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1 How Scientific Fields Arise?

Computer Science​

Short history of computer evolution​

  • 1936 Alan Turing, On Computable Numbers … → Laid the foundations of computing

  • 1950 First commercial computer

  • 1960 Mainframe computers (IBM) First CS Department at Purdue University

  • 1970–1980 Personal computers (Xerox PARC, Apple) Development of the Internet

  • 1990 World Wide Web

Computer Science as a Science​

  • Advances in technology drive new scientific theories
  • Major areas include:
    • Algorithms
    • Computational complexity
    • Computer architecture
    • Networks
    • Distributed computing
    • Cryptography
    • Machine learning

Modern Cryptography​

  • 1970–1980 Distributed computing emerges as a new computing model → Electronic commerce becomes possible

  • 1976 Diffie & Hellman invent public-key cryptography → Enables security for e-commerce → Birth of modern cryptography

  • Key insight Computational complexity theory (originally driven by intellectual curiosity) turns out to be central to modern cryptographic theory

Multiparty Computation (MPC)​

Multiparty Computation (MPC) is a cryptographic concept proposed by Yao (1982) that allows computation to be performed on encrypted values.

Using MPC, n parties holding inputs x1,…,xnx_1, \dots, x_n can jointly compute any function f(x1,…,xn)f(x_1, \dots, x_n) without revealing their individual input xjx_j to others.

AI Security​

  • Example A: Current ChatGPT — Zero Privacy

  • Example B: Existential Risks — LLM Out of Control

  • Example C: AI Can Make Catastrophic Decisions

Quantum Computing​

The Strange World of Quantum​

Computer Science​

  • Computing and communication have been based on classical Boolean logic.

Physics​

  • The quantum nature of the world was established about 100 years ago (1900–1930).
  • Key contributors:
    • Planck
    • Einstein
    • Bohr
    • Heisenberg
    • Schrödinger
    • Dirac

The Origin of Quantum Computing​

1981​

  • Richard Feynman proposed the concept of a quantum computer.
  • Motivation: classical computers cannot efficiently simulate quantum systems.

1994​

  • Peter Shor developed a quantum factoring algorithm.
  • Demonstrated that quantum computers can efficiently solve integer factorization, breaking widely used public-key cryptosystems (e.g., RSA).

1996​

  • Peter Shor showed that the major bottleneck of quantum computing, namely quantum noise and decoherence, can be addressed via quantum error correction.

Around 2010​

  • Advances in superconducting qubits and trapped-ion technologies suggested the feasibility of large-scale quantum computers.
  • David Wineland (Nobel Prize 2012) contributed key experimental progress in trapped-ion quantum systems.

Shor's Factoring Algorithm​

Shor (1994) showed that ideas similar to Simon’s algorithm can be used to design an efficient quantum algorithm for factoring large integers.

By reducing integer factorization to a hidden-structure (period-finding) problem, Shor’s algorithm can efficiently recover the secret factors ( p, q ) from ( N = p \times q ), something believed to be infeasible for classical algorithms.

Quantum Computing: An Interdisciplinary Science​

Quantum computing is a convergence of deep ideas from physics, computer science, mathematics, chemistry, and related fields such as materials science and engineering.

It emerges as a powerful interdisciplinary science where interactions between disciplines and disruptive technologies enable fundamentally new ways to explore and understand computation.