Concept
Quantum information
Overview
Quantum information is the information of the state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information science, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques. Quantum information refers to both the technical definition in terms of von Neumann entropy and the general computational term.
It is an interdisciplinary field that involves quantum mechanics, computer science, information theory, philosophy and cryptography among other fields. Its study is also relevant to disciplines such as cognitive science and neuroscience. Its main focus is in extracting information from matter at the microscopic scale. Observation in science is one of the most important ways of acquiring information and measurement is required in order to quantify the observation, making this crucial to the scientific method. In quantum mechanics, due to the uncertainty principle, non-commuting observables cannot be precisely measured simultaneously, as an eigenstate in one basis is not an eigenstate in the other basis. According to the eigenstate–eigenvalue link, an observable is well-defined (definite) when the state of the system is an eigenstate of the observable. Since any two non-commuting observables are not simultaneously well-defined, a quantum state can never contain definitive information about both non-commuting observables.
Data can be encoded into the quantum state of a quantum system as quantum information. While quantum mechanics deals with examining properties of matter at the microscopic level, quantum information science focuses on extracting information from those properties, and quantum computation manipulates and processes information – performs logical operations – using quantum information processing techniques.
Quantum information, like classical information, can be processed using digital computers, transmitted from one location to another, manipulated with algorithms, and analyzed with computer science and mathematics. Just like the basic unit of classical information is the bit, quantum information deals with qubits. Quantum information can be measured using von Neumann entropy.
Recently, the field of quantum computing has become an active research area because of the possibility to disrupt modern computation, communication, and cryptography.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
If all this is true, the principle of limitation of variety may well also be true. We cannot, however, arrive at a proof of our principle in this way, because physics uses induction, and is therefore presumably invalid unless the principle is true. What we can say, in a general way, is that the principle does not refute itself, but, on the contrary, leads to results which confirm it. To this extent, the trend of…
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
Close in meaning to Quantum information; the term itself is not named.
Number, in general, is the quantum in its complete specialisation. Hence we may employ it not only to determine what we call discrete, but what are called continuous magnitudes as well. For that reason even geometry must call in the aid of number, when it is required to specify definite figurations of space and their ratios. (c) _Degree._ 103.] The limit (in a quantum) is identical with the whole of the quantum…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Quantum information is.
Many psychologists and philosophers have denied the existence of special laws for our psychical life, if we understand this to mean specific laws, differing from the universal physical ones. Some say that everything that is called a psychical law is nothing but a psychological reflex of physical combinations, which is made up of sensations joined to certain central cerebral processes. Others maintain that there are…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
States what Quantum information is.
Philosophers who discussed Quantum information
Related ideas
- Alan Turing
- Philosophy
- Classical physics
- Integrated circuit
- John von Neumann
- Mathematics
- Cryptography
- Information
- Neuroscience
- Probability
- Photon
- Quantum mechanics
- Quantum entanglement
- Scientific method
- Commutative property
- Theory of relativity
- Turing machine
- Uncertainty principle
- Werner Heisenberg
- Bit
- Computer science
- Boolean algebra
- Cognitive science
- Complex number
Place in the tradition
Part of Interpretations of quantum mechanics.