Minds, Machines and Multiverse: The Quest for the Quantum Computer

by Julian Brown

Book Overview

The imminent arrival of the quantum computer, millions of times faster than today's computers, promises to launch a scientific gold rush of the new millennium. After consulting with both the computer's debunkers and the leading minds behind the breakthrough, Brown explains the quantum computer's development thus far.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684814811
• ISBN13: 9780684814810
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 396 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Almost perfect

This is the book I recommend to all my technical friends who are wondering what quantum computing is about. Brown writes with astonishing lucidity and an intense focus on what he's trying to communicate. If this book has a flaw, it's that I think it gives Deutsch and the many-universes interpretation of QM a bit too much airtime. Deutsch's views are well-presented in many other places and it dilutes this book somewhat to spend so much time on him when it really isn't necessary.I don't understand the review that said this book wasn't technical enough. Yes, it's not a textbook for learning how to write quantum algorithms. But it does have detailed quantum circuit diagrams for a number of useful or interesting ones. When I read this book I finally saw enough of the details to "get it". I launched from this directly into the scientific literature without getting too terribly lost.I would recommend this book over Milburn's "The Feynman Processor". Milburn knows his material but he tends to wander a lot. His book is OK and useful, but this one is better. I'd put it in the same class as Gleick's "Chaos".

Wide-ranging, amusing and insightful

This is the kind of popular science book I would like to see more often. Most popularizations skim over the surface of their subjects without providing enough detail to understand what is really going on. In this book, the author has done a remarkable job in mixing amusing and fascinating anecdotes with philosophical and technical details. His discussion of the evolution of quantum theory is one the best I've read and cleverly interpretated from a computational viewpoint clarifying the link between quantum mechanics and computers - a surprising connection that few quantum theorists imagined until the 1990s...This is an excellent book and one that builds very succesfully on David Deutsch's 'Fabric Of Reality'.

An accessible guide to Quantum Computers

Some books are just out there like a beacon.And obviously Julian Browns Minds, Machines andthe Multiverse is such a book. If you wantan accessible guide to the rapidly evolving fieldof quantum computers, this is the book to buy. Brown bedazzle the reader with the number of ideashe comes up with on almost every page. All ideas somehowconnected under the headline Quantum Computers. Quantum computing seems to connect computing and physics in an explosive way. Thought, life and knowledgethese are computational things, whereas theuniverse in at its most fundamental level isphysics. So obviously there is a lot to talk about.And the book does so very elegantly, without everloosing track of the fact that this is a bookabout quantum computers. Starting the book I was a bit worried that the bookwouldn't provide a sufficient level of detail aboutthe quantum computers and instead indulge intoo much speculation. After reading the book I thinkit balances factual information with speculationjust right. Ok, Some might want to obtain additional details onPeter Shors way to factor numbers efficiently ona quantum computer. The intricacies of NP-completeproblems and quantum computers could have beenexplored more. Some of the circuit analysiscould have been dealt with in even greater detail.And why not write a complete book on competing technologies for how to build an actual quantumcomputer with actual live qubits? But I guess the book wouldn't have been such a fine introduction then. Now, The presentation is wellbalanced and demonstrates a thorough grasp over all the many details in the field of quantum computing. Fascinating general insights on math, computing and physics makes it a great and insightful read.-Simon

Julian Brown's Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse

The editors and other reviewers have done a good job on this book, and I will just make a few comments. I've been working on quantum computers and quantum cryptography, but I'm very oriented toward how non-experts will understand books and articles. I don't think that there is any clearer book on quantum computers than Julian Brown's, but I agree with some of the others that it will still be hard to come away with a feeling of understanding some basic ideas of the subjects. This book is, however, excellent for the fascinating history of discovery and invention, which Brown excels at revealing. Just as you don't have to know much about law to enjoy biographies of politicians, you'll probably enjoy Brown's book very much if you don't expect too much from it. It's also a good opportunity for parents to teach children (and vice versa!) to love learning and knowledge, because if you tolerate and even not get upset at a certain level of ambiguity, you just might be tempted to read a few sections over a few times and then start looking on the internet or in the libraries for more details. Scientific American can help you to get more details on some of the things that you don't understand, and I wouldn't be surprised if one of these days a clearer book on the technicalities will also come out - in which case it will help you to be ahead of the game by reading as much as you can of this book. Research in the physical/mathematical sciences which is in the very new stages tends to be difficult to write up. Quantum computers and cryptography are about as new as research gets. The best creative geniuses probably are capable right now of writing up their ideas in English in such a way that most people would understand them if they try, but they're sort of in the position of a fireman who has to keep putting out fires rather than write his autobiography. The autobiographies and the clarifications will come later. One thing that you can do is to try to puzzle out who the most creative geniuses are from the book. There usually are only relative few in science/mathematics. Most scientists tend to be Ingenious Followers, just moving one step ahead of the last scientist. The Creative Geniuses jump many steps ahead, and they usually do it often. I'll give you a clue - one of the latter is David Deutsch of Oxford University's Clarendon Laboratory. Generally speaking, Great Britain and France and Belgium and the words Creative Genius in Physics/Math/Computers go together. I'm going to let you find the clues for the other Creative Geniuses for yourselves, except to mention for example that some of it has to do with Rolf Landauer of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, who passed away in 1999 just before the book was written. You might also be surprised to find that Professor Richard Feynman of Caltech borrowed somebody else's ideas (at least John von Neumann gave people credit when he did that) - Paul Benioff's of Argonne National Labs in Illinois.

Mind-blowing!

A wonderful overview of the history and science of this extraordinary new discipline. Brown's documentary approach interlaces explanations of quantum computers with comments from the pioneers of this field including David Deutsch and Richard Feynman. It makes for riveting reading with many witty asides thrown into some far-sighted discussions of where the subject is leading. David Deutsch comes across as a true visionary even if his ideas concerning multiple universes sound far-fetched. Rather like Penrose's, "The Emperor's New Mind", Brown caters for multiple tastes by writing for a general audience but adding (mostly in appendices) some mathematical explanations and circuit diagrams. These can be can be safely skipped without losing the narrative thread. A pity to do so though because his explanations are a delight. Thoroughly recommended.