Quantum Computers
Categories: PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
A quantum computer is a machine that uses quantum mechanics to perform calculations. A computer, in its most basic form, is simply a machine that performs calculations. There’s many different types of computers. In the early days of computers, we actually had mechanical computers — Charles Babbage designed such a machine to perform general-purpose calculations in 1837. Nowadays, our computers are based on digital electronics and operate using bits and logic gates. A quantum computer, conversely, uses quantum mechanics to perform computation. Rather than bits and logic gates, quantum computers use qubits and quantum gates. Physically,qubit and a quantem gate can be any many different things — Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Rigetti all have their own implementations of qubits and quantum gates. For now, we won’t worry about the physical nature of qubits and quantum gates because it is not necessary when first learning about quantum programming.