Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse: THE QUEST FOR THE QUANTUM COMPUTER by Julian Brown (PDF)

Description

Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse details the remarkable uses for quantum computing in code breaking, for quantum computers will be able to crack many of the leading methods of protecting secret information, while offering new unbreakable codes.Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse is a mind-stretching look at the still-unbuilt but fascinating machines that, in the words of physicist Stanley Williams, “will reshape the face of science.”

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review Charles H. Bennett IBM Fellow, Thomas J. Watson Research Center An eminently readable account of recent developments in quantum information science, their philosophical implications, and what (if any) relation quantum mechanics might have to human consciousness.Gilles Brassard Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and Professor of Computer Science, University of Montreal A remarkably well-written account of this exciting new paradigm that could change forever our views on computing. Highly recommended.Norman Margolis, Research Professor Center for Computational Science, Boston University This is a wonderful book and a lucid and engaging introduction to many of the most fundamental and surprising aspects of quantum mechanics.Paul Davies author of “The Fifth Miracle” and “God and the New Physics” Quantum computation could revolutionize the information age and trigger as big an impact on society as the conventional computer. It promises to transform not just science and technology but our very understanding of reality — both real and virtual. With extraordinary skill, Julian Brown explains the important but subtle topic in surprisingly comprehensible terms. His meticulous technical discussion is embellished with personal anecdotes and humorous commentary. A masterpiece of scientific exposition, and a must for anyone wishing to keep abreast of cutting-edge research.Seth Lloyd Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, MIT From the secret life of atoms to the mysteries of the mind, Brown provides a highly accessible guide to the ways in which the universe computes. About the Author Julian Brown specializes in physics and computing as a science journalist. New Science Magazine has featured his work prominently, and he has produced science specials for BBC and BBC World Service. He teamed up with Paul Davies to edit The Ghost in the Atom and Superstrings: A Theory of Everything.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is a decent sequel to David Deutsch’s Fabric of Reality. Unlike much of the contemporary scene, this book doesn’t dumb itself down for the lowest common denominator. The nice thing about this book though, is that while it gets down into the nitty gritty you can still follow along at whatever level you are at. Some people might give a ho-hum about quantum computers but once these people get past their own inertia they will be compelled to accept just how profoundly quantum computers will change our current collective conceptual framework. Also, at a little over half way through this book you might begin to wonder where the Mind part fits in with the Machine and Multiverse parts but by the final lines everything slips snuggly into place. Perhaps the only disappointment, which is surely not the book’s fault, is that quantum computers are still only ideas not actualities. However exciting this topic may be, it is a topic about the near future, not the present, and so we are naturally left wanting more.

⭐I enjoyed learning that a computer cannot simulate everything but may simulate some things very well. I have also incorporated the following line into my worldview: Any simulation that is indistinguishable from the real thing IS the real thing.

⭐It was what I wanted. Susskind is a very well known scientist and a wonderful writer. I am delighted with this book!

⭐One of the hottest topics in foundational research in quantum physics at the present time, and of overriding importance technologically, quantum computation will no doubt remain as a tour de force in years to come. The author does a fairly good job of summarizing the history and background of the theory and experimental situation in quantum computation. It is written for the layman but the author does not hestitate to interject some elementary mathematics. The author does a good job of overviewing the relevant physics, but exaggerates sometimes certain experimental results, in particular, the experimental verification of entanglement. David Deutsch, well-known in the theory of quantum computation and foundations of physics, gives a superb forward to the book. He deplores the situation of not encouraging criticism of accepted truths that he sees occuring in most universities. I think he is correct in most respcts, as such an attitude is very manifested in the current attitude on quantum entanglement: it is taken to be axiomatic that such a concept has been experimentally verified by most in the field. The first chapter gives a brief overview of what is ahead in the book, and what a quantum computer could do if constructed, and a little history behind the research on quantum computing. A discussion of Shannon information theory and Landauer’s principle is given in the next chapter. The later is supposed to allow one to get away from the kT minimum energy requirement for each unit of computation, using a concept of logical irreversibility. The double-well scenario he describes though is a little suspect, since if viewed from the standpoint of quantum field theory the barrier will effectively disappear because of quantum interference. DNA computers, the Fredkin gate and the the billiard computer follow as examples of reversible computers. The billiard computer should be definitely classified as a thought experiment, for one can show that such a system is chaotic, nullifying its utility for computation (at least in the ordinary sense of computation). A more promising approach, via cellular automata, is discussed. It was refreshing to see that Paul Benioff’s theories were discussed in this book, as his results were the first meaningful attempt to model classical computation by using quantum physics. I read Benioff’s papers in 1990, eleven years after they were first published, my interest being somewhat different, namely that of studying the suppression of classical chaos by quantum fluctuations. Benioff was concerned with the effect of quantum fluctuations on classical computation, i.e. would the efficacy of a classical computer be reduced at the quantum level? In attempting to explain the construction of a quantum computer, the author does a good job of describing some of the important operations that act on quantum states, such as quantum rotations and Hadamard transformations. The work of Peter Shor, who received a Fields Medal for his “quantum” algorithm that factors numbers efficiently, is described in the book, and the author in this discussion introduces the reader to some elementary ideas in cryptography. This is followed by an excellent overview of the field quantum cryptography. Unfortunately, the discussion is limited to quantum encryption schemes that are based on quantum entanglement, the latter of which has no sound experimental foundation. The author also does a fine job of discussing the role of decoherence in “messing-up” the operation of a quantum computer. The time scales involved in decoherence are something that has been the subject of much interest, and will no doubt be of the deciding factor in making quantum computation a workable idea. Ion trap, cavity quantum electrodynamics, and nuclear magnetic resonance have been studied intensively as candidates for quantum computers, and the author details nicely the current experimental situation in these approaches. The role of quantum error correction is also detailed in the book, and the author introduces the reader to what can be done with to do fault-tolerant computation. The Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger experiment is presented in the context of NMR, but the author remarks that the nonlocal features of the GHZ experiment cannot be tested using NMR techniques, and so other approaches must be used. The Grover algorithm, and its power in database searching, is discussed also. The author ends the book appropriately with speculations and best-guess predictions on the future of quantum computing. One can only hope that quantum computers will be normal parts of the computing scenery in this century, and this book does show effectively the intensity in the research efforts to bring it about. With some justification though one could wonder why the adjective “quantum” is used to describe this form of computing at all. It is one thing to describe a concept using the formalism of Hilbert spaces, it is quite another thing to justify that this concept is actually physical. The geometry of Hilbert space does result in peculiar predictions for physical phenomena, but there are many other constructions, in mathematics for example, that are based on Hilbert spaces but have no physical analog. Perhaps, we should all refer to the theory of computation expounded in this book as “Hilbert space computation”, rather than quantum computation. Such a description would free those interested to not think of physics as computation, but instead to construct a computer that is far better in performance than the ordinary “classical” one, but whose theory of computation and logic is based on Hilbert spaces, and not ordinary logic. The goal then would be to construct a real working example of such a computer….it might not be one that has anything to do with (traditional) quantum physics.

⭐Covers the topic in enough detail as to be usefulfor the professional. An astounding composition.

⭐Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse explores the many issues of a quantum computer. Even though a quantum computer has never been built, the idea of one has been around since the beginning of the 20th century, and several theories about a quantum computer have surfaced. The implications of such a machine would mean profound advances in cryptology and code breaking, low-energy computing, cloning, nanotechnology, and possibly even computers that are smarter than human beings.Brown illustrates very well how technology is growing at a rapid rate. Transistors will require less and less electrons to function, and eventually we will need to use a single electron or an alternate system altogether.This new system may be found in Quantum mechanics. According to the book, in an atom an electron can find itself in the ground state and the excited state simultaneously; this term is called superposition. So, a quantum bit, or qubit, can store values between a “0” and a “1”. This superposition is unlike digital bits because a digital bit can only store a “0” or a “1”. With this superposition, a small number of qubits can store more information with an infinite number of different superpositions we can make. The book explains how this superposition attributes to the new theory of quantum computers.Quantum computing is the idea that a computer can work on several different problems at one time; this is also known as parallelism. Whereas now our computers have to do one thing at a time, a quantum computer could do endless jobs simultaneously. If quantum computers are ever made, they will probably be used only for certain special tasks such as mega-information processing.Another necessary function of the quantum computer, according to Brown, is the ability to use much less energy than computers do today. By having the computer reverse itself after each calculation, it saves itself energy by not having to store and erase unwanted information, or “trash”. Therefore, once you get it started it “just coasts”.As stated by the book, a quantum computer could solve a very important mathematical problem by calculating the factors of very large number extremely fast. This threatens to expose the world’s most sophisticated secret codes. If anyone could build a quantum computer, they could access the most protected information, even from our federal government. It is funny how Brown notes that, “It is no surprise, then, that significant funds backing this line of research have come from such organizations as the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, NATO, and the European Union.”Brown writes that Nanotechnology is a technology that is expected to arrive on the scene around the same time as quantum computers. It involves storing a bit of information on a cube of 125 atoms. With this miniscule storage capability you could write the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin. Theorists state that around this point computers will become smarter than human beings, and they could begin to redesign themselves. This predicted revolution has been named the singularity. While this book seems to be more science fiction than computer science, I found it to be informative and very interesting. Our technology seems close to hitting a wall where something has to give. Whether that means the “singularity”, quantum computers, or just computers that use less energy, it will be fascinating to see what happens.

⭐I have a number of books on quantum computing – this book explains what they’re on about. Julian Brown does a superb job in explaining quantum computation to the “educated layman”. If you have tried to understand what’s going on with quantum computers and other books have left you down, give this one a try.

⭐This book is probably beyond my complete understanding, I read some chapters 2/3 times! But it is riveting both from a quantum computing and multiview aspect

⭐Book was in great condition.

⭐Absolutely remarkable: takes the reader by the hand, i recommend this book totally.The math are kept to the minimumnecessary

⭐

Keywords

Free Download Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse: THE QUEST FOR THE QUANTUM COMPUTER in PDF format
Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse: THE QUEST FOR THE QUANTUM COMPUTER PDF Free Download
Download Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse: THE QUEST FOR THE QUANTUM COMPUTER 2002 PDF Free
Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse: THE QUEST FOR THE QUANTUM COMPUTER 2002 PDF Free Download
Download Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse: THE QUEST FOR THE QUANTUM COMPUTER PDF
Free Download Ebook Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse: THE QUEST FOR THE QUANTUM COMPUTER