Hello and welcome to my course on quantum information and computing (phy 410/510) for the 2021 spring semester. This site will serve as a central hub from which you can access my basic info (name, email, and whatnot), notes, videos, the lecture schedule, and assignments. If I’m feeling inspired, I may occasionally post links to interesting quantum-related things I’ve come across and given the time and energy, write some posts exploring issues related to our class discussions.
I’m really excited about this course, and why not? It’s an amazing subject in so many different ways. Here are a few:
- The technological side of quantum computing and communication is very real and huge advances are being made year-by-year if not month-by-month!
- Quantum information and computing most likely establish a completely new basis for computing in general, dramatically impacting our abilities to solve certain types of problems that are (likely) intractable using only classical computing. (Why do I write “likely”? Something worth thinking about!)
- The quantum computing/information approach to quantum theory has helped to illuminate some of the famously murky conceptual underpinnings of the theory. New modes of conceptualizing quantum theory lead to interesting new ways to teach the subject that are in many ways much more accessible than the traditional approach you would learn in a standard quantum physics course.
There are many more reasons that this area is fun and exciting and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you. I’m also quite interested in the ideas that the subject sparks among you as we explore it this semester.