This Fermi Summer School of Physics on Experimental Quantum Information and Computing represents a primer on an expanding new area of physics. In this part, the interest in quantum information (QI) science is due to the discovery that a computer operating on quantum mechanical principles can solve certain important computational problems exponentially faster than any conceivable classical computer. But this interest is also due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field: the rapid growth is attributable, in part, to the stimulating confluence of researchers and ideas from physics, chemistry, mathematics, information theory and computer science.