Qiskit Pocket Guide

Part I. Qiskit Fundamentals

If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

Erwin Schrödinger

Underlying all programs developed using Qiskit are some fundamental concepts and modules. In the first part of this book, we’ll explore these fundamentals, beginning with Chapter 1, “Quantum Circuits and Operations”. In that chapter, we’ll demonstrate how to create quantum circuits, populate them with commonly used gates and instructions, obtain information about quantum circuits, and manipulate them.

In Chapter 2, “Running Quantum Circuits”, we’ll demonstrate how to use Qiskit classes and functions to run quantum circuits on quantum simulators and devices. We’ll also show you how to monitor the status of a job, as well as how to obtain its results. Then in Chapter 3, “Visualizing Quantum Measurements and States”, we’ll show you how to leverage graphical features of Qiskit to visualize quantum states and results.

Finally in Chapter 4, “Using the Transpiler”, we’ll discuss the process of transpilation in which the operations of a quantum circuit are converted into instructions for running on a particular quantum simulator or device.