Dieter van Melkebeek (UW-Madison): Quantum Information Processing: What, How and Why?

A computer based on quantum mechanical principles would profoundly alter the nature of information processing. In this talk, I will attempt to do something challenging but not nearly as amazing as quantum computation itself: in one hour, give you an idea what the area of quantum information processing is about, explain how a quantum computer executes the simplest of its miraculous tricks, and try to convince you how wonderful all this would be.

An in-depth treatment will follow in Spring semester, when CS 880 will be entirely devoted to this topic.