Det var Richard Feynman, som i 1982 foreslog, at man skulle forsøge at simulere kvantemekaniske objekter i kvantemekanikken selv, i form af en [[kvantecomputer]]. I 1985 offentliggjorde [[David Deutsch]] en banebrydende artikel med en beskrivelse af den universelle kvantecomputer. I 1994 beviste [[Peter Shor]], at man med en kvantecomputer kunne faktorisere tal eksponentielt hurtigere end på en klassisk computer.<ref>[http://www-math.mit.edu/~shor/elecpubs.html Peter Shor]: [http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9508027 Polynomial-time algorithms for prime factorization and discrete logarithms on a quantum computer], This paper shows that efficient algorithms for prime factorization and discrete logarithms exist on a quantum computer. It is a substantally expanded and revised version of my paper in the 1994 Symposium of Foundations on Computer Science (see below), and appears in the SIAM Journal of Computing 26, pp. 1484-1509 (1997).</ref>
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