| Year |
Event |
| 1905 |
Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric effect and suggests that light itself consists of
individual quantum particles or photons. |
| 1924 |
The term quantum mechanics is first used in a paper by Max Born. |
| 1925 |
Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascual Jordan formulate matrix mechanics, the first
conceptually autonomous and logically consistent formulation of quantum mechanics. |
| 1925 to 1927 |
Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg develop the Copenhagen interpretation, one of the earliest
interpretations of quantum mechanics which remains one of the most commonly taught. |
| 1930 |
Paul Dirac publishes The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, a textbook that has become a
standard reference book that is still used today. |
| 1935 |
Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen publish a paper highlighting the
counterintuitive nature of quantum superpositions and arguing that the description of
physical reality provided by quantum mechanics is incomplete. |
| 1935 |
Erwin Schrodinger develops a thought experiment in which a cat (known as
Schrodinger's cat) is simultaneously dead and alive; Schrodinger also coins the term
"quantum entanglement". |
| 1980 |
Paul Benioff describes the first quantum mechanical model of a computer, showing that
quantum computers are theoretically possible. |
| 1985 |
David Deutsch develops the idea of a universal quantum computer: a way to mathematically
understand what is possible on a quantum computer. |
| 1994 |
Peter Shor develops "Shor's algorithm", which would allow a quantum computer to factor large
numbers much faster than a classical computer. |
