[austintorn@aol.com]

About qbits…

A quantum computer could, say, discover the prime factors of a very large prime number in a split second, through the superposition of doing all the divisions at once, while a classical computer would take near to forever to do it for very large primes. (Encrypted codes will not last.)

So far, I think, they've built only about 3-4 qbits—and there are some problems—trying to read the result decoheres the quantum system.

I essence, a quantum computer could follow every path at once, instead of one by one.


(classical computer method—rough example)

Prime = 1
DO n = 3 TO SQUAREROOT(supposedprime) BY 2 WHILE(Prime=1)

/* No remainder when divided by n ? */
IF MODULO(supposedprime,n) = 0 THEN
Prime = 0

END

/* Not divisible, then it is a prime number */
IF Prime = 1 THEN…


In the quantum computer, every division test would happen at once.