As quantum engineer, Seth Lloyd blithely states, "a quantum computer is to a computer what a laser is to a light bulb. That explains a lot, and nothing. The ability to store, retrieve, and manipulate data on atoms and sub-atomic particles instead of on silicon, plus the ability to have a "bit" of information be in more than one position at the same time (superposition, not off or on, but off and on) a state achievable due to the quantum mechanical nature of our universe, gives perhaps a closer insight into the technology.
“A quantum computer is to a regular computer, what a laser is to a lightbulb”
-- Seth Lloyd, MIT
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The term Quantum Computing has been in the lingo of science for some years now, but it is just making its way into the public consciousness. Quantum computers will not make regular computers obsolete, just as lasers haven't made light bulbs outmoded. The excitement about them pertains to what tasks they will do which have previously only been imagined: break a very large number, say one with 400 digits, into its component parts (factoring), a task critical for encryption of communication data. Currently, it would take a supercomputer billions of years to do this kind of factoring, more time than the age of the Universe. Yet quantum physicists believe that a quantum computer will do the same computation in only a few minutes.
How might quantum computing affect our daily lives? Take areas like the design of new drugs, or the breaking of codes to eavesdrop on private communications, creating new global positioning systems with a degree of precision once unthinkable, and scheduling, planning, and recognition of orderly patterns in highly complex data like making the electronic transference of money super-secure. While quantum computing may revolutionize computing giving vastly new powers, it also exemplifies how highly theoretical physics can suddenly and shockingly have immense practical use. Angels on the head of a pin? Now they're on an atom -- and we're making them work for us.
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David DiVincenzo Ph.D.
Researcher, IBM's Watson Research Center
IBM researcher discusses the infamous Schroedinger's cat and factoring.
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K. Birgitta Whaley Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry, UC Berkeley
Birgitta Whaley talks about solving large problems with nanomachines.
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