Quantum computers aren't for browsing the Internet, checking email, or running standard software.
Instead, they rely on the underpinnings of quantum mechanics, a branch of physics that's defied conventional understanding for about 100 years, to manipulate individual particles and solve previously unsolvable problems.
If you wanted to say that a quantum computer runs on magic, you wouldn't be too far off. Science fiction daydreams like time travel and teleportation are run of the mill when we're dealing with objects this tiny (think: smaller than an individual atom). The "rules" don't apply.
This opens up some exciting possibilities, especially in a branch of mathematics known as optimization, which is pretty much what it sounds like: finding the best answer from a large set of potential answers. For such a specific slice of math, this field addresses some of the most tangible problems in the real world. What's the best route for a UPS truck to make its deliveries? How do you schedule flights at an airport to keep things running smoothly?
Conventional computers are ill-equipped to handle certain optimization calculations. Professor Daniel Lidar, scientific director at the USC Lockheed-Martin Center for Quantum Computing, says that "it would take many times the age of the universe to try to identify the folded states of a protein, and yet nature can do this in seconds, maybe minutes. It's had billions of years to think about it."
In a way, quantum computing taps into nature's ability to interact with the world. That might be a tough thought to comprehend, but it's only the tip of the iceberg.
Quantum computers rely on quantum mechanics to work, and quantum mechanics is CRAZY.
The rules for the microscopic particles that make up atoms are drastically different from the rules for macroscopic objects that we can see with the naked eye.
For example, quantum particles can exist in two places at once, move forwards or backwards in time, and even "teleport" by way of what physicists call "quantum tunneling."
This is the stuff of science fiction to us, but in the quantum world it's business as usual. And scientists can't really explain it.
No one knows for sure what happens inside a quantum computer.
A widely-known tenet of quantum mechanics (and science in general) is that the simple act of observation changes the outcome of an event. We are limited by the precision of our instruments, and this is especially true of a scientist's inquisitive eyeballs. A quantum particle observed or otherwise measured is a quantum particle changed forever.
Forget the digital bits of ones and zeroes – quantum computers use qubits, and these things are wild.
At your personal computer's core, it is manipulating bits – digital representations of zero and one, nothing else.
A quantum computer uses quantum bits, called qubits, to crunch through its operations. Just like bits, qubits can represent either a zero or one, but the real juice is in their third state, called the "superposition"– they can represent both one and zero at the same time.
This quirky ability means that the same string of qubits can represent lots of different things simultaneously. For example, a set of two qubits in superposition represents four possible situations at the same time– [0, 0]; [0, 1]; [1, 0]; or [1, 1].
Is this starting to get hard to follow? It's okay! Some of the very intelligent people who study it for a living are just as perplexed.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider