A quantum computer only needs one universe

DOI10.1016/S1355-2198(03)00038-8MaRDI QIDQ720555zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Andrew M. Steane

Publication date 17 October 2011

Published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0003084

zbMATH Keywords

entanglementquantum computationparallel universesclassical computation

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Quantum computation (81P68)

Abstract: The nature of quantum computation is discussed. It is argued that, in terms of the amount of information manipulated in a given time, quantum and classical computation are equally efficient. Quantum superposition does not permit quantum computers to ``perform many computations simultaneously except in a highly qualified and to some extent misleading sense. Quantum computation is therefore not well described by interpretations of quantum mechanics which invoke the concept of vast numbers of parallel universes. Rather, entanglement makes available types of computation process which, while not exponentially larger than classical ones, are unavailable to classical systems. The essence of quantum computation is that it uses entanglement to generate and manipulate a physical representation of the correlations between logical entities, without the need to completely represent the logical entities themselves.

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Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1579275 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3418522 (Why is no real title available?)
• Computational model underlying the one-way quantum computer
• Strengths and Weaknesses of Quantum Computing
• The Heisenberg representation of quantum computers

Cited in

(11)

• Universality, invariance, and the foundations of computational complexity in the light of the quantum computer
• Universal resources for quantum computing
• The universe and the quantum computer
• Principles and applications of control in quantum systems
• Spin-based quantum dot quantum computing in silicon
• The logos categorical approach to quantum mechanics. II. Quantum superpositions and intensive values
• Unconventional Computation
• Many worlds, the cluster-state quantum computer, and the problem of the preferred basis
• On two problems of asymmetric quantum codes
• Error-detection-based quantum fault-tolerance threshold
• Quantum computer feasibility and quantum mechanics interpretation

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