First Steps in Quantum Computing

 Discovery Cafe Talk: Tuesday, April 9, 5:30-6:30 PM, MC 108.  Pizza to follow immeditaley after!

Speaker: Masoud Khalkhali

Public-key encryption and security of internet communications is based on a certain mathematical hypothesis:factoring a given integer  N is a computationally difficult problem. The best current methods take about

$$O(e^{1.9 (\log N)^{1/3} (\log \log N)^{2/3}})$$

operations. This is almost exponential in log N, the number of digits of N

A quantum computer, running Shor's algorithm, can factor N in

$$O((\log N)^3)$$

steps! This is polynomial in log N, or polynomial time,  and a huge improvement over current methods.

This talk will introduce  mathematics and physics ideas behind quantum computing and Shor's fast factoring quantum computing algorithm.