Teaching quantum information science to high-school students

https://scirate.com/arxiv/2005.07874

by mathgenius • 6 years ago

40 11 6 years ago

CaptP2• 6 years ago

As a high school student, that's actually doing quantum information physics research, I thought that I could add a unique perspective on this!

Personally, I love the sentiment behind this. It's great that there are people who are trying to make such an exciting field accessible. That being said, the importance of learning high level math cannot be understated. If students want to pursue anything impactful in physics, they require an extensive background in mathematics. If they try to learn about the current research of the field, the math in the papers will be extremely intimidating (I say this from experience!).

I think a more valuable thing to do would to make it easier to learn high level math (topology, abstract algebra) as math serves as the basis for physics. On that note, that seems like it would be an exciting project for me to embark on, with my perspective!

ivan_ah2• 6 years ago

What do we need topology for? Is it for GR? And same for abstract algebra? is this about the symmetries in high-energy physics?

I agree with you in general that one needs to learn serious math to advance in physics, but it's always exciting to see university-level physics simplified for the high school audience. Matrix QM is uniquely good candidate since it only requires knowledge of linear algebra (see for example Figure 6, at the bottom of page 4 here https://minireference.com/static/tutorials/conceptmap.pdf#pa... ).

coolgod• 6 years ago

Topology has some uses in physics, topological quantum computation is one of its potential uses. More concrete applications are found in condensed matter physics, such as topologically ordered materials and topological insulators.

babkayaga• 6 years ago

does anyone have a link to the teaching material itself?

mathgenius• 6 years ago

You might like to check out Terry Rudolph's book, "Q is for quantum".

Q_is_4_Quantum• 6 years ago

Part I (which basically gets you up to the Deutsch-Josza algorithm in quantum computing) is a free pdf on the book's website qisforquantum.org

mhh__• 6 years ago

I kind of wish I didn't learn any advanced physics (I was reading Landau and Lifshitz when I was 14) in high school. It was constantly distracting to know how to derive everything (which meant skipping exercises), which combined with at least having many of the symptoms of ADHD, meant I never did any work and underperformed in every exam bar one.

That reading lead to me going up from the lowest math set to the top one but I wonder if I am over-read but not intelligent enough to have been allowed to study it on the natural progression. I was the only student in my class to display (publicly) any intuition or passion but I probably got some of the worst results.

lowdose• 6 years ago

which combined with at least having many of the symptoms of ADHD

Have that diagnose verified. If you have ADHD your self confidence is based on life experience without proper medication.

With medication you would have done the exercises. Everyday in life you will be required to do some kind of exercise to make progress so I would like to advice you to at least explore getting some help on this matter.

_8091149529• 6 years ago

A contrarian view: Quantum Computing would not be near the top of my list of things to teach in high schools. The students would be better off learning about scientific ideas that have a proven track record, and enable or explain functioning technology that benefits the greater society. There would be hundreds of topics to choose from.

Foot note: I acknowledge Quantum Computing is just a subfield of QIS, but the abstract only talks about IBM Q and quantum algorithms.

ivan_ah2• 6 years ago

I don't think you view is contrarian. At least I wholeheartedly agree with you, and I spent 7+ years doing work in QIS (five years ago). Obviously if quantum computers start to do something useful within our lifetime it will be an interesting development, but that's a big if right now and also not clear if the new interesting stuff that comes out of QC will actually be useful for something.

Also, I don't this think we're alone thinking QC is overhyped, this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18961967 links to a report by NAS that is rather lukewarm if not cold on the prospects.

Teaching quantum information science to high-school students

Related Stories