Just joined! I am new to Quantum Computing. Where do I start?

Here.

I was looking for an answer like "watch the recording of the first class". Or "start by visiting the logs pages." 

You got it ;) Recording, links, logs, slides are all in here. Please read the project details. 

(programming note: anyone know how I  can subscribe to this discussion so that I get emails when someone posts a message?)

When I started investigating quantum computing a while ago, I got caught up on one question in particular. I followed a video explanation of Grovers algorithm pretty well (not that I could still follow it without some work) but I could not understand how the oracle function could be implemented. If the oracle function is classical, how does it interact with the quantum gate logic? If the oracle function is not classical, what does it look like and does it limit the application to a certain type of problem?

--BobG 

Thank you, Bob. Will answer that when we get to Grover's algorithm. Working on a visual way to represent it. (Not sure if people can notifications when there's a message. Do you get a notification when I post something?)

this is not the easiest place to find. Kitty, maybe you need a link on your pages.

To be clear, when I came to hackaday without an account and seached for "quantum computing", this did not make the cut. I only got uear+ old articals from AI Williams. I had to click on hackaday.io 'tab', create and account and then I found you easily.

We will publicize the next meetings with this project page. I'll also include it in my posts. Thanks!

Making a note of the questions from the first class. Some I had addressed in the class. I may come back to address more in future classes or comics. If anyone else would like to answer them, feel free to add comments. 

"I don't know lots of maths , am I safe?"

"why we square the amplitudes?"

"you showed that we can represent quantum states with vectors mathematically but could explain its physical significance?"

"Thanks Kitty, this is really interesting. Another vote for a session on the hardware"

"One question you mention you worked on photonics if I recall correctly, you mind giving more info about it?"

"does Microsoft have a quantum computer like IBM? (i remember they have a site where you can run examples on it)"

"any cloud access to a QC available?"

"I'd like to know if quantum machine learning is limited only to parameterized quantum circuits,"

"Are the tutorials for quantum circuits on NISQ devices or on universal quantum computers?"

-"Any reading recommendations beyond Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach, or Quantum Computing for Software Engineers? I’m interested in hardware designs, and deeper mathematical QC algorithm / circuit design. Not a lot of depth colocated for advanced readers with QM backgrounds."

-"If it's not too late, I have another question:Do you have any recent estimation about how far we are from manufacturable? (10, 20, 30 years?)"

-"also what languages will we writing code in if any ?"

-"Any open source hardware?"

-"please could you mention a bit about deep learning algorithms used in quantum computing if any?"

-"are there softwares that one can use to reinforce ones understanding?"

I would like to answer some of the question as best as I could 

Q1 "I don't know lots of maths , am I safe?"

A1 I guess at earlier stages you're fine with just basic knowledge of linear algebra(vectors and matrices).

Q2 "why we square the amplitudes?"

A2 We square amplitudes(which can be -ve, +ve or even imaginary) to get probability of a given state which has to be between 0 and 1, including them.

Q3 "you showed that we can represent quantum states with vectors mathematically but could explain its physical significance?"

A3 The physical significance at least at a basic level could be given with an analogy so you might have used Polarized sunglasses (which are specialized eyewear designed to reduce glare from surfaces such as water, snow, and glass) the surface blocks the glare by filtering out the horizontal light waves that don't fit through the chemical laminate pattern. So you could imagine horizontal light as state |0> and vertical light as state |1> and let's say we allow only horizontal lines to pass through so when a light who has some state passes through it makes angle thetha with |0> and so the probability of that light passing through would cos^2(thetha) or it's dot product squared with |0>.

Q4 "One question you mention you worked on photonics if I recall correctly, you mind giving more info about it?"

A4 I found this video which could help you https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=PljbV-wsxeg&feature=emb_title.

Q5  "does Microsoft have a quantum computer like IBM? (i remember they have a site where you can run examples on it)"

A5 yes it does you can read more about it here  

https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-taking-quantum-computers-cloud/

Q6 "any cloud access to a QC available?"

A6 I'm not sure if Microsoft gives access to QC but IBM does upto 15 qubits(I personally tried it). Here's the IBMQ experience https://quantum-computing.ibm.com/

Q7  "I'd like to know if quantum machine learning is limited only to parameterized quantum circuits,"

A7 There's a very good course of Q machine learning by university of toronoto on edx which could benefit you. https://www.edx.org/course/quantum-machine-learning

Q8 -"Any reading recommendations beyond Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach, or Quantum Computing for Software Engineers? I’m interested in hardware designs, and deeper mathematical QC algorithm / circuit design. Not a lot of depth colocated for advanced readers with QM backgrounds."

A8 I would highly recommend taking this course on edx https://www.edx.org/professional-certificate/delftx-quantum-computing-and-quantum-internet

Q9 "Do you have any recent estimation about how far we are from manufacturable? (10, 20, 30 years?)"

A9 hope this image helps https://i.redd.it/vfs7f0yc9jb51.jpg

Q10 "also what languages will we writing code in if any ?"

A10 it depends if it's in Q# then it's based on C# and if it's qiskit then python.

Q11 "Any open source hardware?"

A11 not sure what do you mean by open source hardware but see if this helps https://github.com/Hirmay/awesome-quantum-software

Q12 "please could you mention a bit about deep learning algorithms used in quantum computing if any?"

A12 I guess course mentioned in A7 has also information about that.

Q13 "are there softwares that one can use to reinforce ones understanding?"

A13 Well certain things like Bloch sphere(3D representation of states) could be visualized here, you could also watch professor quantum videos on youtube to get more intuition. Also you can play this game https://quantumgame.io/ which is very educational.

I've not answered some questions as I thought it would be best if professor kitty would answer them.

On Slide 14 from the March 29th slides, the comic shows Qubits like a ratio of 0 and 1. I was wondering is there a limit to how large the denominator in that ratio can be or is there a limit to the resolution of a Qubit? Ex. 1/4 of 0 and 3/4 of 1 vs 1/99999 of 0 and 99998/99999 of 1.

Great question, Edward. (By the way, the examples should be sqrt(1/99999) of 0 and sqrt(99998/99999) of 1 if we are talking about amplitudes.) The limit in resolution we experience in classical computers are due to the bits being digital and discrete, while the amplitudes in qubits are analogue and continuous. In theory, there shouldn't be any limit - the amplitudes can be any number as long as the total probability is 1. But then, in practice in physical systems we can never truly be so precise. It depends on the types of quantum hardware and how they form qubits, which I will show in later classes. For example, superconducting qubits will rely on the resolution of the microwave frequency that tunes the circuit to the corresponding qubit state. Or a topological qubit may rely on the resolution of the magnetic flux applied to the nanowire. They all have unique pros and cons based on the setup. The precision of the setup may certainly contribute to error. And error correction is an active field of research in quantum computing. But then this source of error may not be a major one. The more fundamental problem for error correction is how easily decoherence happens, as the qubits entangle with their environment if not isolated properly. Definitely an interesting area of research!       

Seems to be very well prepared lecture. Sadly, slides alone aren't giving much understanding, sure would like to see a video of your workshop.

Unfortunately some workshops were not recorded. I do have a written version of the materials. Hopefully will be able to publish it soon.

Just updated the project. Producing a comic series explaining quantum computing. Hope this helps!

This was one of the workshops on my list that I didn't make it to, which is too bad because I really wanted to get some QC background. Thanks for posting the material!

You are welcome! Thank you.

I'm now updating the material with comics. I'll post a new page every Sunday and Wednesday. Let me know topics you'd like me to explain. I'll also direct people to programming exercise.