Minds, Machines and the Multiverse

This is a book by Julian Brown with the very descriptive subtitle, THE QUEST FOR THE QUANTUM COMPUTER.

Although similar in topic coverage to the other book I wrote about recently on quantum computing (Johnson's A SHORTCUT THROUGH TIME), this one is longer and goes into more detail. Some related topics are also discussed in Brown's book not covered in the other - many of these are interesting (like Many Worlds) and a few are quite bizarre (like the Omega Point).

If you only had the time to read one of these, I would suggest the Johnson book. Brown's book goes into more detail which is often good, but too often drops the ball in various ways with all these details leaving you in the middle of a real muddle. It was very irritating.

I also found the book hard to follow in that I was not sure where it was heading in many instances for long periods. Often I was asking myself, "Why is Brown talking about this topic in the middle of this chapter?" Sometimes it took a while to find that out. I guess I could describe this as the development not being very "tight".

Personally, I thought there was much too much on algorithms and too little on physical implementation, but then, to be fair, this does seem to be representative of how the field is progressing. Also, I am a chemical engineer/patent lawyer and not a computer science person.

If you read Johnson and want more, but not an actual textbook on the subject, give Brown a try. Otherwise, I would skip it.