ADVENTURES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE

The main focus of this textbook is the basic unit of information and the way in which our understanding of this has evolved over time In particular the author covers concepts related to information classical computing logic reversible computing quantum mechanics quantum computing thermodynamics and some artificial intelligence and biology all approached from the viewpoint of computer sciences The book begins by asking the following nontrivial question what is a bit The author then discusses logic logic gates reversible computing and reversible architectures and the concept of disorder He then tries to establish the relationship between three essential questions that justify quantum approaches in computer sciences the energy required to perform a real life computation the size of current processors and the reversibility of quantum operations Based on these concepts the author establishes the conditions that justify the use of quantum techniques for certain kinds of computational tasks and he uses formal descriptions and formal argumentations to introduce key quantum mechanical concepts and approaches The rest of the book is formally different focusing on practical issues including a discussion of remarkable quantum algorithms in a treatment based