>>12010230Science behind it is no meme. However don't expect to see a real quantum computer soon, we're still waiting for a similar kickoff in the practical side as was Bardeen discovering the transistor if you see what I mean.
Standard lecture notes are those of John Preskill at caltech; you can find them easily on google. The standard textbook is Nielsen and Chuang, which is self-contained and well-balanced.
Good alternative could be Aaronson, but it's shorter and I haven't read it; don't go for Kaye Laflamme and Mosca, too dense and computer-scientist orientated; the other books, to my opinion, either aren't as nicely self-cointained as N&Ch (Rieffel, Mermin,...) or are too much focused on a subtopic (Watrous, Kitaev, Wilde, D'ariano,...)
One nice simulation software I used during my masters was the QisKit of IBM, which is nice and easy to use. I never used any of its alternatives though, so I can't help you more.
Now, there are several places to start, depending on your background. If you don't have undergraduate level in either physics, engineering or computer sciences, it's no use trying until you do. If you're comming from CS, quantum physics and linear algebra may cause you trouble, else if you've been exposed to these two topics it's okay-ish. You'll also need to learn about information theory and basics of computations but these are more easy to learn in parallel. There are several MOOCs to get started (like the ones of MIT and Delft). When getting to know the topic more seriously, N&Ch will cover everything you need, and Preskill will provide a nice complement to it.
