The buzz about quantum computing has been rapidly increasing lately, and a growing number of developers have been looking into the subject. Concepts developers typically find challenging after cursory investigation of quantum computing include: superpositions of quantum bits (qubits), quantum gates, quantum entanglement (Einstein’s “spooky actions at a distance”), and the relevance of Schrödinger’s famous cat.

In this workshop, James Weaver gives a gentle introduction to quantum computing, including: A brief history of quantum computers, visualizing superpositions, composing quantum algorithms with quantum gates, understanding Shor’s potentially RSA encryption busting algorithm, and current status of quantum computers.

Part of this workshop consists of learning by playing a block-mining application named QiskitBlocks, similar to Minecraft. Please download, install and run QiskitBlocks prior to the workshop. Instructions here: http://qisk.it/gids