Quantum & Information
This includes quantum computing, quantum information theory and classical information theory. Also cybernetics (including neural networks, control and feedback systems), cryptography, cryptocurrency, machine learning, LLMs, A.I., and neuroscience connections.
Recent Reading
Books of a mostly non-technical nature. The date is when I finished reading them.
| Title | Author | Date | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chip War | Chris Miller | Nov 22 | Covers all angles: technological, financial, and especially political. |
| Schrödinger in Oxford | David Clary | May 23 | Detailed discussion of Schrödinger’s work and colleagues in the era of his time at Oxford. Steers away from contoversial aspects of his personal life. |
| The Bullish Case for Bitcoin | Vijay Boyapati | Jul 24 | Introduction to money and bitcoin. Money: origins, necessary attributes, evolution, types, bitcoin. (Vijay was an ANU honours degree student who studied computer science and mathematics.) |
| Inventing Bitcoin | Yan Pritzker | Aug 24 | Overview of how bitcoin works, with some more detail than Boyapati’s book. |
| Gray matters : a biography of brain surgery | Theodore Schwartz | Nov 24 | Personal experiences of a neurosurgeon, developments in brain surgery, good explanations, computer brain interface. |
| A Thousand Brains | Jeff Hawkins | Dec 24 | Develops the idea that the neocortex (approx 75% of the brain and the outer layer) is composed of approximately 150,000 columns. Each column creates reference frames and “coordinates” for different classes of external inputs. Considers applications to A.I. |
| A Life in Cybernetics | Norbert Wiener | Jan 25 | Combination of his earlier books. Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth. I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy. Interesting sociological studies. |
Quantum Theory
From the perspective of quantum computation and quantum information theory, one can essentially restrict to finite dimensional state spaces. All the quantum weirdness (superposition, entanglement, teleportation, no cloning, … ) is still present. But one separates away the technical issues associated with operators defined on infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces.
The following emphasise the finite dimensional setting. They are all well written. What to read depends on one’s background. And what is good for a first reading or study is probably not the same as for the second or third time around.
Here is a link to Quantum Foundations and Quantum Computation, incomplete preliminary notes for some seminars I gave, and in some parts just prepared. I hesitated to post them as I would like to completely redo the approach.
| Title | Author | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Quantum Information Science | Vlatko Vedral | Very good, more suitable for the second time around. |
| Introduction to Quantum Information Science | Artur Ekert | Book is excellent. A little more from the physics rather than the mathematics perspective. “Standard” quantum axioms/postulates not explicitly stated. |
| Quantum Computation and Quantum Information: 10th Anniversary Edition (downloadable from various sites) (Oxford & Univ Singapore courses) | Michael Nielsen & Isaac Chuang | Considered to be the “bible”. Although written in 2000 it is still very relevant. |
| Quantum Computation: An Introduction for Undergraduates and related material (City College of N.Y. course) | Seth S. Cottrell | Appear to be a good place to start. Potential quantum misconceptions addressed. Pace of the mathematics is a little slow if you already have studied a good first course in linear algebra. |
| Quantum Information and Computation (Cambridge Notes 2021) | Richard Jozsa | Very good, succinct and more suitable for the second time around. |
| Quantum Computation (Caltech notes) | John Preskill | A classic. More advanced. |
| Introduction to Quantum Information Science (U.T. Austin 2018 Course) | Scott Aaronson | This and his other material (including his blog) are very good and often quite entertaining. |