A Fast Quantum Mechanical Algorithm for Database Search (1996)
| Venue: | ANNUAL ACM SYMPOSIUM ON THEORY OF COMPUTING |
| Citations: | 734 - 7 self |
BibTeX
@INPROCEEDINGS{Grover96afast,
author = {Lov K. Grover},
title = {A Fast Quantum Mechanical Algorithm for Database Search},
booktitle = {ANNUAL ACM SYMPOSIUM ON THEORY OF COMPUTING},
year = {1996},
pages = {212--219},
publisher = {ACM}
}
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Abstract
Imagine a phone directory containing N names arranged in completely random order. In order to find someone's phone number with a probability of , any classical algorithm (whether deterministic or probabilistic) will need to look at a minimum of names. Quantum mechanical systems can be in a superposition of states and simultaneously examine multiple names. By properly adjusting the phases of various operations, successful computations reinforce each other while others interfere randomly. As a result, the desired phone number can be obtained in only steps. The algorithm is within a small constant factor of the fastest possible quantum mechanical algorithm.
