Paul Benioff

Paul Anthony Benioff (1930 to 2022) was an American physicist credited as one of the pioneers of quantum computing. In the early 1980s he demonstrated that a computer could in principle operate according to the laws of quantum mechanics by constructing the first quantum mechanical model of a computer, built from a Turing machine description and the Schrodinger equation, showing that computation and quantum mechanics were not in conflict. He spent most of his career at Argonne National Laboratory, joining in 1961 and working first in its Chemistry Division before moving to its Environmental Impact Division in 1978, remaining at Argonne until his 1995 retirement and continuing there as an emeritus researcher until his death. Beyond his foundational quantum computing model he also researched quantum information theory, quantum robots, and the mathematical foundations of physics.