Celebrating the 40-year anniversary of the Physics of Computation Conference
In IBMMIT Endicott House was recently featured in IBM Research, which marked the 40-year anniversary of the landmark 1981 Physics of Computation Conference jointly organized by MIT and IBM and held at Endicott House. The article reflects on how that gathering of pioneers like Richard Feynman, Rolf Landauer, and Charles Bennett helped establish the modern fields of quantum information and quantum computing, and explains how the QC40 virtual event brought original attendees and new leaders together to assess four decades of progress and envision the next 40 years of advances in quantum hardware, algorithms, and applications. Read an excerpt of the article below:
Forty years ago, a ragtag group of 50 thinkers arranged themselves for a photo on the lawn of MIT’s Endicott House. Few at the Physics of Computation Conference, jointly organized by MIT and IBM, thought they were making history in 1981. None had the conference’s subject as their day job. At the time the physics and computing were viewed as largely separate, and their overlap was mainly the subject of speculation.
Today, that conference holds more weight than any of us could have imagined. Perhaps due to the gravitas of its sponsoring institutions, and the fame of some of the attendees, it was arguably the birthplace of physics of computing, and especially the now-burgeoning field of quantum computing, as a serious subject worthy of a textbook or university course.
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