Here I wanted to share with some learning resources I have personally found valuable and useful. A few things before we start:
- This list is strongly biased toward my own interests and preferences.
- I use different media to learn, so this is a mix of books, videos, online courses, etc. I made it explicit what format each of these is to make it easier if you’re just looking for a specific type of content.
- I wanted to thank Samanvay Sharma for helping me to put it together :)
Quantum Computing
Learning
Here are some resources for people who want to learn more about QC. Going through all that should give you pretty good overview of the field.
New to QC – start here
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“The talk” - SMBC comics about QC. A must-read, it really deals with some most commont misconceptions.
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Quantum Contry – amazing series of interactive essays by Michael Nielsen and Andy Matuschak. The best intro to QC I’ve ever seen. I think it’s equally good no matter on what level of expertise you are.
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John Preskill’s NISQ talk (video or paper) – good intro for “what stage of QC are we in right now?”.
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Quantum Circuit – nice open source online circuit simulator + GUI. Source code.
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The WIRED guide to QC – a good place to get the general idea what it’s all about.
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The Next Decade in QC – a good outlook what we can expect in the upcoming years.
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Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Nielsen & Chuang – the most classic textbook about QC. Strongly recommended.
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Dancing with Qubits – good intro to QC, you can find my review here.
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QOSF list of learning resources – good place to explore more :)
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Anastasia Marchenkova – Anastasia has a very good YouTube channel when she talks about QC, I think especially useful for beginners.
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Best QC Online Courses – a video by Anastasia Marchenkova where she describes a couple of online courses (October 2020). I don’t have too much experience with these courses personally, but her recommendations are definitely in line with what I’ve heard from other people about these courses.
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How to go from no math to Quantum Machine Learning – a short video by great Amira Abbas, where she shares some good insights how to walk this path.
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This video by Domain of Science is a short and sweet introduction for “regular people” to how we could solve some chemistry problems with QC.
My talks
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How to get started in Quantum Computing – a talk where I give some tips about how to approach learning QC as well as building a career. Link to slides.
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Introduction to programming quantum computer using pyQuil – well, the title is pretty self-explanatory. Even though it’s about pyQuil, most principles apply elsewhere as well. Link to notebook.
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Variational Quantum Factoring – here I explain how VQF works and show how to develop an open source research project. Link to the repo (it contains the slides as well).
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Variational Quantum Algorithms - how do they work? – a summary of my blogposts about VQAs. Link to slides.
Variational algorithms
If you’d like to learn more about variational algorithms like VQE or QAOA I recommend my blogposts, you will find links to more materials there:
You can also find some papers in the Science section
Also, there is a Quantum Machine Learning course on edX by the late Peter Wittek. Excellent course, though not for beginners. Even though it’s not open right now, I’d recommend to enroll and get on the waiting list, since if it ever gets reopened it’s definitely something you don’t want to miss.
Coding tutorials
Here are some of my favorite QC tutorials which focus on coding.
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Dawid Kopczyk’s blog – Dawid has some really nice tutorials on various quantum algorithms.
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Alexander Soare’s VQE tutorial – this one is interesting, because it shows how to implement VQE using just
numpy
andscipy
. -
Davit Khachatryan’s tutorials – Davit has written a couple of very good tutorials about some important algorithms, like Quantum Phase Estimation or VQE.
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Penny Lane – if you’d like to learn more about Quantum Machine Learning (QML), there’s probably no better place than this. Created by Toronto-based company Xanadu. And talking about Penny Lane, there’s also this.
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Uncertain Systems – this one’s not a coding tutorial but a YouTube channel. Honestly, the form is pretty crazy – Daniel just records his whole process of learning QC and puts that on YouTube. While this is not the form I personally like (cause it’s pretty long) looking how someone tries to understand something that you’re also struggling with definitely might help.
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Quantum Algorithms – an online, open-source book on QML. You can contribute if you want, GitHub repo is here.
Papers
Here I listed some of the papers I like. I’ve chosen those that should give you a good insight (they sure gave me some insight!). It’s mostly (well, almost exclusively to be honest) about variational algorithms and QAOA specifically.
Good examples of how using QAOA looks like in practice:
- Analysis of Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm under Realistic Noise in Superconducting Qubits
- Evaluating Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm: A Case Study
- Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm: Performance, Mechanism, and Implementation on Near-Term Devices
- Quantum Approximate Optimization of Non-Planar Graph Problems on a Planar Superconducting Processor
Some useful techniques for QAOA, which also shed lights on what are directions for improvements:
- Improving Variational Quantum Optimization using CVaR
- Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm: Performance, Mechanism, and Implementation on Near-Term Devices
- An Exploration of Practical Optimizers for Variational Quantum Algorithms on Superconducting Qubit Processors
- Optimizing quantum heuristics with meta-learning
- The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm Needs to See the Whole Graph: Worst Case Examples
- For Fixed Control Parameters the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm’s Objective Function Value Concentrates for Typical Instances
- Stochastic gradient descent for hybrid quantum-classical optimization
Applying QAOA to specific problems:
- Quantum Algorithms for Scientific Computing and Approximate Optimization
- From the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm to a Quantum Alternating Operator Ansatz
- Variational Quantum Factoring
- Analyzing the Performance of Variational Quantum Factoring on a Superconducting Quantum Processor
Other papers I like:
- Expressibility and entangling capability of parameterized quantum circuits for hybrid quantum-classical algorithms
- Traffic flow optimization using a quantum annealer and A Hybrid Solution Method for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem Using a Quantum Annealer
Organizations to follow
Here are some organizations I’m affiliated with that are doing good job in the world of Quantum Computing.
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Unitary Fund - “non-profit working to create a quantum technology ecosystem that benefits the most people”. They have a grant program, so if you have an idea for a project which fits UF’s mission, then definitely check it out!
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QOSF – at Quantum Open Source Foundation we have passion for both QC and open source software (OSS) and we are working to make OSS an important part of QC ecosystem and raise its quality.
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Q4Climate – at Q4Climate we’re looking into how to use quantum technologies to help with the climate crisis.
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CDL Toronto – Creative Destruction Lab is an organization that helps build startups and they have one stream focused on Quantum. One of the best places to go if you think about creating a quantum startup.
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Zapata Computing – the best QC company in the world ;)
Others
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Quantum Computing Report – the best source on what’s going on in QC I know. No BS, only substantial info. The only QC newsletter that I actually regularly read.
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Fact Based Insight – great website with a lot of content about various quantum technologies, not only computing.
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Ethics of QC – Initiative which aims to make development of QC ethical.
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YouTube playlist of my favorite QC videos – It’s a mix, some are introductory, some are advance.
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Quantum Computing Now – great podcast done by Ethan Hansen, with many interesting conversations on all things about quantum computing.
Science & Technology
- 3Blue1Brown – absolutely delightful videos about math. One of my favorite YT channels.
- Andrew Ng ML course – if you’re new to ML this is probably the most classic course.
- fast.ai courses – I was doing Deep Learning course from fast.ai a couple of years ago and it’s the best place to learn Deep Learning I’ve seen. It requires quite a lot of time and dedication, but is definitely worth it. They also have courses on linear algebra and ML.
- Udemy course on optimization – some time ago I did this course, it’s pretty good intro to optimization. Here’s a video about Particle Swarm Optimization which gives you a taste.
- Storytelling with data – a great blog (and even better book) about how to do good data visualization. It really changed my perspective on the topic and helped me be much more effective in my job.
- Primer – fun YT channel which teaches various concepts using simulations.
- The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master – great book on software engineering, highly recommended!
- Science as Amateur Software Development – this talk lists A LOT of issues I have with scientific software development and writing software in academia, highly recommended for anyone writing scientific software or doing research using software.
General knowledge
Books
Here are some books I liked, from the fields such as behavioral science, psychology, economics, learning, complex systems and others that I’m not qualified to classify ;)
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Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemann – the best book I’ve ever read, changed the way I look at the world. Summarizes Kahnemann’s work on cognitive biases, behavioral economics and how we perceive our past.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s books: Antifragile and all the others. My second favorite books, introduce a lot of great concepts around how the world works in general – randomness, risk management, decision making, complex systems and more.
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Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunsstein – book about decision making and designing some systems in a way which makes it easier for people to make right choices.
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Influence by Robert Cialdini – in this classic book Cialdini shows different persuasion techniques.
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Peak by Anders Ericsson – book which explains how to achieve expert performance in many fields. Really interesting :)
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Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande – if you’d like to improve the processes you use in your life I think this is a great place to start. Improved my productivity a lot :)
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Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath – in this book authors describe how to make better decisions in our life. Extremely helpful.
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Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson – great book which explains mechanisms through which some countries manage to get better than others. Given current global situation I think some ideas increase to be more and more relevant.
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Start with Why & Leaders eat last – great books about building culture by Simon Sinek.
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Principles by Ray Dalio. Great book describing the principles guiding the life and the company of one of the most successful investors and entrepreneurs. A lot of good insights!
Other interesting resources
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80000 hours – great website which helps to answer the question: “how to do most good with your career”. A great source of career advice in general and also they have a great podcast. I’ve written more about them in my first) and second) climate blogposts.
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Wait But Why – one of the best blogs ever. The articles are super in-depth, they take about 30 minutes - 1 hour to read each, but they are gooooood… Variety of topics.
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Kurzgesagt – one of my favorite YouTube channels. Short movies on various topics, all super interesting and beautiful.
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Naval Ravikant’s “How to get Rich” – a series of short conversations (or just one long edited), here all combined. Greate insights on building wealth and making world better. Interview with Joe Rogan is also good.
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Michael Simmons articles – it’s an interesting article that introduced me to the concept of the “half-life of knowledged”. I like his writing in general.
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Hello Future Me – great YouTube channel about worldbuilding and storytelling.
Other things
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Hamilton – one of the best things in the entire universe. Musical about Alexander Hamilton, American Founding Father, absolute masterpiece. Available to listen on Spotify and to watch soon (3rd July 2020) on Disney+. And here’s a YouTube channel with great analysis of Hamilton.
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2Cents – a YouTube channel about personal finance. Light and short videos, great introduction into personal finance.
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Game Maker’s Toolkit – a YouTube channel which analyses how various video game work. Mechanics, design, etc.
Polish resources
These resources are in Polish only, so if you don’t understand this section, you won’t benefit from them either ;)
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Mała Wielka Firma – podcast dla przedsiębiorców. Dla mnie absolutnie podstawowe źródło wiedzy na tematy biznesowe. Słucham już chyba od pięciu lat, wszystkich odcinków, polecam wszystkim, nie tylko osobom, które myślą o założeniu swojej firmy.
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Jak Oszczędzać Pieniądze – blog Michała Szafrańskiego o finansach osobistych. Jeśli jeszcze nie znacie, to koniecznie trzeba się zapoznać. Polecam też książkę Finansowy Ninja i podcast.
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Miłosz Brzeziński - autor wielu książek, przeczytałem prawie wszytkie i jest to po prostu czyste złoto. O produktywności, zarządzaniu czasem, o relacjach, o życiu. Jeśli chcecie próbkę jego możliwości, to zapraszam do tych wywiadów: pierwszy, drugi część 1 i drugi część 2.
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Jacek Dukaj – “Jacek Dukaj nie ma fanów. On ma wyznawców”. Tak stwierdził jeden z jego czytelników i stwierdzam, że zdecydowanie jestem wyznawcą. Przeczytałem prawie wszystkie jego książki, do niektórych wracałem. Science-Fiction na najwyższym poziomie, niezrównane diagnozy społeczeństwa, człowieczeństwa, wpływu technologii na nasz świat. Na początek polecam chyba któryś ze zbiorów opowiadań.
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Łona i Webber – wspaniały duet rapowy. Słucham z wielkim zamiłowaniem, zarówno warstwa tekstowa jak i muzyczna są zachwycające.
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Na gałęzi – kanał na YouTube o technicznej stronie kręcenia filmów. Zmienił moją percepcję sztuki filmowej, zacząłem dużo bardziej doceniać zarówno kino jak i inne sztuki wizualne. Materiały są lekkie i przyjemne, nic tylko oglądać.