Quantum information science is an area of study based on the idea that information science depends on quantum effects in physics. It includes theoretical issues in computational models as well as more experimental topics in quantum physics including what can and cannot be done with quantum information. The term quantum information theory is sometimes used, but it fails to encompass experimental research in the area.
Subfields include:
- Quantum computing, which deals on the one hand with the question how and whether one can build a quantum computer and on the other hand, algorithms that harness its power (see quantum algorithm)
- Quantum complexity theory
- Quantum cryptography and its generalization, quantum communication
- Quantum error correction
- Quantum communication complexity
- Quantum entanglement, as seen from an information-theoretic point of view
- Quantum dense coding
- Quantum teleportation is one well-known quantum information processing operation which reliably transfers an unknown quantum state from one point to another distant point, destroying the original state in the process.
Famous quotes containing the words quantum, information and/or science:
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—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Information networks straddle the world. Nothing remains concealed. But the sheer volume of information dissolves the information. We are unable to take it all in.”
—Günther Grass (b. 1927)
“It is clear that everybody interested in science must be interested in world 3 objects. A physical scientist, to start with, may be interested mainly in world 1 objects—say crystals and X-rays. But very soon he must realize how much depends on our interpretation of the facts, that is, on our theories, and so on world 3 objects. Similarly, a historian of science, or a philosopher interested in science must be largely a student of world 3 objects.”
—Karl Popper (1902–1994)