Four Fields that Led to Quantum Computing
Physics: The pursuit of the no-cloning theorem led (Quantum) Physics to Quantum Computing. If the no-cloning theorem were disproved or challenged, faster-than-light communication could be possible, violating the principles of special relativity theory.
Computer Science: The question “Is there another model like the probabilistic Turing machine that challenges the Church-Turing thesis?” led Deutsch through (quantum) physics to the Universal Quantum Computer, which is hypothesised to be efficiently simulating arbitrary physical systems.
Information Theory: Noise in quantum systems paved the way for Quantum Information Theory, subsequently giving rise to distributed quantum computation as well as the Networked Quantum Theory, all still in their infancy. Recently, this work was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Cryptography: The interest in cryptanalysis drives strongly the development of more quantum algorithms. The quest for algorithms to factorize integers and solve the discrete logarithms led to quantum algorithms, raising concerns about Post-Quantum Cryptography and the need for new cryptographic approaches.
These four fields converge in driving the development of quantum computing.
