Zero, one, and all the things in between
Where we learn that each digital revolution starts decades before we see it coming
When I was in the United States as a young computer scientist during the late 1980s, it was just the beginning of the digital revolution that we’re all witnessing nowadays. But the real breakthroughs leading to this revolution actually happened a few decades before. Could it thus be that a another revolution might be in its infancy today, and we just don’t see it coming? In fact, yes, and quantum computing might just be that. But what is quantum computing? And how does it function?
The term „quantum computer“ was coined in the middle of the 20th century by the famous Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman. In those times the stuff to build computers from were transistors. These little devices are either in a given state, or not (the famous 1s and 0s). Based on these two states the first binary digits (or „bits“) were implemented, and humans started to the create first little processors and the first primitive forms of modern physical hard drives.
But Feynman knew that that was not the end of the story. In fact, he and other physicists realised that the state of matter behaved completely different on the very small scale. Tiny particles such as atoms could be in multiple states at the same time. It was thus not just a matter of 0s or 1s (I know this sounds weird, but nature has indeed many surprises:). Based on this they imagined a future computer. This „quantum computer“ would not be based on bits, but on qubits (from quantum bits), which would be both 0 and 1 at the same time, and all the combinations in between. This would open a huge new computing power.
During the last years, the first physical quantum computers have been built. They are still very bulky machines, which need to be cooled down to minus 273 degree Celsius to work (this is colder than in the interstellar space!). Because it is only at this low temperature that we can work with those strange quantum states of matter. Nevertheless, they do exist, and basically all companies, from Google, IBM and Intel to Microsoft are investing and building such little quantum chips with the hope to build immensely quick computers one day.
Unfortunately, quantum computers are not only big at the moment, but they also have a very low computing power (similarly to the calculation powers of the early computers in the 1970s and 1980s. But as I could witness myself in those early days of computing, it is just a matter of time until computers get smaller and faster, once some basic principles are overcome. In fact, many experts believe that quantum computers will arrive to the every day world within the next 10 to 20 years. And they will not only speed up all processes massively, but revolutionise (once again) the way our data intensive world will work.
