Origin of The Concept and Term
The concept of the qubit was unknowingly introduced by Stephen Wiesner in 1983, in his proposal for unforgeable quantum money, which he had tried to publish for over a decade.
The coining of the term "qubit" is attributed to Benjamin Schumacher. In the acknowledgments of his paper, Schumacher states that the term qubit was invented in jest (due to its phonological resemblance with an ancient unit of length called cubit), during a conversation with William Wootters. The paper describes a way of compressing states emitted by a quantum source of information so that they require fewer physical resources to store. This procedure is now known as Schumacher compression.
Read more about this topic: Qubit
Famous quotes containing the words origin of the, origin of, origin, concept and/or term:
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)
“The nearer a conception comes towards finality, the nearer does the dynamic relation, out of which this concept has arisen, draw to a close. To know is to lose.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“We term sleep a death ... by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.”
—Thomas Browne (1605–1682)