Peter Shor | |
---|---|
Born |
New York City, New York, U.S. |
August 14, 1959
Residence | United States |
Nationality | American |
Fields | Computer scientist |
Institutions |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bell Labs University of California, Berkeley |
Alma mater |
Caltech Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Doctoral advisor | Tom Leighton |
Known for | Shor's algorithm |
Notable awards |
Putnam Fellow (1978) ICS Prize (2007) |
Putnam Fellow (1978)
Nevanlinna Prize (1998)
MacArthur Fellowship (July 1999)
Gödel Prize (1999)
Peter Williston Shor (born August 14, 1959) is an American professor of applied mathematics at MIT. He is known for his work on quantum computation, in particular for devising Shor's algorithm, a quantum algorithm for factoring exponentially faster than the best currently-known algorithm running on a classical computer.
While attending Tamalpais High School, in Mill Valley, California, he placed third in the 1977 USA Mathematical Olympiad. After graduating that year, he won a silver medal at the International Math Olympiad in Yugoslavia (the U.S. team achieved the most points per country that year). He received his B.S. in Mathematics in 1981 for undergraduate work at Caltech, and was a Putnam Fellow in 1978. He earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT in 1985. His doctoral advisor was F. Thomson Leighton, and his thesis was on probabilistic analysis of bin-packing algorithms.
After graduating, he spent one year in a post-doctoral position at the University of California at Berkeley, and then accepted a position at Bell Laboratories. It was there he developed Shor's algorithm, for which he was awarded the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize at the 23rd International Congress of Mathematicians in 1998 and the Gödel Prize in 1999.