Name: Quantum Computing Since Democritus
ISBN: 9780521199568

Quantum Computing Since Democritus

Written by noted quantum computing theorist Scott Aaronson, this book takes readers on a tour through some of the deepest ideas of maths, computer science and physics. Full of insights, arguments and philosophical perspectives, the book covers an amazing array of topics. Beginning in antiquity with Democritus, it progresses through logic and set theory, computability and complexity theory, quantum computing, cryptography, the information content of quantum states and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. There are also extended discussions about time travel, Newcomb's Paradox, the anthropic principle and the views of Roger Penrose. Aaronson's informal style makes this fascinating book accessible to readers with scientific backgrounds, as well as students and researchers working in physics, computer science, mathematics and philosophy.

What Hacker News says

ninkendoOct 2026

> the most "counter-intuitive" aspects of QM (interference, the uncertainty principle, entanglement) make perfect sense in this framework

Scott Aaronson’s “Quantum Computing Since Democritus” makes a similar assertion about learning QM from a linear algebra perspective and completely sidestepping all the thorny interpretation questions. It’s mostly a book about complexity theory and what quantum computers actually buy you, but it gives a lot of insight into the mathematics of it.

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msolomentsevSep 2026

Hi HN - If you're anything like me, you've seen the occasional quantum computing posts here and skimmed through them, hoping that the comments would explain the significance (or lack thereof) of the results in question. I got to the point where I just wanted to read a proper book about the field, so that I could understand what quantum computing 'is' at a high level (I'm technical, with an EE PhD, but not a physics or CS guy).

Unfortunately, I found that there wasn't really a text that fit my needs. There are books that explain the math/CS theory at an appropriate level (I recommend Scott Aaronson's Quantum Computing Since Democritus and Thomas Wong's Introduction to Classical and Quantum Computing), but nothing that deals with the hardware or the applications (both of which I am very interested in).

So I did a lot of self-education and paper-reading, and wrote the book I wanted to read. It's called Quantum Computing for the Confused, and it's available online (and in pdf/epub) completely free. It's fairly short (40k words) and meant to be accessible to audiences with a bit of technical literacy. I'll also note that it is 100% human generated! :)

The book has four sections, each looking at a different aspect of quantum computing: its theory; how these systems are implemented in real hardware; what quantum computers may be used for; and what the industry looks like today. I think this work fills an important niche in layman-oriented writing about the field, which I think does not do a good job making itself intelligible to outsiders.

If you're interested, you can find it here: https://quantumcomputingfortheconfused.com/

Happy to discuss and chat further. Cheers!

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kundan_s__rJan 2026

A helpful way to learn this is to separate models, machines, and practice.

For computation models, the circuit model and measurement-based computation cover most real work. Aaronson’s Quantum Computing Since Democritus and Nielsen & Chuang explain why quantum differs from classical (interference, amplitudes, complexity limits).

For computers/architecture, think of qubits as noisy analog components and error correction as how digital reliability is built on top. Preskill’s NISQ notes are very clear here.

For programming, most work is circuit construction and simulation on classical hardware (Qiskit, Cirq). That’s normal and expected.

Beyond Shor, look at Grover, phase estimation, and variational algorithms—they show how quantum advantage might appear, even if it’s limited today.

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crescit_eundoOct 2025

You might want to take a look at “Quantum Computing Since Democritus” by Scott Aaronson. I believe it’s based on the course he taught at the University of Waterloo.

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emigreMar 2025

You need to understand some mathematics before learning quantum computing. I can recommend 'Essential Mathematics from Quantum Computing' by Leonard S. Woody III, which is short, easy to understand and covers the basics. If you want to go more in-depth into the mathematics involved, then you have 'Linear Algebra and its Applications', by Gilbert Strang, but this book is exclusively about linear algebra, the mathematics that you use with quantum computing, not about quantum computing itself.

There are a couple of popular books about quantum computing in a general sense that could be interesting to read to get an idea about the subject, for example Scott Aaronon's 'Quantum Computing Since Democritus' and Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L Chuang's 'Quantum Computation an Quantum Information'. I do have the feeling, though, that these will be too deep for a general audience. Interesting and appealing, for sure, but perhaps difficult to understand for most people without a background in the matter.

Some lectures can be really interesting as well, but, again, probably at a level that is not approachable wihout some degree of academic knowledge on the matter. for example, Ronald de Wolf's quantum computing lecture notes from the University of Amsterdam, John Preskill's quantum information lecture notes from the California Institute of Technology, and Scott Aaronson's introduction to quantum science lecture notes. Probably all these lectures are available online.

Probably the best book to learn everything from the maths to the actual physical systems is 'Quantum Computing: From Linear Algebra to Physical Realizaitons', by Mikio Nakahara and Tetsuo Ohmi. This is a really complete book but also... a very expensive book! It's an academic book so not that approachable for the general public, but a great complement for those studying the subject as part of an academic course.

If you want to learn rudiments of how to program with Quiskit, and other topics, vendors like IBM provide excellent resources to get the basic ideas without the need to go too deep. If you want to know more, I would recommend perhaps to do a Masters or something like that. It's not a simple topic, it requires actual study to learn physics, mathematics, and other aspects of the technology.

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simpaticoderDec 2024

We are all small in every domain in which we are not an expert, which is approximately all of them. The "computer" domain has expanded wildly over the last 50 years to include so many specialties that even within it one cannot possibly acquire expertise in everything. And of course "computers" do not include (although they do impact!) the vast majority of domains.

If you want to go deeper into quantum computing, I can highly recommend Scott Aaronson's own book, "Quantum Computing since Democritus"[0]. Although I have a background in physics and math, I found his style lively and engaging with truly unique and compact recapitulations of things I already knew (two come to mind: his description of Cantor's diagnalization argument, and the assertion that QM is the natural consequence of "negative probabilities" being real. The later is a marvelous insight that I've personally gotten a lot of use out of).

It's also useful to understand the boundary of what quantum computing is. At the end of the day what we'll see are "QaaS" apis that give us the ability to, for example, factor large primes. You won't need to know Shor's algorithm or the implementation details, you'll just get your answer exponentially faster than the classical method. I would not expect desktop quantum computers, languages designed for them, or general user software designed to run on them. (Of course, eventually someone will make Doom run on one, but that's decades in the future.)

https://www.alibris.com/booksearch?mtype=B&keyword=quantum+c...

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