ECE 396 / COS 396 / QSE 320
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Welcome to the Fall 2026 offering of Intro to Quantum Computing! This course will introduce quantum mechanics, and then explore it with an eye towards its power to compute in new and exciting ways.
This course has a prerequisite of sophomore linear algebra at the level of MAT 202, 204, 217 or the equivalent. A previous quantum mechanics course will not be required. Beyond linear algebra, a basic understanding of probability, complex numbers, and algorithms is recommended. Please contact the instructor if you wish to take the course but do not currently meet these requirements.
Lectures: Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:40 am – 12:00 pm, in Friend Center 006
Instructor office hours: Mondays 12:00 – 1:00 pm, in COS 308
TA office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 5:00 – 6:30 pm, in COS 301
Instructor: Ewin Tang
Graduate teaching assistants: Lakshika Rathi, Hongkun Chen, Salahedeen Issa
Everything here is subject to change.
| Date | Lecture | Course information | References and further reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09/02 | What are quantum computers (good for)? how to simulate physical systems; the (extended) Church-Turing thesis; current status of quantum computers; current status of claims of quantum advantage; syllabus based on Aaronson, Lecture 1, O’Donnell(1) Lecture 1, O’Donnell(2) Lecture 3 |
pset 0 out | Aaronson,
NP-complete Problems and Physical Reality (Can I use
physics to cheat the limits of computation?) Feynman, Simulating Physics with Computers (The famous lecture!) Shor, The Early Days of Quantum Computation (Shor’s quantum computing lore) Aaronson, Read the Fine Print (The caveats behind quantum machine learning) Dalzell et al., Quantum Algorithms: A Survey of Applications and End-to-End Complexities (A comprehensive look at applications of quantum computing) |
| 09/07 | no class; labor day | ||
| 09/09 | Quantum and non-quantum computers, with a linear algebra
formalism Linear algebra formalism for probabilistic systems; linear algebra formalism for quantum systems (unitary evolution, measurement); bra-ket notation based on Aaronson, Lectures 2 and 3 |
pset 1 out pset 0 due midnight |
Watrous, Lecture 01 |
| 09/14 | Simple procedures in single-qubit
systems differences between quantum and classical (interference, reversibility, basis-invariance); Hadamard matrix and interference; double-slit experiment; quantum Zeno effect based on Aaronson, Lectures 3 and 4 |
quiz 0 | Bohr–Einstein
debates, Wikipedia Bohr–Einstein debates, Bohr’s account Feynman on how to think about negative probability |
| 09/16 | Introducing multi-qubit systems, and looking at quantum
weirdness Elitzur–Vaidman bomb; partial measurement (and conditional probabilities); correlation and entanglement; Bell pair; faster-than-light signaling? based on Aaronson, Lectures 4 and 5 |
add/drop period ends | |
| 09/21 | No-comunication, and building more math
formalism returning to the Bell pair; no-communication theorem; partial trace (and marginal probabilities); density matrix formalism based on Aaronson, Lectures 5, 6 |
||
| 09/23 | Non-commutativity, no-cloning, and
consequences non-commutativity of measurement (uncertainty principles, Stern–Gerlach experiment, effect of measurement, etc.); quantum gates; quantum circuits; no-cloning theorem; Bloch sphere based on Aaronson Lectures 4 and 7 and Nielsen–Chuang 1.5.1 |
pset 2 out pset 1 due midnight |
|
| 09/28 | Quantum protocols 1: quantum money, quantum key
distribution based on Aaronson Lectures 7 and 8 |
quiz 1 | |
| 09/30 | Quantum protocols 2: superdense coding, teleportation,
entanglement as a resource based on Aaronson Lectures 9, 10, and 11 |
||
| 10/05 | Quantum protocols 3 (peak weirdness): Bell’s inequality,
CHSH game based on Aaronson Lectures 12, 13, and 14 |
||
| 10/07 | How to build a quantum computer? Gate sets; Solovay–Kitaev theorem; quantum query complexity; Deutsch–Josza based on Aaronson Lectures 16 and 17 |
pset 2 due midnight | |
| 10/12 | Review session for midterm | quiz 2 | |
| 10/14 | midterm (tentative) | ||
| 10/19 | no class; fall break | ||
| 10/21 | no class; fall break | ||
| 10/26 | Quantum computing. Reversible computation. Deutsch-Jozsa and Bernstein-Vazirani. Uncomputing | pset 3 out | |
| 10/28 | Factoring and period finding, part 1 | ||
| 11/02 | Period finding; gestures in the direction of Shor’s algorithm | ||
| 11/04 | Quantum algorithms continued | pset 3 due midnight pset 4 out |
|
| 11/09 | Grover’s algorithm | quiz 3 | |
| 11/11 | Mixed states and density matrices | ||
| 11/16 | Reduced density matrices; quantifying entanglement | ||
| 11/18 | Effect of noise on quantum evolution, some standard types of noise | pset 4 due midnight pset 5 out |
|
| 11/23 | Introduction to quantum error correction: basic ideas and examples, bit-flip code, Shor’s nine-qubit code | quiz 4 | |
| 11/25 | no class; thanksgiving | ||
| 11/30 | Error correction conditions, quantum Hamming bound | ||
| 12/02 | The Schrödinger equation, continuous time evolution, atomic level structures. | pset 5 due midnight | |
| 12/07 | Survey of quantum computing platforms | quiz 5 | |
| 12/16 | final (tentative); 04:00 pm - 07:00 pm |
This course will most closely follow the lecture notes of Scott Aaronson; find them here.
However, there are many great resources of this material at a variety of levels and in a variety of formats. The following are references I recommend, which you can keep at hand/hard drive.
The following are not directly related to the material, but may be helpful nonetheless.
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