Quantum Computing Since Democritus now out in the US! 20% discount for Shtetl-Optimized readers
Saturday, April 27th, 2013OK, this will be my last blog post hawking Quantum Computing Since Democritus, at least for a while. But I do have four pieces of exciting news about the book that I want to share.
- Amazon is finally listing the print version of QCSD as available for shipment in North America, slightly ahead of schedule! Amazon’s price is $35.27.
- Cambridge University Press has very generously offered readers of Shtetl-Optimized a 20% discount off their list price—meaning $31.99 instead of $39.99—if you click this link to order directly from them. Note that CUP has a shipping charge of $6.50. So ordering from CUP might either be slightly cheaper or slightly more expensive than ordering from Amazon, depending (for example) on whether you get free shipping from Amazon Prime.
- So far, there have been maybe 1000 orders and preorders for QCSD (not counting hundreds of Kindle sales). The book has also spent a month as one of Amazon’s top few “Quantum Physics” sellers, with a fabulous average rating of 4.6 / 5 stars from 9 reviews (or 4.9 if we discount the pseudonymous rant by Joy Christian). Thanks so much to everyone who ordered a copy; I hope you like it! Alas, these sales figures also mean that QCSD still has a long way to go before it enters the rarefied echelon of—to pick a few top Amazon science sellers—Cosmos, A Brief History of Time, Proof of Heaven (A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife), Turn On Your SUPER BRAIN, or The Lemon Book (Natural Recipes and Preparations). So, if you believe that QCSD deserves to be with such timeless classics, then put your money where your mouth is and help make it happen!
- The most exciting news of all? Luboš Motl is reading the free copy of QCSD that I sent him and blogging his reactions chapter-by-chapter! So, if you’d like to learn about how mathematicians and computer scientists simply lack the brainpower to do physics—which is why we obsess over kindergarten trivialities like the Church-Turing Thesis or the Axiom of Choice, and why we insist idiotically that Nature use only the mathematical structures that our inferior minds can grasp—then check out Luboš’s posts about Chapters 1-3 or Chapters 4-6. If, on the other hand, you want to see our diacritical critic pleasantly surprised by QCSD’s later chapters on cryptography, quantum mechanics, and quantum computing, then here’s the post for you. Either way, be sure to scroll down to the comments, where I patiently defend the honor of theoretical computer science against Luboš’s hilarious ad hominem onslaughts.