An Introduction to Quantum Probability

Abstract

Using quantum mechanical devices for handling information is not a recent proposal. Recent experimental progress has, however, narrowed the gap with reality, even if there is still a very long way to go in order to achieve the most far-stretching proposals. Modern techniques now really allow to handle very small systems—the paradigms of the Gedankenexperimente in the standard textbooks on quantum mechanics—in an increasingly controlled manner. Because of the counter-intuitive aspects of quantum mechanics, experimental and theoretical aspects have to be developed more or less simultaneously, certainly in order to build complex systems. The renewed interest in theoretical and mathematical aspects of quantum theory is then a natural consequence.