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Show, don't tell: When probing the state of a quantum system, it may be faster and more useful to record observations that are themselves quantum superpositions (Nature Physics "News and Views" article)

Published

Author(s)

Yi-Kai Liu

Abstract

Measurement and computation are fundamental tools in science. However, many of our ordinary intuitions break down when we study microscopic, quantum-mechanical objects. For instance, measurements of quantum systems are limited by uncertainty principles, and quantum computers can perform certain calculations exponentially faster than any classical machine. Writing in Nature Physics, Seth Lloyd and colleagues propose a new measurement technique which seeks to exploit this quantum weirdness. Called quantum principal component analysis, or quantum PCA, their technique is exponentially faster than classical methods, but it returns its results in the form of quantum states. This raises an important question: what does one learn from this kind of procedure?
Citation
Nature Physics
Volume
10

Citation

Liu, Y. (2014), Show, don't tell: When probing the state of a quantum system, it may be faster and more useful to record observations that are themselves quantum superpositions (Nature Physics "News and Views" article), Nature Physics, [online], https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3058 (Accessed October 15, 2024)

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Created July 27, 2014, Updated November 10, 2018