quantum simulation of them instead of a computation on a classical computer. There are rather strange features of quantum information processing. The most striking one is that nobody is able to copy the information. In the classical world the possibility to make a copy of your data to a personal floppy disc is considered as essential. Not so in a quantum computer. Only unitary operations with the data are possible. Of course, this is only one distinction from the classical computation. On the other hand, quantum computers (when they will be built) may be most efficient in some cases. After preceding discoveries by Bernstein/Vazirani (1993) and Simon (1994) Peter Shor (Bell Labs) surprised the world in 1994 showing quantum algorithms for factorization of integers and computation of discrete logarithms in polynomial time. These algorithms immediately turned the problem of building a quantum computer into a highly practical and even strategic problem because most of the Public Key Cryptography is based on the assumption that the above-mentioned algorithms demand VERY MUCH TIME. The problems of Quantum Computation became interesting for Theoretical Computer Science as well. Much research is done on quantum finite automata. There are languages recognizable by deterministic finite automata but not recognizable by quantum finite automata (A. Kondacs and J. Watrous , 1997). On the other hand, there are languages for recognition of which quantum finite automata are more concise than both deterministic and and probabilistic finite automata (A. Ambainis and R. Freivalds, 1998).