Quantum Information and Computing, Entangled and Unscrambled
Course Description
An accessible introduction to quantum information and computation, starting from a prerequisite of only trigonometry. We employ an open-source text along with interactive simulations and tools to elaborate quantum rules, notation, mathematics, and visualization of quantum states, and then motivate methods to encode, manipulate, and compute with qubits. Topics include: classical bits and logic gates; qubits and quantum superpositions; imaging and measurement of quantum states; physical qubits; the Bloch sphere; reversibility; quantum gates and circuits; developing linear algebra from algebra and state space; entanglement; no-cloning and no-signaling principles; universal quantum gates; decoherence and error correction; superdense coding; teleportation; entanglement protocols and algorithms; topological protection; optional quantum programming tools. Students completing this IntroSem will be well-placed to tackle further studies and pursue research or internship opportunities in this nascent field.
As you weigh this class vs others you are interested in, I wanted to give you a sense of the “quantum vistas” we will be visiting in Autumn quarter in the course. The overall highlights for this class — beyond the exciting, surprising, and increasingly relevant-in-everyday-life topics of quantum information and computation — include the low bar to entry by design (high school trig!) and the fact that you can largely determine your own path to completion through individual and group selected topics for the midterm paper and the final project & presentation. The rest of your grade is satisfied by you coming to class and participating in discussions, interactive exercises, and doing the online quizzes which I will post at different milestones in the class (quizzes you can collaborate on and also ask me for help with). At the end of the day (course?) I expect all students will succeed in this class by fulfilling the components in best faith and best effort, and more importantly, will have learned something important and useful to them which I believe is unique in the realm of introductory courses on these groundbreaking topics.
Meet the Instructor: Hari Manoharan
“Hi, thanks for visiting and considering this course! I’ve been a professor at Stanford in the Physics department since 01-01-01. Before that I was working in industry at IBM Research. I grew up in Oklahoma City, where as a kid I fixed cars, helped my parents build and program the very first microcomputers (Altair 8080 and Sphere 1), dodged tornados in our Ford Pinto, played violin and later guitar in a band, and liked to run long distances to think. I worked at my neighborhood Safeway as a 'courtesy clerk' (bagger) after school and liked to hang out with my mother on weekends at the computer center, where she started in the infamously-named role 'keypunch girl' and worked her way up to VP of information technology in the California State University system. A favorite memory there was holding the punched card chads in my hand — the very bits themselves! — and one day dumping them into my little brother’s pants. My father claimed he was born in the Lagoon Nebula so I was always trying to locate his home in space and figure out how to visit his homeland. During these experiments and quests for knowledge, I learned that I wanted to work with my hands and create things that push the boundaries of what is possible. At Stanford I built the lab for Manipulation of the Atom, where my research group explores quantum physics and nanoscience using matter assembled by hand from the quantum building blocks of nature — single molecules, atoms, nuclei, and electrons. I have been a director of undergraduate studies, was a Resident Fellow with my family in Twain House (Stern Hall) before, during, and after the pandemic, and enjoy doing physics major advising and connecting with students as soon as they arrive. I have most recently been teaching quantum physics, statistical mechanics, and condensed matter physics to undergraduate and graduate students.”
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