With the new advancements, we are welcoming new technologies day by day. One such breakthrough in technology is Quantum Computers. Although humans have reached a milestone by inventing really fast supercomputers, there are still certain tasks unhandled by these computers such as calculating the prime factors of very large integers. Quantum Computers are way ahead of classical computers and soon they will become our super-powerful companion in the future.
Let’s learn about Quantum Computers,
Quantum computers are being devised to eliminate the limitations of classical computers in terms of storage and speed. Their functionality in terms of handling computational problems is far ahead of the computers that we are using now.
A Brief introduction about Quantum Computers
As we are all aware of the architectural design of classical computers, which comprises of transistors that are further joined to form gates such as AND, OR, NOT. The combination of these gates is used to solve any problem with our computer. Along with this, it is important to mention here that these gates work on inputs in the form of ‘0’ and ’1’ which are also known as Classical Bits.
Similarly, Quantum Computers work on the principle of Quantum physics. As in Quantum physics electrons, protons and neutrons are represented by using spins, similarly, in Quantum Computers there are Qubits.
These qubits have a special characteristic of taking values in the combination of 0 and1. It means that unlike the classical computers that take 0 or 1 as input at one point of time. The qubits assume values in combination.
Let’s understand this with the help of an example.
Consider a coin spinning on a tabletop, while it is spinning, it exists in both the states of head as well as tail but as soon as it rests on the table it would either result in head or tail. The same is the scenario with qubits; they take values in the form of 0, 1 and 01 together. It means that as a software developer takes the case of if, else individually.
Quantum computers are programmed to take the case of both cases simultaneously. This super feature of quantum computers makes them much faster than classical computers.
Principles explaining the working of quantum computers
- Phenomenon of Superposition
- Entanglement
Superposition in Quantum Computing
Well, the entire physics lover might have heard this word before; however, this may be a new term to many computer science experts reading this article.
Let’s have a look at this phenomenon,
This principle is used in the case of quantum physics, wherein a particle is considered to exhibit the properties of both particles as well as a wave. This can be understood in the way that before finally observing an object, it can assume multiple probable states. Taking all the probabilities together is the principle on which quantum computers are based.
We can also make it easy for us by discussing an experiment by eminent scientist Schrodinger popularly known as Schrodinger’s Cat experiment.
He placed a live cat inside a closed box along with some radioactive material (which decay after some period of time and emit harmful radioactive waves) for some time. Now, before observing a cat after opening a box, there are 50 percent chances of it being dead or alive. It can be in both dead as well as live states before we finally get our answer.
Entanglement
This property in a supercomputer is responsible for its exceptionally large computation speed. This property comes into play when there are more than one qubits and they interact with each other. Each qubit possesses its own magnetic field and this magnetic field has the capacity to change the superposition or state of another qubit. These qubits exist in opposite directions during their entangled states.
It means that one qubit can exist in any of the superposition states of spin up or spin down, along with it, the magnetic field produced by this qubit will affect the superposition state of another qubit, but during their entanglement, they will always have spins opposite to each other.
More the number of qubits more will be the entangled states produced which are hard to code with the help of classical computers. These rising states of qubits enrich the quantum computer with very fast computational speed.
On the other hand, building Quantum computers is not so easy. They are also marred by certain limitations,
- It is difficult to carry out an entangled state because being a fragile state; it is prone to distortions in the outer world and requires a very controlled environment.
- Quantum computers need to be maintained at a temperature near absolute zero which is hard to achieve.
A galloping science will soon achieve new heights, we will welcome a new dawn of quantum computers in the future.