Picturing Quantum Processes
by Bob Coecke, Aleks Kissinger · first published 2017
13mentions
8recommended by
11HN commenters
2017–2026first – last mentioned
73% recommend27% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Introduces quantum mechanics and quantum computation through string diagrams rather than heavy calculation, making entanglement and teleportation easier to picture; suits readers with a math or physics background.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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[Picturing Quantum Processes](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Picturing-Quantum-Processes-Diagram...) does quantum mechanics without calculations.
on “Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation: A Rosetta Stone (2009) [pdf]” ↗Yeah the other book is very sweet and accesible, and quantum computing is very amenable to the monoidal category treatment as Coecke shows pleasantly in 'Picturing Quantum Processes', 110710422X.
on “Applied Category Theory” ↗I've been really enjoying Picturing Quantum Processes by Coecke and Kissinger. It approaches QM by exploring Quantum Processes in terms of a sort of formalized flow diagram. Notions like entanglement and teleportation are pretty simple in these terms and…
on “How Quantum Teleportation Works” ↗…operators: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_graphical_notation http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/Penrose.pdf This has inspired recent work by Bob Coecke, as captured in his beautiful book Picturing Quantum Processes. (arXiv example: https://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.1787.pdf)
on “Have you ever asked yourself “how did research get done before LateX?”” ↗A friend has recommended Coecke and Kissinger's book, Picturing Quantum Processes, which takes an alternative conceptual approach to quantum computation based on string diagrams (not-so-secretly a formalism for working with various flavours of monoidal category, as explained in the…
on “Ask HN: Resources to start learning about quantum computing?” ↗…subcategory of finite states, which gets us to the category of stochastic matrix. In this view, quantum probability (of finite states) is just about study of category of classical quantum maps described in Picturing Quantum Processes by Bob Coecke and Aleks Kissinger [1]. I highly recommend the book, which requires hardly any prerequisites other than linear algebra and mathematical maturity. Once we get into this framework, no philosophical…
on “The Zen Anti-Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (2021)” ↗Somewhat related: a book that really helped me is Picturing Quantum Processes by Bob Coecke. It's a visual representation of quantum processes, which really helped me understand the concept
on “I don't understand quantum physics (2018)” ↗…Physicist https://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3010 Categorical Quantum Mechanics I: Causal Quantum Processes https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.05468 (Section 3: String Diagrams) His beautiful magnum opus is the book Picturing Quantum Processes (with Aleks Kissenger): https://assets.cambridge.org/97811071/04228/frontmatter/9781... http://cs.ru.nl/A.Kissinger/slides/esslli-lec5.pdf
on “Rendering string diagrams recursively [pdf]” ↗…diagrammatic calculus of monoidal categories) in the work of Bob Coecke, who also played a large part in originating these approaches to linguistics. For example, on the quantum side, an excellent book is 'Picturing Quantum Processes' [0]. And on the linguistics side, the paper linked in the article is a good start: https://arxiv.org/abs/1003.4394 [0] Not freely available, but some slides are at https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ss2014/programme/Bob.pdf…
on “Linguistics Using Category Theory (2018)” ↗Quantum Picturalism: Learning Quantum Theory in High School https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.03653 seems a longer version. That QPict Quantum picturalism (2009) paper is https://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.1787 . Picturing quantum processes - A first course in quantum theory and diagrammatic reasoning (2017) is https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/aleks.kissinger/PQP.pdf (900+ pages; only 24 MB). Slides accessible: https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ss2014/programme/Bob.pdf…
on “A particle physics course for high-school students” ↗…out (not just hinted as in Baez TWFs). Monoidal categories, tensor networks, directed PGMs, quantum computing and even vector space NLP semantics are all particulars seen from this vantage point. [1] Picturing Quantum Processes, ISBN 1108107710
on “Quantum Mechanics for Programmers” ↗…theory, quantum computing and quantum information have been reduced to this diagramatic approach to such a degree that novel research insights are emerging from these techniques. A good introduction is Picturing Quantum Processes [1]. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subjects/physic...
on “Category theory using string diagrams (2014)” ↗…> This article is concerned with a new language for quantum, to which we refer as quantum picturalism (QPict) [5]. It is the subject of two books written by some of the authors, respectively entitled Picturing Quantum Processes [10] and Quantum in Pictures (QiP) [9]. The first one is the text book of an Oxford University postgraduate course that has been running for well over ten years now. The second one, remarkably, has no…
on “A particle physics course for high-school students” ↗