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Cambridge University Press eBooks

Coming of Age With Quantum Information

Christopher A. Fuchs

Published Jan 6, 2011• 23 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A passionate and personal account of the early days of quantum information and quantum computing, this unique book is a collection of more than 500 letters between the author and many of the founders of these intriguing fields. Christopher A. Fuchs is one of the most penetrating modern thinkers on the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics. This remarkable book follows his journey as he comes to grips with the quantum world. It contains correspondence with Charles Bennett, Gilles Brassard, Rolf Landauer, N. David Mermin, Michael Nielsen, Asher Peres, John Preskill, Abner Shimony, William Wootters, Anton Zeilinger, and many others. Filled with diary entries, anecdotes, historical selections, and research ideas, this book will fascinate physicists, philosophers, and historians of science.

DOI
10.1017/cbo9780511762789

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A passionate and personal account of the early days of quantum information and quantum computing, this unique book is a collection of more than 500 letters between the author and many of the founders of these intriguing fields. Christopher A. Fuchs is one of the most penetrating modern thinkers on the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics. This remarkable book follows his journey as he comes to grips with the quantum world. It contains correspondence with Charles Bennett, Gilles Brassard, Rolf Landauer, N. David Mermin, Michael Nielsen, Asher Peres, John Preskill, Abner Shimony, William Wootters, Anton Zeilinger, and many others. Filled with diary entries, anecdotes, historical selections, and research ideas, this book will fascinate physicists, philosophers, and historians of science.
Recent work in quantum information science has produced a revolution in our understanding of quantum entanglement. Scientists now view entanglement as a physical resource with many important applications. These range from quantum computers, which would be able to compute exponentially faster than classical computers, to quantum cryptographic techniques, which could provide unbreakable codes for the transfer of secret information over public channels. These important advances in the study of quantum entanglement and information touch on deep foundational issues in both physics and philosophy. This interdisciplinary volume brings together fourteen of the world's leading physicists and philosophers of physics to address the most important developments and debates in this exciting area of research. It offers a broad spectrum of approaches to resolving deep foundational challenges - philosophical, mathematical, and physical - raised by quantum information, quantum processing, and entanglement. This book is ideal for historians, philosophers of science and physicists.
Written for advanced undergraduates, physicists, and historians and philosophers of physics, this book tells the story of the development of our understanding of quantum phenomena through the extraordinary years of the first three decades of the twentieth century. Rather than following the standard axiomatic approach, this book adopts a historical perspective, explaining clearly and authoritatively how pioneers such as Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Pauli and Dirac developed the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and merged them into a coherent theory, and why the mathematical infrastructure of quantum mechanics has to be as complex as it is. The author creates a compelling narrative, providing a remarkable example of how physics and mathematics work in practice. The book encourages an enhanced appreciation of the interaction between mathematics, theory and experiment, helping the reader gain a deeper understanding of the development and content of quantum mechanics than any other text at this level.
One of life’s most fundamental revelations is change. Presenting the fascinating view that pattern is the manifestation of change, this unique book explores the science, mathematics, and philosophy of change and the ways in which they have come to inform our understanding of the world. Through discussions on chance and determinism, symmetry and invariance, information and entropy, quantum theory and paradox, the authors trace the history of science and bridge the gaps between mathematical, physical, and philosophical perspectives. Change as a foundational concept is deeply rooted in ancient Chinese thought, and this perspective is integrated into the narrative throughout, providing philosophical counterpoints to customary Western thought. Ultimately, this is a book about ideas. Intended for a wide audience, not so much as a book of answers, but rather an introduction to new ways of viewing the world.
Quantum Information is the science that aims to use the unusual behavior of the microscopic world, governed by the laws of Quantum Mechanics, in order to improve the way in which we compute or communicate information. Though the first ideas in this direction come from the early 80’s, it is in the last decade when Quantum Information has suffered an spectacular development. It is impossible to resume in a paper like this one the importance and complexity of the field. Therefore, I will limit to briefly explain some of the initial ideas (considered classical by now), and to briefly suggest some of the modern lines of research. By the nature of this exposition, I have decided to avoid rigor and to concentrate more in ideas and intuitions. Anyhow, I have tried to provide with enough references, in such a way that an interested reader could find there proper theorems and proofs.
This document is the first installment of three in the Cerro Grande Fire Series. It is a collection of letters written to various colleagues, most of whom regularly circuit this archive, including Howard Barnum, Paul Benioff, Charles Bennett, Herbert Bernstein, Doug Bilodeau, Gilles Brassard, Jeffrey Bub, Carlton Caves, Gregory Comer, Robert Griffiths, Adrian Kent, Rolf Landauer, Hideo Mabuchi, David Mermin, David Meyer, Michael Nielsen, Asher Peres, John Preskill, Mary Beth Ruskai, Ruediger Schack, Abner Shimony, William Wootters, Anton Zeilinger, and many others. The singular thread sewing all the letters together is the quantum. Some of the pieces are my best efforts to date to give substance to an evanescent thought I see rising from the field of quantum information---I call it the Paulian idea. To the extent I have communicated its misty shadow to my correspondents and seen a twinkle of enthusiasm, it seemed worthwhile to expand the jury on this anniversary occasion.