Remember quantum computing, and the quantum computers that make it possible?
Along with superstrings, dark matter, gravitons and controlled fusion (hot or cold), quantum computing is a concept that many people have heard of, even if they know little more about any of these topics than their names.
Some us are vaguely better informed, or think we are, because we have an idea why they’re important, can recite short but inconclusive paragraphs about their basic underlying concepts, and broadly assume that they’ll either be proved, discovered or invented in due course.
Of course, practice sometimes lags far behind theory – controlled nuclear fusion, such as you might use for generating clean(ish) electrical energy, is no more than 20 years away, as the old joke goes, and has been since the 1930s.
And so it is with quantum computing, which promises to confront cryptographers…
