Handbook of Linear Algebra, 2nd Edition

Chapter 74

Quantum Computation

Zijian Diao

Ohio University Eastern

Modern computer science emerged when the eminent British mathematician Alan Turing invented the concept of Turing machine (TM) in 1936. Though very simple and primitive, TM serves as the universal model for all known physical computation devices. The principles of quantum mechanics, another revolutionary scientific discovery of the 20th century, had never been incorporated in the theory of computation until the early 1980s. Benioff first coined the concept of quantum Turing machine (QTM). Motivated by the problem that classical computers cannot simulate quantum systems efficiently, Feynman posed the quantum computer as the solution. The field of quantum computation was born.