Quantum Computers 8th SEM, 2011

CHAPTER-1
Introduction

Civilization has advanced as people discovered new ways of exploiting various

physical resources such as materials, forces and energies. The history of computer technology
has involved a sequence of changes of physical realization - from gears to relays to valves to
transistors to integrated circuits and so on. Today's advanced lithographic techniques can
squeeze fraction of micron wide logic gates and wires onto the surface of silicon chips. Soon
they will yield even smaller parts and inevitably reach a point where logic gates are so small
that they are made out of only a handful of atoms.
On the atomic scale matter obeys the rules of quantum mechanics, which are quite
different from the classical rules that determine the properties of conventional logic gates. So
if computers are to become smaller in the future, quantum technology must replace or
supplement what we have now. The point is, however, that quantum technology can offer
much more than cramming more and more bits to silicon and multiplying the clock-speed of
microprocessors. It can support entirely new kind of computation with qualitatively new
algorithms based on quantum principles!

What is Quantum Computing?

As firms continue to expand the role of IT within their corporations and demand
computers that are able to handle more complex computations, technologists are arriving at
the realization that the current computer architectural structure is beginning to reach its’
limits. Futurists have proposed two alternatives to overcome the current physical limitations
of computers: optical and quantum computing. As was discussed in the previous technology
briefing, optical computing uses light as a way to perform calculations. However, an
opposing view is that computers should be conceptualized differently. Instead of processing
data using bits and bytes in silicon chips, the quantum computing approach uses laser pulses
to excite atoms, a process that allows scientists to harness the power of atoms and meet the
demand for more complex mathematical computations.

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A Quantum Computer is a computer that harnesses the power of atoms and molecules
to perform memory and processing tasks. It has the potential to perform certain calculations
billions of times faster than any silicon-based computer.
The classical desktop computer works by manipulating bits, digits that are binary --
i.e., which can either represent a zero or a one. Everything from numbers and letters to the
status of your modem or mouse are all represented by a collection of bits in combinations of
ones and zeros. These bits correspond very nicely with the way classical physics represents
the world. Electrical switches can be on or off, objects are in one place or they're not, etc.
Quantum computers aren't limited by the binary nature of the classical physical world,
however -- they depend on observing the state of quantum bits or qubits that might represent
a one or a zero, might represent a combination of the two or might represent a number
expressing that the state of the qubit is somewhere between 1 and 0.

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CHAPTER-2
Working Principle

In the classical model of a computer, the most fundamental building block - the bit,
can only exist in one of two distinct states, a '0' or a '1'. In a quantum computer the rules are
changed. Not only can a qubit, exist in the classical '0' and '1' states, but it can also be in a
superposition of both! In this coherent state, the bit exists as a '0' and a '1' in a particular
manner. Let's consider a register of three classical bits: it would be possible to use this
register to represent any one of the numbers from 0 to 7 at any one time. If we then consider
a register of three qubits, we can see that if each bit is in the superposition or coherent state,
the register can represent all the numbers from 0 to 7 simultaneously!
A processor that can use registers of qubits will in effect be able to perform
calculations using all the possible values of the input registers simultaneously. This
phenomenon is called quantum parallelism, and is the motivating force behind the research
being carried out in quantum computing.

How does Quantum Computing work?

To help us understand how quantum computing works, we can start with familiar
classical computing. In classical computers, data is stored in the form of a digital bit. Digital
bits have only one value: true or false, on or off, one or zero; they aretypically represented by
the presence or absence of a few zillion electrons in silicon transistors. The chip processes
one calculation at a time, sequentially, and information is processed in one direction only.
Quantum computing, on the other hand, uses atoms in place of traditional processors. Each
bit of information carried in quantum computers is called a ‘qubit’, which can represent 0, 1,
and any value in between at the same time. In a graphical sense, a vector pointing in a
direction intermediate between those representing 0 and 1 represents the in-between position
known as superposition.
In classical digital computation, for example, a two-bit can only represents one of the
following values: 00, 01, 10, and 11. A quantum 1 two-bit, in contrast, can represent any of
those numbers simultaneously. Consequently, as the number of qubit increases, the number
of superposition will exponentially increase and result in complicated

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numbers that current computer technology will never be able to calculate. Using
superposition, scientists can use the idea of quantum parallelism in their creation of a new
microprocessor.
The meaning of quantum parallelism could be interpreted as that atoms in a
microscopic world are radiating to many different directions simultaneously. The essential
idea is that if an atom can travel through many different routes simultaneously, a computer
should be able to use atoms to perform calculations through many different routes
simultaneously as well. In other words, quantum computers offer the possibility that multiple
calculations can be performed simultaneously. Technically, scientists can use laser pulses to
affect an atom’s electronic states and evolve initial superpositions of encoded numbers into
many different superpositions. Those qubits stored in the atom therefore can be manipulated
and a quantum computer can perform multiple calculations in one single computational step.
Furthermore, without interference from the outside world, atoms can be “entangled”in a
way that if one atom spins in one direction, the rest of them will spin in some directions that
could be mathematically related to each other. This process is called quantum entanglement.
Using superpositions and entanglement, we will be able to harness complex algorithms for
cryptography or database searching to simultaneous solving of billions of calculations. The
picture to the right depicts a prototype quantum desktop computer. The behavior of quantum
computer, based upon this prototype,is described in the figure below.

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Quantum dots
An example of an implementation of the qubit is the 'quantum dot' which is basically
a single electron trapped inside a cage of atoms. When the dot is exposed to a pulse of laser
light of precisely the right wavelength and duration, the electron is raised to an excited state:
a second burst of laser light causes the electron to fall back to its ground state. The ground
and excited states of the electron can be thought of as the 0 and 1 states of the qubit and the
application of the laser light can be regarded as a controlled NOT function as it knocks the
qubit from 0 to 1 or from ' to 0.
If the pulse of laser light is only half the duration of that required for the NOT
function, the electron is placed in a superposition of both ground and excited states
simultaneously, this being the equivalent of the coherent state of the qubit. More complex
logic functions can be modelled using quantum dots arranged in pairs. It would therefore
seem that quantum dots are a suitable candidate for building a quantum computer.
Unfortunately there are a number of practical problems that are preventing this from
happening:
• The electron only remains in its excited state for about a microsecond before it falls to the
ground state. Bearing in mind that the required duration of each laser pulse is around 1
nanosecond, there is a limit to the number of computational steps that can be made before
information is lost.
• Constructing quantum dots is a very difficult process because they are so small. A typical
quantum dot measures just 10 atoms (1 nanometer) across. The technology needed to build a
computer from these dots doesn't yet exist.
• To avoid cramming thousands of lasers into a tiny space, quantum dots could be
manufactured so that they respond to different frequencies of light. A laser that could
reliably retune itself would thus selectively target different groups of quantum dots with
different frequencies of light. This again, is another technology that doesn't yet exist.
Computing liquids
Quantum dots are not the only implementation of qubits that have been experimented
with. Other techniques have attempted to use individual atoms or the polarisation of laser
light as the information medium. The common problem with these techniques is decoherence.
Attempts at shielding the experiments from their surroundings, by for instance cooling them

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to within a thousandth of a degree of absolute zero, have proven to have had limited success
at reducing the effects of this problem.
The latest development in quantum computing takes a radical new approach. It drops
the assumption that the quantum medium has to be tiny and isolated from its surroundings
and instead uses a sea of molecules to store the information. When held in a magnetic field,
each nucleus within a molecule spins in a certain direction, which can be used to describe its
state; spinning upwards can signify a 1 and spinning down, a 0. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
(NMR) techniques can be used to detect these spin states and bursts of specific radio waves
can flip the nuclei from spinning up (1) to spinning down (0) and vice-versa.
The quantum computer in this technique is the molecule itself and its qubits are the
nuclei within the molecule. This technique does not however use a single molecule to
perform the computations; it instead uses a whole 'mug' of liquid molecules. The advantage
of this is that even though the molecules of the liquid bump into one another, the spin states
of the nuclei within each molecule remain unchanged. Decoherence is still a problem, but the
time before the decoherence sets in is much longer than in any other technique so far.
Researchers believe a few thousand primitive logic operations should be possible within time
it takes the qubits to decohere.
Dr. Gershenfield from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is one of the
pioneers of the computing liquid technique. His research team has already been able to add
one and one together, a simple task which is way beyond any of the other techniques being
investigated. The key to being able to perform more complex tasks is to have more qubits but
this requires more complex molecules with a greater number of nuclei, the caffeine molecule
being a possible candidate. Whatever the molecule, the advancement to 10 qubit systems is
apparently straightforward. Such a system, Dr. Gershenfield hopes, will be possible by the
end of this year, and should be capable of factoring the number 15.
Advancing beyond a 10-qubit system may prove to be more difficult. In a given
sample of 'computing liquid' there will be a roughly even number of up and down spin states
but a small excess of spin in one direction will exist. It is the signal from this small amount of
extra spin, behaving as if it were a single molecule that can be detected and manipulated to
perform calculations while the rest of the spins will effectively cancel each other out. This
signal is extremely weak and grows weaker by a factor of roughly 2 for every qubit that is
added. This imposes a limit on the number of qubits a system may have as the readable output
will be harder to detect. Quantum computers appear to be capable, at least in principle, of

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solving certain problems far faster than any conceivable classical computer. In practice,
though, quantum-computing technology is still in its infancy. While a practical and useful
quantum computer may eventually be constructed, we cannot clearly say at present what the
hardware of that machine will be like. But in any case some type of error correction will be
needed for its correct operation.

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CHAPTER-3
Analysis

Quantum computers are advantageous in the way they encode a bit, the
fundamental unit of information. A number - 0 or 1, specifies the state of a bit in a
classical digital computer. An n-bit binary word in a typical computer is accordingly
described by a string of n zeros and ones. A qubit might be represented by an atom in one
of two different states, which can also be denoted as 0 or 1. Two qubits, like two classical
bits, can attain four different well-defined states (0 and 0, 0 and 1, 1 and 0, or 1 and 1).
But unlike classical bits, qubits can exist simultaneously as 0 and 1, with the
probability for each state given by a numerical coefficient. Describing a two-qubit
quantum computer thus requires four coefficients. In general, n qubits demand 2n
numbers, which rapidly become a sizeable set for larger values of n. For example, if n
equals 50, about 1050 numbers are required to describe all the probabilities for all the
possible states of the quantum machine--a number that exceeds the capacity of the largest
conventional computer. A quantum computer promises to be immensely powerful because
it can be in superposition and can act on all its possible states simultaneously. Thus, a
quantum computer could naturally perform myriad operations in parallel, using only a
single processing unit.

Why Quantum Computing?

Gordon Moore predicted in 1965 that the number of transistors per integrated
Intel Processor Year Transistors
circuit would double approximately every 18 months. A quick analysis reveals that
Moore’s law has successfully predicted the transistor trend through the years. So, what
will happen in the next 20 years if the processor development continues to support
Moore’s law? The result will be that the size of the circuits on microprocessors will be
measured on an atomic scale.
However, as discussed in our briefing on optical computing, this decrease in
size will not necessarily meet the demand for more complex computations. While optical
computing can increase computation speed 1000 to 100,000 times faster than 1.2GHz

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processors, some researchers believe far greater speeds can be achieved with quantum
computing. Furthermore, advocates of quantum computing argue that the shrinkage in
microprocessor size presents an opportunity for IT that can be leveraged using quantum
computing
Data collected for verification of Moore’s Law
Bit Product Released Number of Process
Processor Name on Transistors Technology
4- Intel 4004 Nov 15,1971 2300 10µ m
bits
8- Intel 8008 Apr 3500 10µ m
bits 1,1972
Intel 8080 Apr 6000 10µ m
1,1972
Intel 8085 Mar ,1976 6500 3µ m
16-bits Intel 8086 Jun 29000 3µ m
8,1978
8088 Jun 29000 3µ m
1,1979
80186 1982 29000 2µ m
80286 Feb 134000 1.5µ m
1,1982
32-bits 80386 DX Oct 275000 1µ m
17,1985
80386 SX Jun 275000 1µ m
16,1988
80386 SL Oct 855000 1µ m
15,1990
32-bits 80486DX Apr 1.2 millions 1µ m
10,1989
80486 SX Apr 1.185 1µ m
22,1991 millions
900000 0.8µ m
80486 SL Nov 1.4 millions 0.8µ m
9,1992
80486 Mar 1.6 millions 0.6µ m
DX4 7,1994
32-bits Pentium 1 Mar 22,1993 3.1 millions 0.8µ m

Mar 3.3 millions 0.35µ m

7,1994
MMX Jan 8, 4.5 millions 0.35µ m
Technology 1997
PRO Nov 5.5 million 0.35µ m
1,1995
Pentium 2 May 7.5 million 0.25µ m
7,1997
Celeron Apr 7.5 millions 0.25µ m
15,1998
P 2 Xeon June 29,1998 7.5 millions 0.25µ m
Pentium 3 Feb 9.5 millions 0.25µ m
26,1999
Coppermi Oct 28.1 0.18µ m

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ne 25,1999 millions
Tualatin Jul ,2001 28.1millions 0.13µ m
Pentium March 77 millions 0.13µ m
M 2003
Intel Core Jan 2006 125 millions 65nm
Xeon Jun 410 millions 65nm
woodcrest 26,2006
Yorkfield* 820 millions 45nm
Xeon Dualcore March 29,2009 781 millions 45nm

*- Still under test not released publically

CHAPTER-4
Key Challenges

The current challenge is not to build a full quantum computer right away but
rather to move from the experiments in which we merely observe quantum phenomena to
experiments in which we can control these phenomena. This is a first step towards
quantum logic gates and simple quantum networks.
Experimental and theoretical research in quantum computation is accelerating
worldwide. New technologies for realizing quantum computers are being proposed, and
new types of quantum computation with various advantages over classical computation
are continually being discovered and analyzed and we believe some of them will bear
technological fruit. From a fundamental standpoint, however, it does not matter how
useful quantum computation turns out to be, nor does it matter whether we build the first
quantum computer tomorrow, next year or centuries from now. The quantum theory of
computation must in any case be an integral part of the worldview of anyone who seeks a
fundamental understanding of the quantum theory and the processing of information.

Today's Quantum Computers:

Quantum computers could one day replace silicon chips, just like the transistor once
replaced the vacuum tube. But for now, the technology required to develop such a
quantum computer is beyond our reach. Most research in quantum computing is still very

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theoretical. The most advanced quantum computers have not gone beyond manipulating
more than 7 qubits, meaning that they are still at the "1 + 1" stage. However, the potential
remains that quantum computers one day could perform, quickly and easily, calculations
that are incredibly time-consuming on conventional computers.

CHAPTER-5
Advantages & Applications

There are several reasons that researchers are working so hard to develop a
practical quantum computer. First, atoms change energy states very quickly -- much more
quickly than even the fastest computer processors. Next, given the right type of problem,
each qubit can take the place of an entire processor -- meaning that 1,000 ions of say,
barium, could take the place of a 1,000-processor computer. The key is finding the sort of
problem a quantum computer is able to solve.
If functional quantum computers can be built, they will be valuable in factoring
large numbers, and therefore extremely useful for decoding and encoding secret
information. If one were to be built today, no information on the Internet would be safe.
Our current methods of encryption are simple compared to the complicated methods
possible in quantum computers. Quantum computers could also be used to search large
databases in a fraction of the time that it would take a conventional computer.
It has been shown in theory that a quantum computer will be able to perform any
task that a classical computer can. However, this does not necessarily mean that a
quantum computer will outperform a classical computer for all types of task. If we use our
classical algorithms on a quantum computer, it will simply perform the calculation in a
similar manner to a classical computer. In order for a quantum computer to show its

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superiority it needs to use new algorithms which can exploit the phenomenon of quantum
parallelism.

What will be the projected benefits of Quantum Computing?

Quantum computing offers many potential benefits to the organizations of
tomorrow. This new conceptualization of computing power will result in three main
benefits: increases in computing power, advances in security, and the ability for firms to
use the sci-fi concept of teleportation. Each of these opportunities can overcome the
limitations of the current computational paradigm.

Quantum Computation: Increase in Computing Power

Utilizing quantum parallelism, a quantum computer can calculate or factor any
huge number that is currently infeasible to be analyzed on a classical computer. For
example, factoring a number with 400 digits will take the existing fastest supercomputers
billions of years to accomplish. A quantum computer can obtain the answer within a year.
Therefore, quantum computers well serve the purpose of searching information in unsorted
databases or performing difficult mathematical calculations that are impossible using
semiconductor computers.

Quantum Cryptology: Advances in Security

Linked with the first benefit (the increase in computing power) comes the
possibility for advancements in computing security. Quantum cryptography allows two
parties to exchange public keys in a private channel and thus secure privacy in quantum
communication. The technical aspect of quantum cryptography requires tremendous
amount of physics knowledge; the basic idea is that quantum mechanics will not allow any
eavesdropper to obtain the private key. Two legitimate parties will reveal a random subset
of the key bits and check the error rate to test for eavesdropping. In so doing, even though
eavesdropping will not be prevented, any attempt, regardless how subtle and complicated,
to break into the communication channel will be detected.

Teleportation
Perhaps the most astounding of the claimed for benefits of quantum computing
is teleportation, the favored local transportation mechanism in Star Trek episodes.
Teleportation is the capability to make an object or a person disintegrate in one place
while a perfect replica appears in another. In physics, teleportation has never been taken

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seriously because of the uncertainty principle. According to the uncertainty principle, the
duplicating process will disturb or destroy the original objects; the more an object is
duplicated, the more it is destroyed. The detail information regarding how the duplication
is made and how the original object is destroyed is unknown. Therefore, it will reach a
point where one cannot extract enough information from the original to make a perfect
replica.
However, scientists at IBM and elsewhere have discovered a way to make a
perfect replica using a distinctive feature of quantum mechanics called EPR (Einstein-
Podolsky- Rosen) effect : (Source:www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation).
In brief, they found a way to scan partial information from original object “A” while
causing the remaining part of information pass to another object “C” through the EPR
effect. “A” and “C” have never been in contact but somehow by applying a treatment
to “C”, depending on the scanned information, “C” could be maneuvered back to the
same stage as “A” was before it was scanned. Since “A” has no longer been in the
same state, “C” is considered as a teleportation instead of a replication. Therefore,
teleportation could allow us to reconstruct all objects and place them in a different place. If
information of each atom could be obtained, everything in your office or bedroom,
including yourself, could be teleported to another place and displaced in front of you
similarly to how it appears in Star Trek. Teleporting living beings would require a
tremendous amount of information and given the constantly changing state of mind of
humans, will remain science fiction for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, quantum
computing provides at least a theoretical basis for teleportation.
There are, however, three areas where teleportation, which will come from using
quantum computing, might be practical sooner. First, it will allow us to picture distributed
networks of quantum computers exchanging information back and forth. With exact
correlation between input and output, quantum teleportation might bring opportunities for
better network communication such as video conferencing with real time, real information
applications. Second, it is crucial to quantum key distribution and other quantum
cryptographic protocols. With teleportation’s special “entanglement” effect, the
information conveyed between senders and receivers can be only perfectly produced
through these two parties. Any attempt to eavesdrop will be detected and result in failure.
Finally, it is also a decisive factor in an efficient optical implementation of quantum
computers. While classical teleportation can generate a fidelity coefficient, a coefficient to

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describe the correlation between input state and output state, less than 0.5, quantum
teleportation could result in fidelity coefficient at 1, meaning the input state and output
state are perfectly correlated. The optical teleportation, on the other hand, can yield
fidelity coefficient at only 0.67. Applying quantum teleportation to optical computing,
therefore, is believed to improve the efficiency of optical implementation of quantum
computers.

APPLICATIONS:
The implications of the theories involved in quantum computation reach
further than just making faster computers. Some of the applications for which they can be
used are –

Quantum Communication
Quantum communication systems allow a sender and receiver to agree on a code
without ever meeting in person. The uncertainty principle, an inescapable property of the
quantum world, ensures that if an eavesdropper tries to monitor the signal in transit it will
be disturbed in such a way that the sender and receiver are alerted.

Quantum Cryptography
The future of quantum cryptography promises great improvements in the world of
cryptography, posing problems for the current techniques as it will bear the ability to

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break the RSA coding system and thus will render almost all current channels of
communication insecure.

Artificial Intelligence
(Theory of universal computation)
One thing that all computers have in common, from Charles Babbage's analytical
engine (1936) to Pentium(tm) based PC's, is the theory of classical computation as
described by the work of Alan Turing. In essence, Turing's work describes the idea of the
universal turing machine, a very simple model of a computer that can be programmed to
perform any operation that "would naturally be considered to be computable". All
computers are essentially implementations of a universal turing machine. They are all
functionally equivalent and although some may be quicker, larger or more expensive than
others, they can all perform the same set of computational tasks.
The theories of quantum computation suggest that every physical object, even the
universe, is in some sense a quantum computer. As Turing's work says that all computers
are functionally equivalent, computers should be able to model every physical process.
Ultimately this suggests that computers will be capable of simulating conscious rational
thought. And a quantum computer will be the key to achieving true artificial intelligence.
Quantum bit commitment
A different method of quantum communication is quantum bit commitment.
Using this method, people can compare or combine information while keeping each
individual contribution secret. A possible use for this would be in contract bidding (making
firms bid their best possible offer instead of simply higher than the highest opposition).
The basic operation of this method is as follows:
1. Alice sends a string of photons to Bob, all of which are at the same polarisation.

2. Bob receives the photons, randomly changing his polarisation and recording the results.

3. Alice can prove to Bob that she sent the information by telling him the pattern of 1's and
0's he saw when his polarisation was the same as hers.
The weakness in this system is that Alice can cheat by creating pairs of photons and
sending only one to Bob. These matched photons have the strange quantum property,
which no matter how far apart, an observation of one will effect how the other appears at
the receiver. Alice can now change Bob's photons by manipulating the copy she kept.

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Researchers knew of this problem for some time, and Mayor has recently proven that this
is a general weakness of all quantum bit commitment systems.

CHAPTER-6
Current progress & Future prospects

The recent work on the 'computing liquid' technique pioneered by Dr.

Gershenfield and Dr. Chuang (Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico) has given
quantum computing a promising future. In fact, Dr. Gershenfield believes that a quantum
co-processor could be a reality within 10 years if the current pace of advancement
continues. Other techniques, such as quantum dots, may also yield similar results as our
technology advances. The optimist will point out that the problems being experienced by
researchers appear to be technical rather than fundamental.
On the other side of the argument, is the topic of decoherence. This problem has
not been resolved and many people, including Rolf Landauer of IBM's Thomas Watson
Research Centre, believe that the quantum computer is unlikely to progress beyond the 10-
qubit system (described above), as decoherence makes them too fragile to be practical.
Researchers in quantum communication have enjoyed a greater level of success.
The partial quantum computers involved have enabled secure communication over
distances as far as 10km. Depending on how costly these lines are to develop and the
demand that exists for them, there could be a strong future for quantum communications.

Simulation of quantum mechanical systems

In 1982, Feynman conjectured that quantum computers would be able to simulate
quantum mechanical systems with a much greater degree of accuracy than is possible with
classical computers. It is speculated that a quantum computer with a few tens of quantum
bits could perform simulations that would take an unfeasible amount of time on a classical

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computer. This is due to the use of computer time and memory growing as an exponential
function of the size of the quantum system in question.

On classical computers, the dynamics of a quantum system can be simulated using

approximations. A quantum computer however, can be "programmed" to simulate the
behaviour of a system by inducing interactions between its variables. These imitate the
characteristics of the system in question. A quantum computer would, for example, allow
the "Hubbard Model" (which describes the movement of electrons within a crystal) to be
simulated, a task that is beyond the scope of current conventional computers.

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CHAPTER-7
Problems & Drawbacks

The pitfall of quantum computing - decoherence

The very thing that makes quantum computing so powerful, its reliance on the
bizarre subatomic goings-on governed by the rules of quantum mechanics, also makes it
very fragile and difficult to control. For example, consider a qubit that is in the coherent
state. As soon as it measurable interacts with the environment it will decohere and fall into
one of the two classical states. This is the problem of decoherence and is a stumbling block
for quantum computers as the potential power of quantum computers depends on the
quantum parallelism brought about by the coherent state. This problem is compounded by
the fact that even looking at a qubit can cause it to decohere, making the process of
obtaining a solution from a quantum computer just as difficult as performing the calculation
itself.
Quantum Cryptography
The future of quantum cryptography promises great improvements in the world of
cryptography, posing problems for the current techniques as it will bear the ability to break
the RSA coding system and thus will render almost all current channels of communication
insecure.

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Conclusion

With classical computers gradually approaching their limit, the quantum computer
promises to deliver a new level of computational power. With them comes a whole new
theory of computation that incorporates the strange effects of quantum mechanics and
considers every physical object to be some kind of quantum computer. A quantum
computer thus has the theoretical capability of simulating any finite physical system and
may even hold the key to creating an artificially intelligent computer.

The quantum computers power to perform calculations across a multitude of

parallel universes gives it the ability to quickly perform tasks that classical computers will
never be able to practically achieve. This power can only be unleashed with the correct type
of algorithm, a type of algorithm that is extremely difficult to formulate. Some algorithms
have already been invented; they are proving to have huge implications on the world of
cryptography. This is because they enable the most commonly used cryptography
techniques to be broken in a matter of seconds. Ironically, a spin off of quantum
computing, quantum communication allows information to be sent without eavesdroppers
listening undetected.

For now at least, the world of cryptography is safe because the quantum computer
is proving to be vary difficult to implement. The very thing that makes them powerful, their
reliance on quantum mechanics, also makes them extremely fragile. The most successful
experiments only being able to add one and one together. Nobody can tell if the problems
being experienced by researchers can be overcome, some like Dr. Gershenfield are hopeful
that they can whilst others believe that the quantum computer will always be to fragile to be
practical.

Although the future of quantum computing looks promising, we have only just
taken our first steps to actually realizing a quantum computer. There are many hurdles,
which need to be overcome before we can begin to appreciate the benefits they may
deliver. Researchers around the world are racing to be the first to achieve a practical
system, a task, which some scientists think, is futile. David Deutsch - one of the
groundbreaking scientists in the world of quantum computing - himself said, "Perhaps, their
most profound effect may prove to be theoretical".

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Can we really build a useful quantum computer? Who knows; in a quantum world,
anything is possible!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

➢ Find out more information about IBM new discovery of quantum mirage:
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/almaden/media/image_mirage.html

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➢ Learn from critics of nanotechnology and debate on related issues:

http://www.foresight.org/http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/labs/theorique/index.html.en

➢ Find out Houston-based research resources of Nanotechnology at NASA and look at

some videos showing how atoms move like a wave:
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Groups/SciTech/nano/index.html

➢ Report from the National Science Foundation on Quantum Information Science: An

Emerging Field of Interdisciplinary Research and Education in Science and
Engineering: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/nsf00101.htm

➢ Learn systematic information with a variety of difficulty level on quantum computing:

http://www.qubit.org/Intros_Tuts.html

➢ Learn about IBM’s development of quantum computing:

http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/

➢ An issue about Quantum Computing with Molecules by Gershenfeld and Chuang:

http://www.sciam.com/1998/0698issue/0698gershenfeld.html

➢ An issue about quantum cryptography by Simon Benjamin:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/290/5500/2273

➢ Learn about Hewlett-Packard’s development on Quantum Computing: http://www-

uk.hpl.hp.com/qip

➢ Learn about the basic concepts of quantum computing:

www.technologyreview.com/magazine/may30/waldrop.asp

➢ Learn how teleportation will work:

www.sciam.com/explorations/122297teleport/test.html

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➢ Report on teleportation research at California Institute of Technology:

www.cco.caltech.edu/~qoptics/teleport.html

➢ Description of how quantum computing takes advantage of NMR (nuclear magnetic

resonance):
www.sciam.com/1998/0698issue/0698gershenfeld.html

➢ A famous talk on nonotechnology: “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”by

Richard P. Feynman:
www.zyvex.com/nantech/feynman.html

➢ Details on the list of intel microprocessors were collected for verification purposes
from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors

➢ Theories on quantum computations were obtained from

http://theorie5.physick.unibas.ch/qcomp/qcomp.html

➢ The journal ‘Science Daily’ provided the necessary updates on the progrsses
http://www.sciencedaily.com

Other
Foot, C. J. (2005). Atomic Physics. Oxford University Press (Paperback). [Provides
a brief perspective on Quantum Computing that is relevant to a student of atomic physics]
Kurzweil, Ray. (2000). The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human
Intelligence. Penguin Books (Paperback) [Very little about Quantum Computing per se,
but provides an interesting comparison of the future prospects of the field in comparison
to other forms of computing].

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