  The main ideas behind developments in the theory and technology of quantum
computation were formulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s by two physicists
in the West and a mathematician in the former Soviet Union. It is not generally
known in the West that the subject has roots in the Russian technical
literature. The author hopes to present as impartial a synthesis as possible of
the early history of thought on this subject. The role of reversible and
irreversible computational processes is examined briefly as it relates to the
origins of quantum computing and the so-called Information Paradox in physics.
