Comparing today’s computing system with quantum computing can be tricky, but there’s one common example. We could imagine that we are in a very large office building and we are asked to retrieve a piece of paper on the desk in one of the hundreds of rooms. Because today’s computers are based on the binary strings of 0 and 1, they will open one room at a time and use value 0 for room with no paper and 1 for room with paper. Each room will be checked until the paper is found. With quantum computing, instead of searching one room at a time, we would create hundreds of copy of ourselves, one for each room and the paper will be discovered almost instantly. This may seem like a ridiculous concept, but anyone who has learned theoretical quantum physics, they know that many concepts in this area seem to defy plain logic.
Based quantum physics principles, it is possible to build an incredibly powerful computer. A fully operational quantum computer is theorized by a scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories to be extremely powerful. Large numbers can be factored in seconds and it is a task that even the fastest conventional computers can’t achieve. The discussion whether it is actually possible to build a quantum computer will require complex discussions. Concepts on quantum computing first appeared when Richard Feynman found that simulating a quantum mechanics scenario will result in computational problems. Not only calculating behaviours of sub-atomic particles, scientists also need to include the existence of extra dimensions, as well as changes in flow of time, gravity and mass.
Research on quantum computing in 1980’s and it was believed that quantum computing could really speed up the factoring task. This can be applied into real world computing applications, such as global weather analysis and complex encryption. Although it’s already more than 30 years ago when the concept was stated, we still haven’t seen real progress in quantum computing technology. However, experts say that it will become a reality. There are many challenges associated with the actual construction of quantum computing. In today’s computers, the binary values of 0 and 1 are represented by different amounts of electricity. Quantum computer is a completely different entity, it isn’t associated with simulating 0 and 1, no matter how fast.
Actually, quantum computers literally sound like magical devices. A single piece of quantum computing hardware could exist in multiple realities. These realities are overlapping one another and they affect one another. A common logic will say that it is the same with interconnecting multiple identical computers in the same room, just like normal networks. However, with quantum computing, it is theoretically possible to incorporate millions or billions of realities, making the whole system incredibly powerful. At the moment, there’s still no technology that allows us to manage multiple realities. Managing identical computers in different realities is also very difficult, they need to work like computers in a network. Slight shift in reality connections, results can be negated or get jumbled.
