Talk:Quantum information science

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I've been doing research in quantum computation for a few years, and I haven't heard the term "Quantum Information Science", only "Quantum Information Theory". In the classical case, it's always "Information Theory", not "Information Science". Have other people heard "Information Science"? Otherwise, I'm tempted to move the page. -- Creidieki 11:51, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I have heard "Quantum Information Science", for example in[1] or search google for this term. I think "Quantum Information Science" is meant to be a broad term that includes quantum computation, quantum information theory, quantum cryptography and everything else on the interface between quantum mechanics and computer science/information theory. "Quantum Information Theory" would be the quantum version of information theory which is a subset of "Quantum Information Science". Since the terms are not identical, there should probably be articles on both of them. Andris 12:10, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

• Andris puts it sort of right. First of all, the term 'quantum information theory' is indeed more commen. However, the experimentalists are catching up: The recent years have seen quite a few experiments (especially in quantum optics) designed specifically to test idea of quantum information theory, which was indeed purely theoretical in the beginning. Now, as this has changed (and as the public gets actually more news about the experimental progress than the theoretical one, partly due to skilled PR by Anton Zeilinger.

Second, an other common term is quantum computing but this one excludes quantum crytpography and other non-computing applications of quantum information. This is why I choosed this not-yet so widespread name for the category: It is the only of the right breadth. Simon A. 12:25, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I'm relatively new to this field, but it seems to me that the third list item 'Quantum entanglement as seen from an information-theoretic point of view' is rather unwieldy, and is what I'd consider to be Quantum Information Theory. I'm also not convinced by the statement that Quantum Communication (which I presume is what I consider to be QIT) is a generalisation of Quantum Cryptography. To me QIT is the construction of quantum codes to enable error detection/correction and data compression rather than a general term for the subject. I agree that QI Science is a good title for this article, but it seems that QIT should be a subsection of it, rather than another name. Of course, having said this, I would consider 'Info Sci' & 'Info Theory' (in a classical sense) to be the same thing! So I'm not sure where the distinction would arise! Tdrawler 15:08, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)