A Shortcut Through Time : The Path to the Quantum Computer

Rating:
Summary: Quick, direct introduction to quantum computing
Review: This book was very useful in introducing me to the mechanics of quantum computing. Using simplified concepts and compartmentalized explanations, the book manages to explain the core concepts of quantum parallelized computing using tinkertoys, gears, and black-box algorithms.

I've had some previous introduction to quantum theory, but the limited depth provided by this book is exactly what I needed to base further exploratory reading on. It's a perfect "first" stepping stone for anyone interesting in exploring the field, either at depth or at leisure.

Rating:
Summary: Quick, direct introduction to quantum computing
Review: This book was very useful in introducing me to the mechanics of quantum computing. Using simplified concepts and compartmentalized explanations, the book manages to explain the core concepts of quantum parallelized computing using tinkertoys, gears, and black-box algorithms.

I've had some previous introduction to quantum theory, but the limited depth provided by this book is exactly what I needed to base further exploratory reading on. It's a perfect "first" stepping stone for anyone interesting in exploring the field, either at depth or at leisure.

Rating:
Summary: -- Insert Superlative Here --
Review: This guy not only describes quantum computing in a way that should be accessible to nearly everyone, but he does it in a highly entertaining, highly readable way. By appealing to a healthy dose of abstraction, the author is able to seamlessly touch on an amazing array of topics from computational theory to quantum mechanics to cryptography. Occasionally he sinks deeper into the quantum quagmire to examine a few quantum algorithms, but he never loses sight of his intended audience: the scientifically curious layman.

This book does contain a large amount of hype, but to his credit the author includes the opinions of a few noteworthy skeptics to lace all the optimism with a sprinkle of doubt. If you are looking for a quantum appetizer, or to bring yourself up to speed on the buzz behind quantum computing, I couldn't recommend this book more highly.


Rating:
Summary: Child's play.
Review: This is an author who has the ability to make otherwise
intimidating subjects seem like child's play. It is for readers who occasionally stop and wonder about what one term or the
other in the New York Times Science Section really means, or at least want to know a little more;---terms like quantum, Turing mashine, Shor's algorithm, quantum secrecy. Not many authors have both George Johnson's knowledge of science and his ability to communicate it in a delightful presentation; --and addressed to everyone. Another one who comes to mind is the late George Gamow. His whimsy books have offered both depth, and fun for
generations of readers. They still get reprinted now fifty years, or so, after their first editions.

Rating:
Summary: A computer for the future
Review: Your computer will not so soon become outdated. If you have got the computer from HP or IBM, you will work quietly 5-10-15 years. I have the programmable calculator HP-67 and it solves the majority of electro technical tasks for me since 1977.

However all question that the law Moore's law naturally lags behind our computing needs , and in a number of cases it simply brakes scientifically technical progress. The progress, and the main tasks of a science and engineering are doubled for each year. Therefore I naturally use by the computer: Pentium 4, 1500 MHz.

Therefore concept qubits is rather urgent, is useful for a wide range of the readers. The speed of the decision of tasks has the large importance, but not always essential. For example I passing with the computer 286, 386, and 486 and so on and this step by step always tested inconveniences with recognition of the received information. My brain could not so quickly be prepared for its adequate and recognition of dates and information from a computer.

Hence the book of the author gives us an opportunity psychologically to be ready to new development. On the other hand, you are ready to understanding of new computing systems, which "do understand" a "difference" between the woman and steam locomotive, instead of it is simple to run "1" and "0" in a operative memory of the computer.

It is very healthy also thank to the author for increase of our technological level.

[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: "He makes you smart and quantum computing real"
Review: Your computer will soon be out of date. You know that already, especially if you know about Moore's law, which was originated forty years ago, and says that every year and a half, the density of components on a computer chip will double. From the room-sized vacuum tube monsters down to the sprightly laptop, there has been a continued decrease in size and increase in speed. But silicon technology cannot reduce forever; it is still based on atoms, and it cannot get smaller than an atom. There is no law, however, that says we must forever be dependent on silicon, and so entirely new technologies may be developed. The technology, undeveloped but promising, which has interested physicists and computer scientists the most is quantum computing. We don't have quantum computers yet, and they aren't a sure thing, but the possibilities are tantalizing. George Johnson, a science journalist, has tried to make the new technology plain in _A Shortcut Through Time: The Path to the Quantum Computer_ (Knopf), and for those of us who aren't mathematicians, physicists, or computer scientists, he has done an admirable job at making a very strange, not-yet-practical technology understandable. Few of us need to know how silicon chips work, and fewer still will ever understand how quantum computers will work. Indeed, the quantum world is so vastly strange and counterintuitive that no one really can understand it. But Johnson's book is a good introduction to the strangeness, and a good vantage point from which to watch the upcoming revolution, if it comes.

Johnson's book is about a real quantum leap. The classical physics of our silicon computers does not hold within the tiny spaces inside atoms. Single particles at that scale can _really_ be in two places at once, and similarly, a quantum bit of information (known as a qubit) can be set to 1 and 0 at the same time, known as a "superposition." Qubits could be set to perform almost instantaneous calculations of huge programs, and there is no part of physics that says such computing should be impossible. Indeed, on the smallest of scales, primitive quantum computing has already been accomplished. Qubits are temperamental, and current research has to be done at supercold temperatures without the possibility of disturbance. Still, there is enormous intellectual interest in the prospect of quantum computing. One researcher in the field said that he and his colleagues are "writing the software for a device that does not yet exist." If quantum computing works, for instance, we will have to rethink all our current encryption methods, which are based on the difficulty of factoring large numbers; quantum computers do such things with ease silicon never can.

You aren't going to understand quantum computers by reading this book; Johnson knows that he is trying to describe the undescribable, and he makes it clear that he is no physicist, just someone trying to understand what all the fuss is about. His book is lucid and his descriptions do not bog down in technicalities (at times he gleefully hurtles over them). The book is also brief, but has enough substance to give even those who know little about current computing some basic understanding of where quantum computers may take us. He has successfully conveyed the excitement these potential gadgets have sparked, and readers will be able to participate in the excitement themselves.

Rating:
Summary: A Quantum Leap for Computing
Review: Your computer will soon be out of date. You know that already, especially if you know about Moore's law, which was originated forty years ago, and says that every year and a half, the density of components on a computer chip will double. From the room-sized vacuum tube monsters down to the sprightly laptop, there has been a continued decrease in size and increase in speed. But silicon technology cannot reduce forever; it is still based on atoms, and it cannot get smaller than an atom. There is no law, however, that says we must forever be dependent on silicon, and so entirely new technologies may be developed. The technology, undeveloped but promising, which has interested physicists and computer scientists the most is quantum computing. We don't have quantum computers yet, and they aren't a sure thing, but the possibilities are tantalizing. George Johnson, a science journalist, has tried to make the new technology plain in _A Shortcut Through Time: The Path to the Quantum Computer_ (Knopf), and for those of us who aren't mathematicians, physicists, or computer scientists, he has done an admirable job at making a very strange, not-yet-practical technology understandable. Few of us need to know how silicon chips work, and fewer still will ever understand how quantum computers will work. Indeed, the quantum world is so vastly strange and counterintuitive that no one really can understand it. But Johnson's book is a good introduction to the strangeness, and a good vantage point from which to watch the upcoming revolution, if it comes.

Johnson's book is about a real quantum leap. The classical physics of our silicon computers does not hold within the tiny spaces inside atoms. Single particles at that scale can _really_ be in two places at once, and similarly, a quantum bit of information (known as a qubit) can be set to 1 and 0 at the same time, known as a "superposition." Qubits could be set to perform almost instantaneous calculations of huge programs, and there is no part of physics that says such computing should be impossible. Indeed, on the smallest of scales, primitive quantum computing has already been accomplished. Qubits are temperamental, and current research has to be done at supercold temperatures without the possibility of disturbance. Still, there is enormous intellectual interest in the prospect of quantum computing. One researcher in the field said that he and his colleagues are "writing the software for a device that does not yet exist." If quantum computing works, for instance, we will have to rethink all our current encryption methods, which are based on the difficulty of factoring large numbers; quantum computers do such things with ease silicon never can.

You aren't going to understand quantum computers by reading this book; Johnson knows that he is trying to describe the undescribable, and he makes it clear that he is no physicist, just someone trying to understand what all the fuss is about. His book is lucid and his descriptions do not bog down in technicalities (at times he gleefully hurtles over them). The book is also brief, but has enough substance to give even those who know little about current computing some basic understanding of where quantum computers may take us. He has successfully conveyed the excitement these potential gadgets have sparked, and readers will be able to participate in the excitement themselves.