Stephen Jordan's Homepage

picture of me
sjordan (at) caltech (dot) edu
Postdoc at IQI, Caltech
PhD in Physics 2008 MIT
BS in Physics 2003 Penn State

Presently I study quantum algorithms and fault-tolerance of quantum computers.

Research

It is now believed that quantum computers can solve certain problems more efficiently than classical computers. For example, quantum algorithms have been discovered which can factor large numbers in an amount of time which varies roughly as the cube of the number of digits. In contrast, the best known classical algorithm for factoring requires time which grows exponentially with the number of digits.

Such results raise many questions. The two main questions I am currently interested in are:

  1. How can we build a quantum computer?
  2. What could we do with a quantum computer if we had one?
For more information see my list of publications, most of which are available online.

In the course of writing my thesis I compiled a list of all the quantum algorithms I am aware of. I have now put this quantum algorithm zoo online with the hope that it will be a useful resource.

My previous research involved condensed matter experiment and simulation.

Teaching

I have had the privilege of working with many excellent students. At MIT, I was teaching assistant for junior lab I in fall 2004 and for junior lab II in spring 2005. In addition, I was a referee for term papers in quantum mechanics III during spring 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.

Stephen's Other Pages

Quantum Algorithm Zoo
Tbtools
Mathematica & Ubuntu
Quotations
Links 		- A list of quantum algorithms
- Molecular modeling software
- How to get it to work
- Science and math quotations
- For science enthusiasts
This page was last updated 6/13/09.