QUANTUM SIMULATORS

To help understand how quantum computers work, there are several simulators. There’s no way that you can simulate one efficiently, but if you want to understand the underlying principles, many of these are excellent. The first one worth exploring is a Bloch sphere simulator. Without having at least a rudimentary understanding of the Bloch sphere, you’ll have trouble understanding what the gates do. Learn more about it at http://eecs.ceas. uc.edu/~cahaymm/ blochsphere.

There are many more simulators— the majority are the results of PhD thesis work. For that reason, most of them are not active, only good starts. The few mentioned here are useful for self-education.

The JQuantum simulator looks and behaves like a quantum score. Using it is a little cumbersome, but if you’re practicing this while reading a textbook, then it becomes usable and clear. It also supports your own functions.

This is useful when you follow a course and want to test it on your own. The only other way to do that is to use your IDE and write a quantum program yourself. If you have Python experience, this is doable, but be warned—the simulation won’t look pretty.