Imagine that you’re planning a trip through Europe. You have multiple cities you want to visit and a number of routes that you could possibly take. You’ll stay at quite a few hotels for however many days and nights. There are a variety of airlines to choose from and of cars you’ll rent, not to mention all the taxi rides, bus rides, and possible train rides. If you haven’t realized yet, there there are countless decisions and variables that will affect your trip, but above all, your goal is to have the most efficient trip possible. These are the types of problems that are most commonly presented to quantum computers and they are called optimization problems. Because of all the possibilities and data that can be collected, optimization problems are enormously complex. It’s the computers job to organize the data in a meaningful way that can determine the most cheap and efficient way for you to take your trip.

Quantum computing is an intriguing concept of capitalizing upon the strange quantum phenomena of superposition and entanglement of qubits to solve computational problems. In a quantum system, there are no classical bits, as are used in classical computers, but instead qubits are used. Fascinatingly, the qubit can exist in either of the two forms of binary code at the the same time; this extraordinary state is known as superposition and is difficult to keep the molecules in. Traditionally, computers are based on bits, which translate data into 1’s and 0’s. With qubits, the 1 and 0 are a constant flickering light switch that leaves residual light, so both light and darkness exist. The qubits can change upon observation, so anytime we observe them, they can be a 0 or a 1.

To quantize, we find the minimum amount of any physical entity that interacts with any other physical entities. There are photons, which measure light. DNA is in some ways a quantization in biology; quantization of electrons is used in atoms and electronics. A simple way to try to understand quantization is the smoothing out of data by clumping it into closely related groups, with discrete values.

Certain conditions must be apparent in order for the quantum computing method to be successful. First, superpostition must be coherent. The decoherence of quantum particles is the loss of the superposition state. Decoherence is irreversible. Another condition that is essential is entanglement. Entanglement is the basis for the idea of holes and bridges through space and time. It’s the concept of two things that have an infinitesimally small number of variation but can be great distances apart while retaining their connection.

Based upon the theories of Hidetoshi Nishimori,  pioneering companies have banded together a team of scientists that are studying and experimenting with the breakthrough quantum computers computers built by D-Wave. D-Wave, Google, Lockheed Martin, and NASA are paving the way in quantum computing. They hold the record for qubits used in a quantum computer and are working on complex algorithms to pose to the computers.

Much of the world’s cryptography system is based on the factorization of very large numbers and with the increased number of qubits used and the improved efficiency of those qubits, the quantum computer could bring about the creation of new cryptography and pose a threat to those who do not make a switch.

The possibilities of what quantum computers can provide us with aren’t fully realized because we simply do not know exactly what the best questions to ask it are. So far, it’s found that the computer can solve an optimization problem that all of Google’s systems put together couldn’t answer. The computing potential is so great and peoples’ expectations are so high. We can’t ask them the meaning of life or how to be happy, but someday we may be able to ask it if we are alone – we can look into the best routes for space exploration and a more accurate way to track particles.