Tonight's SFI public lecture:
Begin forwarded message:
Date: April 13, 2011 8:37:41 AM MDT
Subject: [Activities-announce] SFI Community Lecture — Tonight, April 13, 2011 • 7:30 p.m. • James A. Little Theater
|
*** SFI Community Lecture ***
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 • 7:30 p.m. • James A. Little Theater
|
Sending Secrets:
Security and Cryptography in a Quantum World
Cristopher Moore
Professor, Computer Science, Physics, and Astronomy, University of New Mexico; Professor, Santa Fe Institute
Abstract: Caesar encrypted his messages by shifting each letter three places in the alphabet. Modern computer science was born in the effort to break the Nazi Enigma code, and Cold War spies used code books that fit inside a walnut. Nowadays, the cryptography we depend on every day — for instance, to send our credit card information when we buy something on the Web — relies on the mathematics of prime numbers. But in 1994, Peter Shor discovered that a future quantum computer could crack our cryptosystems by breaking large numbers into their prime factors. Cris will start by describing how these cryptosystems work, and how a quantum computer could break them. (Nothing beyond high-school math, he promises!) He’ll end by giving a personal view about whether quantum computers can be built — and what kinds of cryptography could remain secure even if and when they are built.
http://www.santafe.edu/gevent/detail/public/406/ ************* The Santa Fe Institute's mission is to foster a transdisciplinary research community that endeavors to expand the boundaries of scientific understanding. Its aim is to discover and comprehend the common fundamental principles in physical, computational, biological, and social systems that underlie many of the most profound problems facing science and society today.
|
|
|
_______________________________________________
Activities-announce mailing list
[hidden email]
http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/mailman/listinfo/activities-announce
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org
Locked
