Primer

Volume II · 06 · Circuits

06 · Composition

Circuits

A circuit is just gates in order — multiply the unitaries. Same idea as the agent loop: small operations, sequenced, until you measure.

In English

A circuit is gates in a sequence, like a recipe. Do H then X is a different dish from X then H. At the end you measure. Same idea as stacking steps in an agent — small operations, in order.

Try this
Add two or three gates. Run. Swap their order and run again. The landing spot should change.
Keep this
A circuit is multiply-the-rotations, then look.

Lab · a wire

|0⟩50% |0⟩

Click a gate on the wire to remove it

|0⟩|1⟩|+⟩|−⟩

0.71|0⟩ + 0.71|1⟩

  • |0⟩
    0.7150%
  • |1⟩
    0.7150%

A circuit is a word in the gate alphabet. Left to right on the wire is right to left in matrix multiplication, depending on your convention — here we apply in the order you added.

Universal single-qubit control needs rotations about two axes (H and T are enough, slowly). Two-qubit universality needs one entangling gate, usually CNOT. The Deutsch chapter uses both.