Book,
Automatic Quantum Computer Programming: A Genetic Programming Approach
Genetic Programming Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston/Dordrecht/New York/London, (June 2004)
Abstract
Computer science will be radically transformed if
ongoing efforts to build large-scale quantum computers
eventually succeed and if the properties of these
computers meet optimistic expectations. Nevertheless,
computer scientists still lack a thorough understanding
of the power of quantum computing, and it is not always
clear how best to use the power that is understood.
This dilemma exists because quantum algorithms are
difficult to grasp and even more difficult to write.
Despite large-scale international efforts, only a few
important quantum algorithms are documented, leaving
many essential questions about the potential of quantum
algorithms unanswered. These unsolved problems are
ideal challenges for the application of automatic
programming technologies. Genetic programming
techniques, in particular, have already produced
several new quantum algorithms and it is reasonable to
expect further discoveries in the future. These methods
will help researchers to discover how additional
practical problems can be solved using quantum
computers, and they will also help to guide theoretical
work on both the power and limits of quantum computing.
Automatic Quantum Computer Programming provides an
introduction to quantum computing for non-physicists,
as well as an introduction to genetic programming for
non-computer-scientists. The book explores several ways
in which genetic programming can support automatic
quantum computer programming and presents detailed
descriptions of specific techniques, along with several
examples of their human-competitive performance on
specific problems. Source code for the author's QGAME
quantum computer simulator is included as an appendix,
and pointers to additional online resources furnish the
reader with an array of tools for automatic quantum
computer programming.
