Charles Bennett
The IBM physicist who, with Gilles Brassard, invented quantum key distribution and then quantum teleportation.
Bennett joined IBM Research in 1972 and showed the following year that computation can in principle be made logically reversible, a result tying information theory to thermodynamics. In 1984 he and Brassard published BB84, the first quantum key distribution protocol, and in 1989 they built the first working demonstration — photons sent a little over 30 centimetres through the air in a darkened room.
In 1993 he co-authored the description of quantum teleportation, transferring an unknown quantum state using entanglement plus classical communication. The Wolf Prize in Physics followed in 2018 and the 2023 Turing Award, both shared with Brassard. Computing's top honour going to two people whose most important machine was an optical bench says something about how far the field has stretched.