Quantum cryptology
Roger Colbeck
26 September 2014
8.50pm - 9.20pmKing's Manor, K/G07 (map)
FREE admission
No booking requiredNo wheelchair access
Event details
Cryptography is a part of everyday life, although it often goes unnoticed. When shopping online we want to give the seller our credit card details, while ensuring that no-one else can access them. This is done by encoding the card number in such a way that (hopefully) only the seller can decode it.
Ever since the first codes were used, an 'arms race' between code makers and code breakers has been underway. Codes are made, then broken, then new ones are made and so on. Could this cycle be about to come to an end? Roger will introduce some research going on in York that is beginning to open the door to a fundamentally new cryptographic paradigm. The idea is to exploit one of the great physical theories of the 20th century: quantum mechanics. Come along to find out how using 'quantum bits' in cryptography allows us to do what would otherwise be impossible.