Simulating Physics with Computers Richard Feynman

Abstract

A digital computer is generally believed to be an efficient universal computing device; that is, it is believed able to simulate any physical computing device with an increase in computation time of at most a polynomial factor. This may not be true when quantum mechanics is taken into consideration. This paper considers factoring integers and finding discrete logarithms, two problems which are generally thought to be hard on a classical computer and have been used as the basis of several proposed cryptosystems. Efficient randomized algorithms are given for these two problems on a hypothetical quantum computer. These algorithms take a number of steps polynomial in the input size, e.g., the number of digits of the integer to be factored. AMS subject classifications: 82P10, 11Y05, 68Q10. 1 Introduction One of the first results in the mathematics of computation, which underlies the subsequent development of much of theoretical computer science, was the distinction between computable and ...