Quantum Computing for Dummies: This is a place to learn and exchange information on the basics of Quantum Computing and its potential. Science fiction and science facts.

All postings are most welcome. Please ask any dumb question that you may have. This is the place. Many of us will wish we had asked the same question. In order to reduce SPAM, the moderator will approve all new membership applications. Please bear with this slight delay, and understand that it is for the common good.

To start with, you should kown that Quantum Computing is a potential technology that depends on property within quantum mechanics which allows a tiny element to exist in two states at the same time (even though these might appear by normal logic to be mutually exclusive states).

Leading on from this, it is argued that a quantum bit ("Qubit") can be 0 AND 1 at the same time, and a register could hold MANY numbers at the same time, thus they would all be manipulated in the same way by a single operation. This has the potential for parallel computing on an unimaginable scale.

Among the technical challenges, are those of the uncertainty principle, which prevents us from getting ALL the information out of the end state of a computation, and the development of new mathematical algorithms which are required. Developments in Cryptography, Quantum Entanglement, Cause Effect, action at a distance; it's all here.