Quirky, Not Quacky Quantum Computing for Librarians Jill Cirasella   

What Is Quantum Computing?     Computer Science + Quantum Weirdness _______________________________ Quantum Computing

What Is Quantum Computing? Modern computer components are small.  But they are large enough to obey classical mechanics. What if they weren't?

What Is Quantum Computing? What if computers behaved according  to rules of quantum mechanics?   How would they behave? What could they compute? How quickly? How reliably?

What Is Quantum Computing? These questions launched a new field: Quantum Computing   Theoretical Field "What could a quantum computer do?" Experimental Field "Can we make a quantum computer?"

Six Things to Know: #1 Quantum computing is real science.   Not science fiction.   Not pseudoscience.   Real science.

Quantum computing is interdisciplinary. Six Things to Know: #2 Quantum computing is interdisciplinary.                           Physics                                        Computer Science           Mathematics                                                                       Information Theory              Engineering                                                        And more...

Quantum computing is a young science, Six Things to Know: #3 Quantum computing is a young science,  but it's not brand new. Started in the 1980s.   Lots of discoveries. Lots of articles.

Six Things to Know: #4 Quantum computing is a fast-moving field. Researchers often share results right away, before publication in a journal.   Others can respond quickly, independently of journal  publication cycles.

Six Things to Know: #5 Quantum computing is taught at many colleges and universities. Graduate courses are more common.   Undergraduate courses exist too.

Six Things to Know: #6 Quantum computing captures the public's imagination. Many people are fascinated by it.   Many newspapers and magazines report on it.

What's Known about QC? Quantum computation is at least as powerful as classical computation.   In other words:  Quantum computers could do everything  regular computers can do, and maybe more. Could they do more?  How much more? =

What's Known about QC? Quantum computers could quickly solve some problems that regular computers  cannot currently solve efficiently... ...and may never be able to solve efficiently. Specifically? Factoring. =  

What's the Big Deal? 6007 x 7919 = ? Multiplying two large prime numbers is easy.   47,569,433 = ? x ? Factoring large numbers into prime factors is hard. Most cryptography depends on  the difficulty of prime factorization. =

What's the Big Deal? If prime factorization becomes easy, encrypted information becomes unsafe.   Quantum computers would make prime factorization easy.  For this reason and many more: Quantum Computers = Very Big Deal

But... Large-scale, general-purpose quantum computers do not exist yet.   Our encrypted information is still safe. Will they ever exist? Maybe.

What Then?! If cryptography-endangering quantum computers are ever built, we’ll need new cryptography. There is also quantum cryptography  (for some cryptography tasks).   Quantum cryptography already exists,  both in theory and in practice. Regardless... 

Regardless... Regardless of whether quantum computers can be built,  quantum computing research has had  a big impact on the fields of  physics and computer science.    And that's why...  

Quantum Computing & Librarians ...it's a good idea for librarians to know a little something about quantum computing.   So far:  A little something about the field. Coming up: A little something about the resources.

Quantum Computing Overviews There are many online introductions. Good place to start:   Quantiki http://www.quantiki.org/

Quantum Computing Literature arXiv E-print Repository http://www.arXiv.org   Also: Quantum Information & Computation Quantum Information Processing International Journal of Quantum Information Virtual Journal of Quantum Information ...and others

Quantum Computing Research Centers U of Waterloo: Institute for Quantum Computing CalTech: Institute for Quantum Information MIT: Several Different Groups Oxford/Cambridge: Centre for Quantum Computation IBM Research: Physics of Information Group Los Alamos National Laboratory: Quantum Institute ...and many more  

Quantum Computing Companies Quantum Cryptography id Quantique MagiQ Technologies QuintessenceLabs SmartQuantum Quantum Computing? D-Wave Systems  

Quantum Computing Blogs Quantum Pontiff by Dave Bacon, U of Washington http://dabacon.org/pontiff/ Shtetl-Optimized by Scott Aaronson, MIT http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/  

Article this talk is based on: Further Reading Article this talk is based on:   Quantum Computing:  Selected Internet Resources for Librarians, Researchers, and the Casually Curious Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship http://www.istl.org/09-spring/internet.html

Credits Image on slides derived from photo by Luke Mayes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukemayes/47818422/   Image and slideshow are licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution  Non-Commercial ShareAlike 3.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/