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Newest 'history' Questions - Quantum Computing Stack Exchange
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Questions related to the history of quantum computers and quantum computing. Use this tag to ask questions about they history of an aspect of quantum computing (such as some concept or paradigm).
38 questions
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12
votes
15
answers
1k
views
What are some common conventions in quantum computing?
Marked Community-Wiki
In many fields of human endeavor there are often conventional practices or other "house rules" that go unstated and initially appear arbitrary but might have historical ...
Community wiki
2
votes
1
answer
135
views
What is the derivation of the qubit query?
I am reading about the way in which blackbox problems (like Deutsch's problem) were solved and all the sources I've seen state that a quantum blackbox cannot be modelled simply by $|x\rangle \mapsto f(...
2
votes
1
answer
142
views
Why was Feynman asked about boundary values and initial values when he was beginning to describe his quantum computer?
The 1982 publication of a polished transcript of Richard Feynman's 1981 Endicott House keynote lecture on simulating physics with computers is often considered, at least in the West, to be of ...
- 15.8k
1
vote
1
answer
150
views
What's the earliest reference noting that a NOT gate is the same as a Pauli X operator?
Coming from an electrical/computer engineering background, I knew what a NOT gate is well before I learned about the Pauli matrices. But the NOT gate is operationally the same as a Pauli X matrix, ...
5
votes
1
answer
324
views
Did Kitaev prove the QMA-completeness of the Local Hamiltonian problem while on a flight to Chicago?
I believe the first publication of the proof of the QMA-completeness of the Local Hamiltonian Problem is as portions of a chapter in the book Classical and Quantum Computation, by Kitaev, Shen, and ...
- 15.8k
3
votes
0
answers
79
views
What is the origin of the term POVM?
In Nielsen Chuang section 2.2.6 as they are introducing POVMs they write “The acronym POVM stands for ‘Positive Operator-Valued Measure’, a technical term whose historical origins we won’t worry about....
2
votes
1
answer
105
views
What's the distinction between "quantum computation" and "quantum computing"?
Is there a distinction between usage of the terms "quantum computation" and "quantum computing" or are they completely interchangeable?
For example, it is conceivable that "...
8
votes
1
answer
660
views
Happy 30th Anniversary to Shor's Algorithm! How challenging was the review process when it was first announced?
Shor's algorithm dropped 30 years ago sometime in April, 1994. Peter Shor has given many wonderful accounts of the early history of the field and of what sparked his particular interest.
Shor has been ...
11
votes
1
answer
1k
views
(April Fools 2024) Where can we find out more details about the recent factoring of RSA-2048?
[Note that this was originally asked on April 1, 2024, also known as April Fool's day in many Western nations]
I'm hearing some rumors that a combination of neutral atoms (Lukin's group?), in ...
1
vote
1
answer
120
views
Was Deutsch contemplating a positive-operator valued measurement to distinguish balancedness from constancy?
This is a follow up to a couple of questions on Deutsch's foundational paper on quantum Turing machines. In it, he determines $f(0)\oplus f(1)$ with a single query by measuring a state prepared as $\...
3
votes
1
answer
477
views
Why did Deutsch's original algorithm only succeed 50% of the time?
In his landmark 1985 paper "Quantum theory, the Church–Turing principle and the universal quantum computer" Deutsch gives a quantum algorithm to calculate $G(\mathbf f)=f(0)\oplus f(1)$ with ...
2
votes
0
answers
65
views
Do Aharanov and Ta-Shma treat the entries of a sparse Hamiltonian as edges of a graph?
Background and history
The mid-90's to early 2000's work on Hamiltonian simulation saw some pretty rapid advances. Within two years of Shor's algorithm, Lloyd outlined how Trotterization can lead to ...
2
votes
1
answer
350
views
Is Klein's inequality due to Klein?
You may be familiar with "Klein's inequality"; one form of it is
$$
-\operatorname{tr}(\rho \log \sigma) + \operatorname{tr}(\rho \log \rho) \ge 0,
$$
stating that relative entropy is ...
3
votes
1
answer
171
views
What kind of program was Deutsch envisioning to test for the linearity of quantum mechanics?
I've recently been studying Deutsch's 1985 paper "Quantum theory, the Church-Turing principle and the universal quantum computer" (pdf here). In this he endorses the position that a naïve ...
8
votes
1
answer
323
views
Were quantum computers conjectured to factor large numbers before Shor developed his algorithm?
Peter Shor has given wonderful accounts of the development of his algorithm, with a lot of detail on the activity in the field at around the early-mid 90's. He's been very free about emphasizing that ...
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