Making a quantum computer do Shor's algorithm

[anorlunda]

I think I understand quantum superposition and entanglement, and a qubit. I just finished reading Scott Aaronson's brilliant blog post "Shor I'll Do It" that allowed me to understand Shor's Algorithm and how it relates to QM.

But now I'm missing the next step. How does one "wire up" a number of qubits to implement Shor's algorithm and apply it to find the period of a specific key? Can anyone steer me to a reference that would explain that please?

My mind wants to make an analogy to the earliest computers like the IBM 650 when programming consisted of plugging patch cords into a panel.

photo Daniel Sancho - Flickr: Panel IBMp.s. I guessed that this question would be better in the QM forum than the programming and computer science forum.

 

[Strilanc]

Here's a relevant phd thesis.

Putting the operations directly into the wiring isn't needed, because we have computers and computers are great at "make this happen, then that, then that, then that" kind of stuff. Picture a normal computer telling some specialized hardware to apply specific laser/microwave pulses, and the pulses happen to correspond to the operations making up Shor's algorithm.