Accepted by____________________________________________________________________

The realization of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) as a means to perform useful quantum computations has warranted a detailed discussion regarding the physics and instrumentation underlying the construction of a NMR quantum computer to facilitate the design of a desktop quantum computer. A brief overview of classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics is presented with Newton’s first law as a starting point. A correspondence between an initially postulated classical magnetic moment model and first principles will be made, and methods for the measurement and interpretation of macroscopically manifest observables are discussed. An introduction to quantum computation will delineate the elements required for computation in analogy to those required for conventional digital computation. The advantages afforded through the use of quantum computational algorithms are discussed, and the employment of NMR to perform quantum computations is presented