The new quantum age : from Bell's theorem to quantum computation and teleportation / Andrew Whitaker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whitaker, Andrew, 1946- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Quantum theory.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 394 p. ) ill., ports.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2012.

Summary:

An account of what has been discovered in recent years about quantum theory, its counter-intuitive features - non-locality, indeterminism, intrinsic uncertainty - and what it tells us about the universe, this book explains how these ideas have led to a new subject of limitless possibilities - quantum information theory. While quantum theory has been used to study the physical universe with great profit, both intellectual and financial, ever since its discovery eighty-five years ago, over the last fifty years we have found out more and more about the theory itself, and what it tells us about the universe. It seems we may have to accept non-locality - cause and effect may be light-years apart; loss of realism - nature may be fundamentally probabilistic; and non-determinism - it seems that God doesplay dice!This book, totally up-to-date and written by an expert in the field, explains the emergence of our new perspective on quantum theory, but also describes how the ideas involved in this re-evaluation led seamlessly to a totally new discipline - quantum information theory. This discipline includes quantum computation, which is able to perform tasks quite out of the range of other computers; the totally secure algorithms of quantum cryptography; and quantum teleportation - as part of science factrather than science fiction.The book is the first to combine these elements, and will be of interest to anybody interested in fundamental aspects of science and their application to the real world.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Introduction: The First Quantum Age and the New Quantum Age

Part I: The First Quantum Age

1 Quantum theory-basic ideas

ALBERT EINSTEIN

2 Quantum theory and discreteness

MAX PLANCK

3 The Schrödinger equation

The time-independent Schrödinger equation, eigenfunctions, and eigenvalues

ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER

NIELS BOHR

The time-dependent Schrödinger equation and wave-functions

4 Superposition

Superposition

The Born probability rule or interpretation

MAX BORN

The conceptual challenges posed by superposition

The measurement problem of quantum theory

JOHN VON NEUMANN

Hidden variables

LOUIS DE BROGLIE

WOLFGANG PAULI

5 Further complications

Measurement of other observables

Wave and particle, and the Heisenberg principle

WERNER HEISENBERG

PASCUAL JORDAN

PAUL DIRAC

States of a spin-&amp

#189

particle

photon polarization states

6 Orthodox and non-orthodox interpretations of quantum theory

DAVID BOHM

HUGH EVERETT

Part II: The foundations of quantum theory

7 Entanglement

Bohr, Einstein, and complementarity

Locality

Entanglement

Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen

Einstein and the EPR argument

Bohr and EPR

Schrödinger's response to EPR

8 The achievement of John Bell

John Bell

John Bell and quantum theory-the early years and the Bohm interpretation

John Bell-von Neumann and the first great paper

Bell and measurement-1966

Bell's second great paper-realism and locality

Einstein and Bell

Bell and relativity

9 Experimental philosophy: the first decade

Clauser and Shimony

Preliminaries and planning

CHSH-Clauser, Horne, Shimony, and Holt

The experiments of the first decade

Putting the theory on firmer foundations

Conclusions towards the end of the decade

10 Alain Aspect: ruling out signalling.

Aspect and Bell

The Aspect experiments

The aftermath

11 Recent developments on Bell's inequalities

Zeilinger, Greenberger, and Gisin

The neutron interferometer

Parametric down-conversion

Closing the locality loophole

Gisin and the experiments at Lake Geneva

Other experiments on Bell's theorem and the detector loophole (with a detour on Bell and Bertlmann)

12 Bell's theorem without inequalities

GHZ: Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger

GHZ-experimental proof

Interaction-free measurement

Hardy's experiment

13 The new age

Times have changed

Novel quantum interpretations

Environmental decoherence

The quantum Zeno effect

Macroscopic quantum theory

14 Bell's last thoughts

Bell's six possible worlds of quantum mechanics

Against 'measurement'

Part III: An introduction to quantum information theory

15 Knowledge, information, and (a little about) quantum information

Peierls, knowledge, and information

Information, information, information

An introduction to classical information and computation

Some elements of classical computers

16 Feynman and the prehistory of quantum computation

Feynman and miniaturization

Feynman and quantum simulators

Reversibility in physics and in computation

Feynman and reversible computation

17 Quantum computation

Moore's law

David Deutsch and quantum computation

The Deutsch algorithm

Shor's algorithm

Grover's algorithm

Decoherence and quantum error correction

18 Constructing a quantum computer

Requirements for a quantum computer

The NMR quantum computer

The ion trap quantum computer

Computing with quantum dots

Quantum computing with superconductors

19 More techniques in quantum information theory

Quantum cryptography

Quantum teleportation

Entanglement swapping

Super-dense coding.

Conclusions

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-19-100482-0

OCLC:

958574428