Powerful Future of Quantum Computing
Computers have become a necessity in our day-to-day life whether it is for business or studies or just for having fun and socialization. Can you imagine a day without chatting on Facebook or tweeting on Twitter? The modern computers with such huge power and speed of today don't come from only a single invention, but these are the products of great ideas, inventions, and developments contributed by many people through the course of time.
Quantum Computers and Qubits
Computers are classified according to their functions. The computers that we are using now are called digital computers because they make use of digits 0 to 9. The scientists have invented a new breed of computers called quantum computers.
The mechanical resonator, which was placed in a superposition, is situated in the bottom left of the chip
These quantum states of matter also known as qubits are scaled up to perform calculation. There is not much variation between a single digital calculation and a single qubit calculation, but the difference is huge when the qubits are scaled up and they can easily outperform our computers.
A 6 x 6 centimeter chip can accommodate nine quantum devices and four of the quantum devices are quantum bits that do the calculations. Scientists are sure that they can scale up to 10 qubits in the near future. This quantum bit or qubit is the fundamental unit of information in a quantum computer. Qubit does not rely on the traditional binary nature of computing.
The computers that we are using now encode information into bits using binary numbers either 0 or 1 and these can only do calculation on one set of numbers at a time. The quantum computer encodes information as quantum states such as spin directions of electrons or polarization orientations of photons, which are characterized as zero or one. These quantum states represent a superposition of many different numbers at once.
In other words a qubit can exist as a zero, a one, or simultaneously as both zero and one, with a numerical coefficient representing the probability for each state. By doing a computation on many different numbers at once, it can certainly perform a myriad of operations at any single point in time.
Erik Lucero of University of California said in a BBC interview that he is excited because we have made huge improvements in quantum computer development and we have reached a point where we are able to discuss about the type of architecture we are going to use if we make a quantum processor.
Josephson Junction Quantum Computing at UCSB
John Martinis who led the research told BBC News that they have solved the problem of turning off interactions, but still they have many other things to do. This new invention of quantum computers is the beginning of a new era in the world of computers. These computers would get better and better each year and who knows maybe in the recent future it might become available to the public for purchase and use.
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