PopSci Q&A: Seth Lloyd Talks Quantum Computing and Quoogling
Qubits in Liquid Helium Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesThe director of the Center for Extreme Quantum Information Theory at MIT answers our biggest questions Seth Lloyd, director of the Center for Extreme Quantum Information Theory at MIT, answers some (very) big questions, about his beer keg superconductors and our quantum universe. Seth Lloyd on Quantum Computers Popular Science: How are quantum computers different from ordinary ones? Seth Lloyd: Quantum computers operate at the smallest, most fundamental levels allowed by physics. On a regular computer, a single bit of information is represented by a whole bunch of electrons. In a quantum computer, you store bits of information on the most elementary particles. So a "qubit" might be represented by a single electron. PS: Why is a smaller bit better? SL: At the quantum-mechanical level, an electron can be here and there at the same time. And if you're here and there, you can do this and that simultaneously....