Computers were once thought of as technologies available only to scientists and trained professionals. But there was a seismic shift in the history of computing in the second half of the 1970s. Not only have the cars become much smaller and more powerful. They became available to everyone for use in their own home.
About quantum computing
Quantum computing is in its infancy today. They include some of the most grueling concepts from 20th century physics. In the US, Google, IBM, and NASA are experimenting and building the first quantum computers. China is also actively investing in these technologies.
Do you believe there will be a similar shift towards quantum computing when enthusiasts can play with quantum computers from their homes? This will happen much earlier than most people think.
Rise of personal computers
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The first computers were created in the 1950s. They were large, often unreliable, and not particularly powerful by today's standards. They were designed to address global challenges such as developing the first hydrogen bomb.
In 1964, John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz wrote the BASIC language. Their goal was to create a simple programming language that would be easy to learn and allow anyone to use it. As a result, programming has ceased to be exclusively for highly qualified scientists. Anyone could learn this if they wanted to.
This shift in computing continued when the first home computers appeared in the late 1970s. Hobbyists could now buy their own computer and program it at home. Parents and children could study together. These early computers weren't very powerful and you could do a limited amount of things with them, but they were extremely enthusiastic.
When people played with their cars, they realized that they needed more features and more power. The founders of Microsoft and Apple realized that the home computer had a huge future.
Almost every American now has a laptop, tablet, or smartphone - or all three. They spend a lot of time on social media, e-commerce, and internet searching.
None of these activities existed in the 1950s. Nobody at that time could think of such a thing. It was the availability of a new tool, the computer, that led to their development.
Enter Quantum
Classic calculations, like the computer in your home, are based on human calculations. The machine breaks down all computation into their basic parts: the binary digits 0 and 1. Our computers nowadays use bits from binary digits - because they are easy to implement with switches that are either on or off.
Quantum computing is based on how the universe computes. It contains all of the classical computation, but it also includes several new concepts that have come from quantum physics.
Instead of bits, quantum computing has qubits. However, the result of quantum computing is exactly the same as in classical computing: the number of bits.
The difference is that during this process, the computer can manipulate the qubits using bits. It can put qubits in a superposition of states and entangle them.
What does this mean?
Both superposition and entanglement are concepts of quantum mechanics that most people are not familiar with. Superposition roughly means that a qubit can be a combination of either 0 or 1. Entanglement means correlation between qubits. When one of a pair of entangled qubits is measured, it immediately shows what value you will get when you measure its partner. This is what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance."
The mathematics required to fully describe quantum mechanics is daunting, and this background is required to design and build a quantum computer. But the math needed to understand quantum computing and to get started designing quantum circuits is much simpler: high school algebra is essentially the only requirement.
Quantum computing and you
Quantum computers are just getting started. They are large machines that are unreliable and not yet very powerful.
What will they be used for? Quantum computing has important applications in cryptography. In 1994, MIT mathematician Peter Shore showed that if quantum computers were built, they could break modern encryption methods on the Internet. This spurred the creation of new ways to encrypt data that could withstand quantum attacks, ushering in the era of post-quantum cryptography.
It also looks like quantum computing is likely to have a big impact on chemistry. There are certain reactions that are difficult for classical computers to simulate. Chemists hope that quantum computers will be effective in simulating these phenomena.
But we don't think it makes sense to speculate about what most people will do with quantum computers in 50 years. When will quantum computing become something everyone can use in their home?
The answer is that this is already possible. In 2016, IBM added a small quantum computer to the cloud. Anyone with an Internet connection can design and run their own quantum circuits on this computer. A quantum circuit is a sequence of basic steps that perform a calculation.
The IBM quantum computer is not only free to use, but also has a simple graphical interface. It is a small, not very powerful machine, similar to the first home computers, but hobbyists can already start playing. The shift has begun.
Conclusion
Humans are entering an era where learning and experimenting with quantum computing is easy. As with the first home computers, it may be unclear that there are problems to be solved with quantum computers, but when people play, I think they will probably find they need more power and more features. This will open the way for new applications that we are not aware of yet.
Author: Angelina Simakova
And now we offer for reading an alternative view of quantum computers: "Quantum computer? Not today! Not tomorrow! Never …?"