Michael Nielsen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. He was born in Brisbane, Australia, and received his education at the University of Queensland, obtaining postgraduate degrees in Mathematics and Physics before receiving his Ph.D. in Physics as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of New Mexico. He has held a visiting position at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and was the Tolman Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

Isaac Chuang is with IBM Research, and also serves as a consulting professor at Stanford University. He received his doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, where he was a Hertz Foundation Fellow, and also holds degrees in Physics and in Electrical Engineering from MIT. Dr. Chuang is a native of Louisville, Kentucky and enjoys reading, hiking, and playing his violin.

This text is a comprehensive introduction to the main ideas and techniques of the field of quantum computation and quantum information. Until now, the rapid rate of progress and its cross-disciplinary nature have made it difficult for newcomers to the field to obtain a broad overview of the most important techniques and results.

Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang ask the question: what are the ultimate physical limits to computation and communication? They describe in detail such remarkable effects as fast quantum algorithms, quantum teleportation, quantum cryptography and quantum error-correction. A wealth of accompanying figures and exercises illustrate and develop the material in more depth. A special feature is the tutorial introductions to quantum mechanics and computer science included in Part I of the book, ensuring that the subject is accessible even without a background in physics or computer science. In Part II, the authors present quantum computation, and describe what a quantum computer is, how it can be used to solve problems faster than familiar 'classical' computers, and the real-world implementation of quantum computers. Part III concludes the book with an in-depth treatment of quantum information, explaining how quantum states can be used to perform remarkable feats of communication, together with a discussion of how it is possible to protect quantum states against the effects of noise.

This exciting text will be of interest to beginning graduate students and researchers in physics, computer science, mathematics, and electrical engineering with an interest in quantum computation and quantum information, and may be

used as a text in courses on the subject.