Skip to main content

Quantum Information – A Tutorial

  • Conference paper
Unconventional Computation (UC 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 6714))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 639 Accesses

Abstract

Information processing, information transmission, and information security are everyday notions of modern society. But what exactly is information? This seems to be quite a hard question. Analogous complication arises in physical sciences when asking what exactly energy is. A naive approach to define information is to define information as a message contained in a string of symbols, but naturally enough, a similar question about the meaning of “message” arises. In this presentation all potential societal and qualitative connotations of information are stripped away and we will restrict only to the quantitative mathematical aspects of information.

20th century witnessed the birth of quantum mechanics, a novel theory establishing a united way to treat two apparently distinct aspects of microsystems: undulatory and corpuscular. Quantum mechanics did not only bring unification, but also severe philosophical problems on the nature of reality.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Bell, J.S.: On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. Physics 1, 195–200 (1964)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bennett, C.H., Brassard, G.: Quantum cryptography: public key distribution and coin tossing. In: Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Computers, Systems, and Signal Processing, Bangalore, India, pp. 175–179 (1984)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Boltzmann, L.: Weitere Studien über das Wärmegleichgewicht unter Gasmolekülen. Wiener Berichte 66, 275–370 (1872)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Einstein, A., Podolsky, B., Rosen, N.: Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? Physical Review 47, 777–780 (1935)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Holevo, A.S.: Statistical Problems in Quantum Physics. In: Murayama, G., Prokhorov, J.V. (eds.) Proceedings of the Second Japan-USSR Symposium on Probability Theory, pp. 104–109. Springer, Heidelberg (1973)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Mayers, D.: Unconditional security in quantum cryptography. Journal of the ACM 48(3), 351–406 (2001)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. von Neumann, J.: Thermodynamik quantummechanischer Gesamheiten. Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 1, 273–291 (1927)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Shannon, C.E.: A Mathematical Theory of Communication. Bell System Technical Journal 27, 379–423, 623–656 (1948)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Wootters, W.K., Zurek, W.H.: A single quantum cannot be cloned. Nature 299, 802–803 (1982)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Hirvensalo, M. (2011). Quantum Information – A Tutorial. In: Calude, C.S., Kari, J., Petre, I., Rozenberg, G. (eds) Unconventional Computation. UC 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6714. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21341-0_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21341-0_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-21340-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-21341-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics