Peter Shor on Quantum Factorization and Error Correction

 

This talk by Peter Shor describes the discovery of his quantum algorithm for prime factorization, and the discovery of quantum error correcting codes. The talk commemorates the first conference (Endicott House meeting) on the physics of computation in 1981. See 40 Years of Quantum Computation and Quantum Information.

Shor did not attend the 1981 meeting, where Feynman gave the keynote address Simulating Physics With Computers -- he was in his senior year at Caltech. But he recalls a talk that Feynman gave around the same time, on the possibility that negative probabilities might illuminate the EPR experiment and the Bell inequalities. 

Coincidentally, in my senior year (1986) I got Feynman to give a talk to the Society of Physics Students on this very topic! (I think I was president of SPS at the time.)