Chapter 5: Classical Computers

A mathematical model of classical computer was invented by Alan Turing and named “Turing machine” model, which is an idealized computer with a simple set of instructions and infinite memories. Soon after Turing’s model was proposed, John von Neumann developed a theoretical model for how to implement all the components in a computer to be fully capable as a Turing machine. In more practical way, we will make use of the circuit model, which is useful also in the study of quantum computation. A circuit may involve many inputs, outputs, many wires and many logic gates. These circuits will be implemented by semi-conductors, which have two functions as conductor and insulator and acts under given conditions as a high-speed switch that leads and stops electricity. Modern computers such as personal computers (PC) use integrated circuits (IC) of semiconductor. While the peculiar feature of semiconductor is based entirely on physics of quantum mechanics, we do not call these computers “quantum computers” but rather called “classical computers”, because logic gates are based on binary representations and any quantum state of atom or molecule is not used as a logic gate: in classical computers, the data are represented by two logical values 0 and 1 in the circuits using devices with high voltage/low voltage, current on/off, and/or direction of magnetization up/down.