Quantum Computing
Quantum Computing
Quantum Computing
Quantum Theory
To illustrate this theory, we can use the famous and somewhat cruel analogy
of Schrodinger's Cat. First, we have a living cat and place it in a thick lead
box. At this stage, there is no question that the cat is alive. We then throw in a
vial of cyanide and seal the box. We do not know if the cat is alive or if it has
broken the cyanide capsule and died. Since we do not know, the cat is both
dead and alive, according to quantum law - in a superposition of states. It is
only when we break open the box and see what condition the cat is in that the
superposition is lost, and the cat must be either alive or dead.
Quantum Programming
Perhaps even more intriguing than the sheer power of quantum computing is
the ability that it offers to write programs in a completely new way. For
example, a quantum computer could incorporate a programming sequence
that would be along the lines of "take all the superpositions of all the prior
computations" - something which is meaningless with a classical computer -
which would permit extremely fast ways of solving certain mathematical
problems, such as factorization of large numbers, one example of which we
discuss below.
There have been two notable successes thus far with quantum programming.
The first occurred in 1994 by Peter Shor, (now at AT&T Labs) who developed
a quantum algorithm that could efficiently factorize large numbers. It centers
on a system that uses number theory to estimate the periodicity of a large
number sequence. The other major breakthrough happened with Lov Grover
of Bell Labs in 1996, with a very fast algorithm that is proven to be the fastest
possible for searching through unstructured databases. The algorithm is so
efficient that it requires only, on average, roughly N square root (where N is
the total number of elements) searches to find the desired result, as opposed
to a search in classical computing, which on average needs N/2 searches.
The above sounds promising, but there are tremendous obstacles still to be
overcome. Some of the problems with quantum computing are as follows:
Even though there are many problems to overcome, the breakthroughs in the
last 15 years, and especially in the last 3, have made some form of practical
quantum computing not unfeasible, but there is much debate as to whether
this is less than a decade away or a hundred years into the future. However,
the potential that this technology offers is attracting tremendous interest from
both the government and the private sector. Military applications include the
ability to break encryptions keys via brute force searches, while civilian
applications range from DNA modeling to complex material science analysis.
It is this potential that is rapidly breaking down the barriers to this technology,
but whether all barriers can be broken, and when, is very much an open
question
REFRENCES
www.google.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing
https://www.research.ibm.com/ibm-q/learn/what-is-
quantum-computing/
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/quantum-
computing