Quote:
Originally Posted by AllAboutCams
I saw something on Reddit about this and it sounds like a load of crap.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer
A quantum computer (also known as a quantum supercomputer) is a computation device that makes direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from digital computers based on transistors. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded into binary digits (bits), quantum computation uses quantum properties to represent data and perform operations on these data.[1] A theoretical model is the quantum Turing machine, also known as the universal quantum computer. Quantum computers share theoretical similarities with non-deterministic and probabilistic computers. One example is the ability to be in more than one state simultaneously. The field of quantum computing was first introduced by Yuri Manin in 1980[2] and Richard Feynman in 1982.[3][4] A quantum computer with spins as quantum bits was also formulated for use as a quantum space?time in 1969.[5]
As of 2014 quantum computing is still in its infancy but experiments have been carried out in which quantum computational operations were executed on a very small number of qubits (quantum bits).[6] Both practical and theoretical research continues, and many national governments and military funding agencies support quantum computing research to develop quantum computers for both civilian and national security purposes, such as cryptanalysis.[7]
Large-scale quantum computers will be able to solve certain problems much more quickly than any classical computer using the best currently known algorithms, like integer factorization using Shor's algorithm or the simulation of quantum many-body systems. There exist quantum algorithms, such as Simon's algorithm, which run faster than any possible probabilistic classical algorithm.[8] Given sufficient computational resources, a classical computer could be made to simulate any quantum algorithm; quantum computation does not violate the Church?Turing thesis.[9] However, the computational basis of 500 qubits, for example, would already be too large to be represented on a classical computer because it would require 2500 complex values (2501 bits) to be stored.[10] (For comparison, a terabyte of digital information is only 243 bits.)