Information / Electronics & Computing

Quantum Algorithms (Shor)

Peter Shor shows that a quantum computer could factor large numbers quickly, turning quantum computer building into a global project.

Richard Feynman suggested in 1981 simulating quantum systems with quantum computers. In 1994 Peter Shor published a method for prime factorization in polynomial time, followed in 1996 by Lov Grover’s search algorithm. Shor’s algorithm threatens RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography and triggered the search for quantum error correction (Shor 1995) and for post-quantum cryptography.