A Quantum Computer... A Future Technology
Submitted by on January 1, 1998
Category: Technology
Words: 1415 | Pages: 6
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A Quantum Computer... a future technology
Mike Damewood
By the strange laws of quantum mechanics, Folger, a senior editor at Discover, notes, an electron, proton, or other subatomic particle is "in more than one place at a time," because individual particles behave like waves, these different places are different states that an atom can exist in simultaneously. Ten years ago, Folger writes, David Deutsch, a physicist at Oxford University, argued that it may be possible to build an extremely
powerful computer based on this peculiar reality. In 1994, Peter Shor, a mathematician at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, proved that, in theory at least, a full-blown quantum computer could factor even the largest numbers in seconds--an accomplishment impossible for even the fastest conventional computer.
An outbreak of...