Book review: 'Quantum in Pictures'

The latest work by computer scientists Bob Coecke and Stefano Gogioso, 'Quantum in Pictures', aims to make the quantum world more accessible and inclusive. So, whether you're a high school student or a science enthusiast, the authors are confident that anyone mastering the tools in the book will gain an understanding equivalent to that of a quantum mechanics graduate at university. But what if a complete novice in quantum computing, i.e., this reviewer, could gain a genuine understanding of the field by simply reading this book? Let's test this out, shall we? Full disclosure from the get-go, I have absolutely no prior knowledge or expertise in quantum computing, therefore Coecke and Gogioso's latest research and book is not only worthy of a review but also a lesson for someone who barely scraped a C in GSCE Maths – a learning curve, if you will. For context, 'Quantum in Pictures' is the brainchild of Quantinuum's chief scientist Professor Bob Coecke and Dr Stefano Gogioso of Oxford University. The book introduces a formalism for quantum mechanics based on using'ZX-calculus' (or'ZX'), to describe quantum processes.