2.1 - Introduction to Quantum Arithmetics

The lecture slides are available here Download here.

Unlike classical arithmetic, quantum processing units (QPUs) rely on reversible operations, limiting the ways we can perform arithmetic tasks. In addition, the absence of a copying mechanism due to the non-cloning theorem means that the "=" operator cannot be used to assign qubit-based values to each other.

Instead, we can only update register values through operations like incrementing or multiplying by constants.

The critical distinction between traditional and quantum arithmetic lies in the need for quantum operations to affect all values within a superposition of inputs instead of classical operations that work on a single set of inputs.