The intrinsic important of MCMC is clear.  What kinds of applications would be of excitement to startup-oriented readers here on YCombinator?<p>Also why is this called Quantum MCMC rather than just normal Markov Chain Monte Carlo?<p>By coincidence there is a Coursera Cousrse that just started on Statistical Mechanics and Algorithms, and the first exercise is to approximate pi.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.coursera.org&#x2F;learn&#x2F;statistical-mechanics" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.coursera.org&#x2F;learn&#x2F;statistical-mechanics</a>