2
They’re Not Old, They’re Classics

No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

William Kingdon Clifford

When introducing quantum computing, it’s easy to say ‘‘It’s completely different from classical computing in every way!’’ Well that’s fine, but to what exactly are you comparing it?

We start things off by looking at what a classical computer is and how it works to solve problems. This sets us up to later show how quantum computing replaces even the most basic classical operations with ones involving qubits, superposition, and entanglement.

Topics covered in this chapter

2.1 What’s inside a computer?
2.2 The power of two
2.3 True or false?
2.4 Logic circuits
2.5 Addition, logically
2.6 Algorithmically speaking
2.7 Growth, exponential and...