Quantum Computers: A review of Powers and Applications

Abstract

Computers based on quantum physics can store and conduct calculations using quantum physics. Even our most powerful supercomputers can't keep up with these machines in certain cases. Information is stored in binary bits on classic devices like laptops and smartphones. The qubit, or quantum bit, is the smallest unit of memory in quantum computers. An electron's spin may be used to make qubits; for example a photon can be used to make one. A characteristic known as quantum superposition allows these systems to be in a variety of configurations at once. Using quantum entanglement, which is a real possibility, two or more qubits may be made to be irrevocably connected. In the year 1900, Max Planck gave a lecture in which he introduced the concept of quantum mechanics. At the German Physical Society, Planck established the concept of discrete units of energy and matter. The contemporary knowledge of quantum theory is the result of more than three decades of research by a variety of scientists.

The discovery of quantum computing's fundamental components was the first step. At Argonne National Labs in 1981, Paul Benioff conceived the notion of a computer that used quantum mechanics. David Deutsch, a theoretical physicist at Oxford University, is widely credited with inventing quantum computing. Quantum computer design became an interest of his in 1984, leading him to write an important breakthrough work in the same year.