Skip to Content
A Practical Guide to Quantum Computing
book

A Practical Guide to Quantum Computing

by Elías F. Combarro, Samuel González-Castillo
July 2025
Beginner to intermediate
512 pages
11h 48m
English
Packt Publishing
Content preview from A Practical Guide to Quantum Computing

Chapter  11 Finding the Period and Factoring Numbers

The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. Ecclesiastes 1:5

This is one of the most important chapters of this book, for it introduces what many consider to be the most relevant quantum algorithm ever conceived: Shor’s algorithm for integer factorization. This was one of the first quantum algorithms to not only show an advantage over any known classical algorithms, but to do it for a problem with enormous practical significance. Indeed, Shor’s algorithm has strong implications regarding the security of certain encryption protocols that are used on a daily basis on the Internet. For all this, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of Shor’s algorithm—and we ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Quantum Computing

Quantum Computing

Nihal Mehta
Quantum Computing

Quantum Computing

Andrew Glasner
Quantum Computing For Dummies

Quantum Computing For Dummies

whurley, Floyd Earl Smith

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781835885949