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I think this is a bit confusing question, I'm really interested in learning quantum computing, I've been learning the basics for a couple of months now, and I've also started developing some simple quantum algorithms using Qiskit, I know how things work, and I'm still learning, I'm trying to be a quantum computer developer because I'm already a developer.

The problem is that I don't understand mathematics at all (of course I know the basics), for example, if I watch a video on quantum computing on YouTube which includes math, I don't understand anything! But if it doesn't include math, I'm fine.

Am I wasting my time? Should I start learning maths from the beginning? Because it looks like it's going to be a long way to get into quantum computing physics lessons. I'm stuck, I really need some help.

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    $\begingroup$ Quantum computing is based on an amazingly light baggage of mathemathical prerequisites. One could say it is "just" linear algebra on the vector space $\mathbb C^2$ and its tensor products. That does not mean it is simple but imho it is learnable in shorter time than probably any other physical theory. $\endgroup$
    – Kurt G.
    Commented Jun 3, 2022 at 14:17

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The short answer for this is a sounding no simply because literally everything in physics has mathematics at it's core. But you can try to learn quantum computation in a way that let you use profound mathematics without really noticing you are using it. This is the attempt of a recent program by quantum computation and information researchers that are trying to make the theory more accessible to high school students using diagrammatic language.

Using rules of connectivity, if you want to see circuits and quantum computations without going into linear algebra but just memorizing some rules of a diagrammatic language, which ends up hiding a lot of pure mathematics under the carpet, I recommend you check out diagrammatic constructions such as the ZX-calculus. There are books and introductory texts on this language and it is sound and rigorous, despite you have the feeling of just playing when doing calculations.

There will be a high-school level book and series of videos coming up in the future as well, as it was said in this presentation.

However, keep in mind that mathematics is very nice to know and at some point, even if you let this for the future, it is really very very desirable to have good understanding of what is being done.

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  • $\begingroup$ I believe the book in question, called "Quantum in Pictures" (by Bob Coecke & Stefano Gogioso) has since been published by the company Quantinuum. $\endgroup$
    – Frederik vom Ende
    Commented Aug 25 at 14:33
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In classical computing you can work only with high school mathematics because the operations are more or less intuitive, you simply know what is plus, less than, if etc. However, quantum computing depends on laws on microcosmos which do not have to be very intuitive. You can of course take quantum algorithms from libraries and call them upon your datasets to reach a desired result. You probably do so in classical computing. However, this means that you are simply a developer. To call yourself quantum developer, you should have a basic understanding of quantum computing behind. Concerning the math, to grasp basics of QC you have to know only complex numbers and some basics of linear algebra like matrices, vectors, sumproduct, eigenvalues etc. I think all this is covered in bachelor level mathematics at any technical university.

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