Quantum Computing
Benjamin Schumacher
Coined the word 'qubit' and founded quantum information theory.
United States · United States
Who they were
A physicist at Kenyon College in Ohio, and a gifted popular teacher of physics.
What they found or built
In 1995 he proved that quantum information can be compressed, down to a limit set by the von Neumann entropy, just as Shannon showed for classical bits. In the same paper he introduced the term 'qubit', a word he has credited to a conversation with William Wootters, for the basic unit of quantum information.
Why it mattered
Schumacher put quantum information on the same footing as Shannon's theory, with its own measure of quantity and its own coding theorems. The word 'qubit' now fills the field.
Equations and key ideas
- The qubit
- Quantum data compression