From the course: Quantum Computing Fundamentals

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Measurement on an arbitrary basis

Measurement on an arbitrary basis

From the course: Quantum Computing Fundamentals

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Measurement on an arbitrary basis

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- Now that we have the Hadamard gate and our bag of quantum tools, it's time to revisit the fundamental concept of measurement. So far in this course, we've always measured our qubits in the standard computational basis, composed of the states zero and one. Measuring a quantum state in that basis means we'll only observe either zero or one, each of which occurs with some probability. Since we represent those two states on opposite ends of the Bloch sphere's z-axis, this type of computational basis measurement is often called a Z measurement. But remember, from a mathematical standpoint, zero and one are not the only pair of basis states. Any two points on opposite sides of the Bloch sphere correspond to orthogonal state vectors which together form a valid pair of basis states. That means there's an infinite number of possible bases we can use to represent and measure a quantum state beyond just zero and one. - When we…

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