nLab John Preskill
Selected writings
- John Preskill, Magnetic Monopoles, Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 34 (1984) 461-530 [doi:10.1146/annurev.ns.34.120184.002333]
On topological defects of higher codimension in gauge theory (cf. here at QFT with defects):
- John Preskill, Alexander Vilenkin: Decay of Metastable Topological Defects, Phys. Rev. D 47 (1993) 2324-2342 [arXiv:hep-ph/9209210, doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.47.2324]
- Hoi-Kwong Lo, John Preskill, Non-Abelian vortices and non-Abelian statistics, Phys. Rev. D 48 (1993) 4821 [doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.48.4821]
On topological quantum computation:
- R. Walter Ogburn, John Preskill, Topological Quantum Computation, in: Quantum Computing and Quantum Communications, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1509, Springer (1998) [doi:10.1007/3-540-49208-9_31]
On quantum error correction for fault-tolerant/reliable quantum computation:
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John Preskill, Fault-tolerant quantum computation, in: Introduction to Quantum Computation and Information, World Scientific (1998) [arXiv:quant-ph/9712048, doi:10.1142/3724]
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John Preskill, Reliable Quantum Computers, Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A454 (1998) 385-410 arXiv:quant-ph/9705031, doi:10.1098/rspa.1998.0167
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Panos Aliferis, Daniel Gottesman, John Preskill, Quantum accuracy threshold for concatenated distance-3 codes, Quant. Inf. Comput. 6 (2006) 97-165 (arXiv:quant-ph/0504218)
and via adiabatic quantum computation:
- Andrew Childs, Edward Farhi, John Preskill, Robustness of adiabatic quantum computation, Phys.Rev. A 65 (2002) 012322 [arXiv:quant-ph/0108048, doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.65.012322]
On entanglement entropy as an indicator of topological phases of matter:
- Alexei Kitaev, John Preskill, Topological entanglement entropy, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 110404 (arXiv:hep-th/0510092)
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John Preskill, Quantum Computation, lecture notes (web)
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On quantum circuits:
Classical and quantum circuits (pdf)
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Introducing the HaPPY code tensor network for discussion of holographic entanglement entropy and quantum error correction:
- Fernando Pastawski, Beni Yoshida, Daniel Harlow, John Preskill, Holographic quantum error-correcting codes: Toy models for the bulk/boundary correspondence, JHEP 06 (2015) 149 (arXiv:1503.06237)
Exposition:
- John Preskill, Is spacetime a quantum error-correcting code?, talk at KITP 2015 (pdf, pdf)
Highlighting the role of quantum entanglement in quantum computation and quantum supremacy (and introducing that term):
- John Preskill: Quantum computing and the entanglement frontier: pp. 63-80 in: The Theory of the Quantum World – Proceedings of the 25th Solvay Conference on Physics, World Scientific (2013) [arXiv:1203.5813, doi:10.1142/8674, slides: pdf]
More on quantum error correcting codes via holographic tensor networks:
- Fernando Pastawski, John Preskill, Code properties from holographic geometries, Phys. Rev. X 7, 021022 (2017) (arXiv:1612.00017)
On noisy intermediate-scale quantum computing:
- John Preskill, Quantum Computing in the NISQ era and beyond, Quantum 2018-08-06, volume 2, page 79 (arXiv:1801.00862, doi:10.22331/q-2018-08-06-79)
and the outlook beyond:
- John Preskill: Beyond NISQ: The Megaquop Machine, talk at Q2B 2024 Silicon Valley (Dec. 2024) [pdf, webpage]
On quantum simulation of (lattice) quantum field theory:
- John Preskill, Simulating quantum field theory with a quantum computer, 36th Annual International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, PoS 334 (2019) [doi:10.22323/1.334.0024,
On the state of quantum information and quantum computation:
- John Preskill, The Physics of Quantum Information, talk at
The Physics of Quantum Information, 28th Solvay Conference on Physics (2022) [arXiv:2208.08064[
On quantum information theory:
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John Preskill: Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press (2025, in press)
chapter 10: Quantum Shannon Theory [arXiv:1604.07450]
Quotes
Christopher Fuchs recounts (in an email from Dec. 1997, reproduced on p. 292 of “My Struggles with the Block Universe“, 2014):
a little anecdote about John Wheeler that I heard from John Preskill a few days ago. In 1972 he had Wheeler for his freshman classical mechanics course at Princeton.
One day Wheeler had each student write all the equations of physics s/he knew on a single sheet of paper. He gathered the papers up and placed them all side-by-side on the stage at the front of the classroom. Finally, he looked out at the students and said,
“These pages likely contain all the fundamental equations we know of physics. They encapsulate all that’s known of the world.”
Then he looked at the papers and said,
“Now fly!”
Nothing happened. He looked out at the audience, then at the papers, raised his hands high, and commanded,
“Fly!”
Everyone was silent, thinking this guy had gone off his rocker. Wheeler said,
“You see, these equations can’t fly. But our universe flies. We’re still missing the single, simple ingredient that makes it all fly.”
On this point, in the video documentary
- Timothy Ferris, Creation of the Universe (1985) [imdb:tt0204224]
John Wheeler appears (cf. Blake Stacey, Jan 2016) saying:
There’s nothing deader than an equation. You write that down in a square on a tile floor. And on another tile on the floor you write down another equation, which you think might be a better description of the Universe. And you keep on writing down equations hoping to get a better and better equation for what the Universe is and does.
And then, when you’ve worked your way out to the end of the room and have to step out, you wave your wand and tell the equations to fly.
And not one of them will put on wings and fly.
Yet the Universe flies!
It has a life to it that no equation has, and that life to it is a life with which we are also tied up.
John Preskill re-enacting the episode at the conference banquet of It from QBit 2023:
Last revised on July 10, 2025 at 12:41:03. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.