Timeline
The field's chronology, with every entry carrying an evidence tag and a primary source. Filter by the evidence level you trust.
Feynman argues nature should be simulated quantum-mechanically ●Peer-reviewedPeer-reviewed: Published in a refereed venue. Int. J. Theor. Phys. 21, 467 (1982) ↗
Richard Feynman's 'Simulating Physics with Computers' keynote frames the founding argument: exact classical simulation of quantum systems scales badly, so use a quantum machine.
Shor's algorithm ●Peer-reviewedPeer-reviewed: Published in a refereed venue. Proc. 35th FOCS (1994) ↗
Peter Shor shows a quantum computer could factor integers and take discrete logarithms efficiently: the result that ties quantum computing to cryptography forever.
Grover's search algorithm ●Peer-reviewedPeer-reviewed: Published in a refereed venue. Proc. 28th STOC (1996) ↗
Lov Grover proves a quadratic quantum speedup for unstructured search: broad, real, and much more modest than exponential.
Google claims quantum supremacy on a sampling benchmark ✕DisputedDisputed: A credible published challenge exists. Nature 574, 505 (2019); challenge: IBM Research blog, Oct 2019 ↗
A 53-qubit processor performs a contrived sampling task claimed to be classically infeasible. IBM published a credible challenge to the classical-runtime estimate: the canonical example of why benchmark claims need scrutiny.
Nobel Prize for entanglement experiments ■OfficialOfficial: Standards body or institutional primary source. NobelPrize.org ↗
Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger honored for Bell-test experiments establishing that entanglement's 'spookiness' is physically real.
The logical-qubit era begins ●Peer-reviewedPeer-reviewed: Published in a refereed venue. e.g. Google Quantum AI, Nature 638, 920 (2024) ↗
Multiple groups demonstrate error-corrected logical qubits improving as code size grows — the 'below threshold' behavior the field considers its honest scoreboard.
NIST publishes the first post-quantum encryption standards ■OfficialOfficial: Standards body or institutional primary source. NIST CSRC announcement ↗
FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA) are approved: the starting gun for the worldwide cryptography migration.
NIST selects HQC as an additional PQC algorithm ■OfficialOfficial: Standards body or institutional primary source. NIST PQC project ↗
A code-based backup encryption algorithm joins the standardization portfolio, diversifying beyond lattices.
Legend: ●Peer-reviewed ◐Preprint ▲Vendor ✕Disputed ◆Analyst ■Official : tags never rely on color alone; each carries a distinct glyph.