Michael Nielsen's Free Video Courseware On Quantum Computing 54
New submitter quax writes "Michael Nielsen, who co-authored the book on Quantum Computing, released a set of short video lectures on his blog this summer (link to Google cache). They make a great introduction to the subject. But here's the catch: Due to other work responsibilities, he stopped short of completing the course, and will only complete it if he sees enough interest in the videos. Let's show him some numbers."
Re:The next major revolution will be quantum..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually quantum mechanics already is the previous revolution. Lasers are quantum. Semiconductors are quantum. Without quantum mechanics, our computers would still be big monsters of tubes with the power of a pocket calculator. The giant magnetoresistance, which is the base of our high-density hard disks, is a quantum effect. Without quantum mechanics, the whole information technology revolution could not have taken place.
That's not to say that quantum information wouldn't be a huge step from that. It's applying quantum mechanics to the information itself, instead of "only" using it to improve the handling of classical information. However, reducing the impact of quantum mechanics to quantum information vastly underestimates its importance. Even if the quantum computer should turn out to be impossible for some reason, quantum mechanics will not become useless. Almost all of our modern technology is based on it.