Revolutionary Computers?

dwaveys.com

"Everything that can be invented has been invented"

Charles Duell, chairman of the 

United States Patent and Trademark Office, 1890. 

In modern world, everyone would disagree with Charles Duell, because uncountable number of new technology is invented after his time.

In recent years, a company called D-Wave presented a chip costing over 10 000 000$. This chip, Quantum Computer, has to be the most fastest and powerful computer.Today it is owned by Google company and many university researchers are working on this chip. So, what is a quantum computer? How it works and what can it do?

What is a Quantum Computer?

Although we can not fully understand principles of quantum mechanics we believe in validity of its laws. Because in everyday life we see variety of devices operating on the quantum basis. Lasers and scanners can be examlpes of those gadgets. And quantum computer is going to be one of them.

Quantum computer differs from simple computer in information processing. In a simple computer information encoded in bits, which can be either zero or one. Unlikely to traditional computer quantum computer uses qubits (quantum bits) which encodes information in zero, one, or both values at the same time. This is possible because of principle called superposition. Superposition is the ability of an object to be in different states at the same time. 

How does it work?

The professors of Waterloo University explain as follows: “Whereas a classical computer works with ones and zeros, a quantum computer will have the advantage of using ones, zeros, and ‘superpositions’ of ones and zeros. Certain difficult tasks that have long been thought impossible for classical computers will be achieved quickly and efficiently by a quantum computer.” 

Let's compare works of a classical computer and quantum computer. Imagine a landscape with many hills. The aim is here to find the highest point in a landscape. Traditional computer will spent a lot of time to check for each hill separately and to find the highest one, while quantum computer tunnels through whole landscape and finds the highest hill at one instance.

Future of the Quantum Computer

Quantum computer is very valuable in factorization of big numbers. If quantum computer was built today no data would be save on the internet. Quantum computers could be useful in searching large databases in a little amount of time, for which simple computer will spend thousands of hours.

However quantum computing is still in active research and many scientists predict that it is only possible in many years away. Quantum computers must solve real-world problems to be a viable computing method.



Recently librarian Samuel Sass debunked the statement above about Charles Duell. In fact Duell said: "In my opinion, all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold."

Reference:

1) http://www.popmech.ru/technologies/16675-kvantovyy-kompyuter-google-provalil-pervyy-bolshoy-test/
2) http://www.wired.com/2014/05/quantum-computing