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

  • “The talk” - SMBC comics about QC. A must-read, it really deals with some most commont misconceptions.

  • 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.

  • Quantum Circuit – nice open source online circuit simulator + GUI. Source code.

  • The WIRED guide to QC – a good place to get the general idea what it’s all about.

  • The Next Decade in QC – a good outlook what we can expect in the upcoming years.

  • Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Nielsen & Chuang – the most classic textbook about QC. Strongly recommended.

  • Anastasia Marchenkova – Anastasia has a very good YouTube channel when she talks about QC, I think especially useful for beginners.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • This video by Domain of Science is a short and sweet introduction for “regular people” to how we could solve some chemistry problems with a QC. He also has some other videos on the topic of QC: here and here.

Career in quantum

  • 80000 hours – great website which helps to answer the question: “how to do most good with your career”. The absolute best source of career advice I’ve ever found and also they have a great podcast (which covers less career-related topics).

  • How to get a job in QC – my talk on career development in QC.

  • Quantum CV – blogpost where I explain how to write a CV for QC-related jobs.

  • Olivia Lanes works at IBM and has recorded plenty of great videos on career development in QC. Rather than giving links to anything specific, just search for her name and find ones that work best for you.

  • Dos & dont’s of networking – great blogpost by Olivia Lanes on how to network effectively.

My talks

Variational algorithms

If you’d like to learn more about variational algorithms like VQE or QAOA I recommend my blogposts. Multiple people told me this is the best intro to variational algorithms, the series starts here.

FYI I no longer work on anything related to VQA and I think that today FTQC algorithms are much better topic to get into. So check out the next section ;)

FTQC

Here are some resources on Fault Tolerant stuff, not necessarily just algorithms though.

  • Arthur Pesah’s blog – Arthur has written several great articles explaining concepts in fault tolerance and error correction. While these are not necessarily about the algorithms themselves, reading them will give you good overview on the relevant topics.

  • Intro to graph states – Peter Rohde has written a great intro to graph states – it’s something I worked on for a year or so and is an exteremly interesting topic!

Coding tutorials

Here are some of my favorite QC tutorials which focus on coding.

  • Penny Lane – if you’d like to learn more about Quantum Machine Learning (QML), there’s probably no better place than this. But over the years Penny Lane grew to have great materials on many other topics. Created by Toronto-based company Xanadu. And talking about Penny Lane, there’s also this.

  • Ntwali Bashige’s VQE tutorial - my friend Ntwali has written a great hands-on tutorial on VQE!

  • Alexander Soare’s VQE tutorial – this one is interesting, because it shows how to implement VQE using just numpy and scipy.

  • Davit Khachatryan’s tutorials – Davit has written a couple of very good tutorials about some important algorithms, like Quantum Phase Estimation or VQE.

  • Quantum Algorithms – an online, open-source book on QML. You can contribute if you want, GitHub repo is here.

Organizations to follow

Here are some organizations I’m affiliated with that are doing good job in the world of Quantum Computing.

  • 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! But also a vibrant discord community!

  • 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.

  • Qubit by Qubit – One of the best organizations when it comes to QC education, they started from programs for high schoolers, but now have so much more.

  • QWorld – Another great organization which does education and popularization of QC. Much less “North America centric” than many others, which is a plus ;)

Others

  • 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.

  • Fact Based Insight – great website with a lot of content about various quantum technologies, not only computing.

  • Ethics of QC – Initiative which aims to make development of QC ethical.

  • Quantum Computing Now – great podcast done by Ethan Hansen, with many interesting conversations on all things about quantum computing. It’s no longer being produced, but still great!

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 ;)

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Influence by Robert Cialdini – in this classic book Cialdini shows different persuasion techniques.

  • Peak by Anders Ericsson – book which explains how to achieve expert performance in many fields. Really interesting :)

  • 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 :)

  • Smart Choices – the best book on decision making I’ve read. Provides a great comprehensive framework which works great for both small and huge decisions.

  • Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath – in this book authors describe how to make better decisions in our life. Extremely helpful and a bit lighter than the one above.

  • 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.

  • 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!

  • What’s our problem – amazing book buy Tim Urban from Wait But Why blog. It goes deep into explaining many societal problems in the world, it was a real eye-opener for me in many respects!

Other interesting resources

  • 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.

  • Kurzgesagt – one of my favorite YouTube channels. Short movies on various topics, all super interesting and beautiful.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Hello Future Me – great YouTube channel about worldbuilding and storytelling.

  • Zeihan on Geopolitics - Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical strategist and explains what’s going on in the world in very approachable manner.

Other things

  • 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.

  • 2Cents – a YouTube channel about personal finance. Light and short videos, great introduction into personal finance.

  • 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 ;)

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Łona i Webber – wspaniały duet rapowy. Słucham z wielkim zamiłowaniem, zarówno warstwa tekstowa jak i muzyczna są zachwycające.

  • 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.