title: Quantum Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award
author: Ben Brubaker
contenttype: article
publication: Quanta Magazine
published: 2026-03-18T09:00:36+00:00
sourceurl: https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-cryptography-pioneers-win-turing-award-20260318/
word_count: 69
One afternoon in October 1979, Gilles Brassard was swimming outside a beachfront hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when a stranger swam up to him and changed the course of his career. Without so much as an introduction, the man began describing a way to create currency that couldn’t be forged. The scheme was based on the laws of quantum physics — a subject Brassard, a computer scientist… Source