Created By: Ayesha Khan, Melanie Seymour, and Tara Milidrag
<aside> š” This beginnerās guide will help you to deepen your understanding of Quantum Computing. If you know absolutely nothing about them, donāt worry, we will cover everything you need to know.
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Conventional or classical computers are the computers that most people use. Whether it be a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, it is still a classical computer. These computers have a universal understanding of information through bits. A bit, short for binary digit, is the smallest unit of data in a computer. A bit has a single binary value, either 0 or 1. Think of a standard light switch; the circuit can have two states. It's either closed with electricity flowing through it or open so no charge can flow. Each bit that makes up a number stored in a computer is essentially nothing more than a series of electrical switches, with on (closed) and off (open) values. If the switch = 0, it's off. If the switch = 1, it's on. The bottom line is that computers store information in a series of 0s and 1ās. Different kinds of information, such as numbers, text, and images can be represented this way.
Conventional computers are great for watching videos, playing games, or even communicating, however because of their CPU power (processing power) they have limitations. These limitations can include: encryption, chemistry research, optimization problems, data analysis, and more.
A quantum computer isĀ a type of computer that uses quantum mechanicsĀ so that it can perform certain kinds of computation more efficiently than a regular computer can.
Quantum computers operate differently from regular computers. Instead of bits, these computers use quantum bits, more frequently referred to as āqubitsā. Like a bit, a qubit can be set to 0 or 1.
So you may be wondering, āIf a qubit can be set to 0 or 1 as well, then what is the difference between a bit and a qubit?ā Itās time to find out...