Introduction to quantum information theory

My name is Michael Nielsen, and I work at the University of Queensland on quantum information theory, which is the subject of my talk today. It’s part of a larger subject known as quantum information science, which is being investigated by many people at the University of Queensland as part of the activities of the Center for Quantum Computer Technology. Technical work on quantum information gets pretty mathematical pretty quickly, but my talk today doesn’t involve any equations. Instead I want to talk about the goals and motivation for quantum information theory, and to try to convey some flavour of the subject. Let me start off by explaining what I mean by the term quantum information theory. I would like each of you to imagine that you’re a chess grandmaster introduced to someone who claims to know all about chess. You play a game with this person and quickly discover that although they know all the rules of chess, they have no idea of how to play a good game. They sacrifice their queen for a pawn, and lose a rook for no apparent reason at all. Naturally, you conclude that while they know the rules of chess, this person does not in any sense understand chess. That is, they don’t know any of the high-level principles, rules of thumb and heuristics which constitute a good understanding of chess, and which are familiar to any master.