How Quantum Computers Work and What They Mean for the Future

Nature is quantum. Soon our computers will be too. Here’s how they will work.

Quantum is hard. That is perhaps to put things lightly — the subject is often bizarre, defies common sense, and predicts all sorts of things that should, by rights, be utterly impossible. Computers that include the quantum bit, it logically follows, should be just as weird and baffling.

And yes, at times quantum computing can be a strange subject. It is also difficult — some of the best engineers in the world have struggled for decades to build a simple working quantum computer. But despite all that, quantum computing promises to change the world, and so it is worth making an effort to understand.

In what follows I’ve tried to present the basic concepts of quantum computing as simply as possible. It is true that the result is not always simple. There’s a limit on how easy some things are to explain. But in the whole I’ve tried to be true to Einstein’s adage — things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

At the heart of all computers is the capability to use logic. That can be extremely simple. A rudimentary (perhaps domino powered) computer might have two inputs, A and B, and one output, X. If both inputs equal 1, then the computer outputs 1. If A and B have any other combination then it outputs 0.

This simple example is known as an AND gate. Mathematicians long ago worked out a whole series of similar logical actions. Modern, non quantum computers, are based around these logical gates, including AND, OR, NOR, XOR and many others.

From these simple foundations, computers can build up more complicated logical systems. A standard laptop CPU now contains billions of logic gates, all ticking away quietly in the background. The result is the ability to calculate all sorts of things, from…

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