Quantum Computers Explained

There are more than 400 million transistors packed in a single Intel dual core processor which will double after two years in accordance to the Moore’s law. But the Moore’s law is expected to reach its limit and what will we do then when our old computer will have the same computing power to the one launched new. Here when quantum computing comes to play. Quantum Computers promise us capabilities million of times greater than the present electronic computers. Quantum computers are the future and quench our thirst for more computing power.

What Are Quantum Computers?

The computers we use today simply work by turning a number of switches on or off, 0 or 1. We use bits and all the data is stored in form of binary data. Your data, documents, music and videos are all just long strands of 0s and 1s packed in 8-digit strands.

Quantum computer use a different logic to operate…there building block are called qubits (atoms). 



Unlike binary data this qubits can be 0 or 1 or +1, -1, and anything between 0 and 1 which leads to unlimited number of possibilities. Quantum computers operate on principles of quantum mechanics such as superposition and entanglement

History of Quantum Computing

The first theoretical model of a quantum computer is the quantum Turing machine, also known as the universal quantum computer. He said “There exists or can be built a universal quantum computer that can be programmed to perform any computational task that can be performed by any physical object”. The field of quantum computing was first introduced by Richard Feynman in 1982.  In 1989 David Deutsch, University of Oxford proved that all the computational capabilities of any finite machine obeying the laws of quantum computation are contained in a single machine called as a 'universal quantum computer.

Quantum Computing at Present

Current centers of research in quantum computing include MIT, IBM, Oxford University, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Early in the year there was a reported creation of a 300 qubit simulator at National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST). The scientists collected three hundred beryllium ions in a device called a Penning Trap, creating a two dimensional grid. The qubits in the simulator are the magnetic spins of the outermost electron of each ion.

Applications of Quantum Computing

Quantum computers have their benefit and disadvantages. Where quantum computers are real difficult to build their application in the field of cryptography are limitless. We know that quantum computers will be better than traditional computers at decryption, owing to their ability to quickly factor large numbers. That MIT news article pointed to a study that found that quantum computers would be useful for solving systems of linear equations, making them useful for highly complex calculations -- like modeling proteins or weather systems. Weather prediction for which we use super computers now a days but still we are not able to predict accurately enough will have a considerable improvement in calculating weather change due to large computation power of quantum computers.

Future of Quantum Computers

Almost three decades ago, Richard Feynman — known popularly as much for his  brilliant insights into physics — told an electrified audience at MIT how to build a computer so powerful that its simulations “will do exactly the same as nature.” We might wait another 15 or 20 years before seeing a functional quantum computer but before we will see computers that will compute at a molecular level rather than computing at atomic level (quantum computers). Programming a quantum computer is still something that needs working. Once we develop a way of doing this; the future of quantum computers is very bright.Here is a video about the future application of quantum computing