Computers that Can Compute the Impossible
What is a QC and why is it so tough to build one?
Computers have become an integral part of our life. Be it in research fields, technological advancements, or space explorations, nothing is possible in today’s world without computers. In the past few decades, we have reduced the size of computers and increased their computation capacity to a great extent. For instance, modern-day smartphones are way too advanced in terms of computation ability than those military ones that used to occupy entire rooms in terms of sizes in the 1940s and 50s. Despite all these facts, our modern-day computers aren’t perfect in many regards. If I were to point out one of the most common limitations of modern-day computers, it would be their speed. The speed because they take quite a bit of time in solving complex mathematical problems. To talk about other issues, the problems of energy consumption and storage are quite evident in modern-day computers too. These limitations demand the sort of computers that are better than conventional computers in every field and every aspect.
Companies like Google, IBM, and Intel have been working on developing such computers for the past decade or so. These are quantum computers- the computers that work on the principle of Quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that deals with the study of atomic and sub-atomic particles. Mathematically and experimentally speaking, quantum mechanics is absurd as the phenomena at the quantum level are quite weird in the sense that they defy basic logic and human understanding. Let me explain, the particles at the small scale can pop in and out of existence out of nowhere, they can exist in multiple quantum states at the same time (quantum superposition), and the observation or measurement of the phenomena associated with quantum particles can affect the phenomena themselves, also known as the observer effect. These are some of the phenomena that make it sound unnatural when we compare them with what we see in the macroscopic world in our day-to-day lives. But they are true, at least mathematically, and most of them, experimentally as well. Now, quantum computers use the principles of quantum physics for computation. The basic functioning quantum computers have already been made and tested with fundamental mathematical calculations. The aforementioned companies are working rigorously to develop the production of quantum computers on a large and advanced scale. If quantum computers’ production…
