Also by Chris Ferrie

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From Quantum Physics

42 Reasons To Hate The Universe (And One Reason Not To)

Where Did The Universe Come From? And Other Cosmic

Questions
What You Shouldn't
Know About
Quantum Computers

CHRIS FERRIE
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. To view a
copy of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/.
Contents
Foreword i
The Quantum Age 2
Whence Quantum Computing? 12
Myth 1: Nobody Understands This Quantum Stuff 29
Myth 2: Qubits Are Zero And One At The Same Time 47
Myth 3: Quantum Computers Try All Solutions At Once 63
Myth 4: Quantum Computers Communicate Instantaneously 78
Myth 5: Quantum Computers Will Replace Digital Computers 91
Myth 6: Quantum Computers Will Break The Internet 105
Myth 7: Quantum Computing Is Impossible 119
 Foreword

For almost twenty years, my blog, “Shtetl-Optimized,” has

been (I'd like to think) the central clearinghouse on the
Internet for puncturing inflated claims about how quantum
computers would work and what kinds of problems they
would help with. That's sort of my beat. I never planned it
that way, but the more hype flooded the tech press, the less
choice I felt.

Yet in all that time I never thought to write, much less did I
actually write, a pithy book called “What You Shouldn't
Know About Quantum Computers.” My colleague Chris
Ferrie did. He's the same guy who coauthored the surprise
bestseller “Quantum Computing for Babies.” Now he's back,
with something for those babies to read when they're
slightly older.

In this short volume, Chris provides a heaping helping of

truth on every page. He explains that, at least on a
mathematical level, quantum mechanics is not an endless
mystery: it's just a specific, fixed thing that's different from
what you're used to, until you do get used to it. It's not
anything-goes, and it's far too simplistic to say it involves
“everything happening at once.” Rather, the key is that the
state of any isolated physical system (like an electron or a
molecule, or even in principle the whole universe) is really a
gargantuan list of numbers—complex numbers, called
amplitudes. There's one amplitude for each thing you could
possibly find the system doing when you look. These
amplitudes are closely related to the probabilities of finding
the system doing the various things, but they're not
probabilities. (For starters, they can be negative.)

Once he's explained that, Chris is able to make quick work

of one journalistic trope about quantum computing after
another. For example, would quantum computers work by
trying all possible answers in parallel? Sorry, no, that's too
good to be true: Quantum computers work by
choreographing a pattern of interference, where the
contributions to the amplitude of each wrong answer cancel
each other out, while the contributions to the right answer's
amplitude reinforce each other. Only for special problems,
as it turns out, do we know how to choreograph such an
interference pattern to deliver a huge speedup over the best
known classical algorithms. This, in turn, is why we don't
expect quantum computers ever to replace classical
computers, but “merely” to complement them, accelerating
specific tasks like quantum simulation and codebreaking.

Likewise, could quantum computers use entanglement to

send messages faster than the speed of light, in what
Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”? No, that's
another misconception. What's true is “merely” that a
classical simulation of quantum mechanics would require
faster-than-light communication. Once again, quantum
mechanics stakes out a subtle intermediate position
between “familiar classical world” and “anything-goes
fantasyland”: a position that no science fiction writer
would've had the imagination to invent. Then there's the
myth that quantum computers are impossible, for some
simple reason that all the world's physicists have
overlooked. While this might seem like the opposite of
"quantum computers can do anything" myth, I actually see
them as two sides of the same coin: the more you
understand about the limitations of quantum computers,
the less shocking it is that they can exist. Or maybe
quantum computers can't exist, at the scale and reliability
that we theorists envision. But if so, then that itself would
be a revolutionary discovery in physics, vastly more
surprising than mere “success” in building QCs! The huge
experimental efforts now underway strongly suggest that
one way or the other, we're going to find out.

Anyway, Chris explains all this in a way that I think readers

will find accessible and fun—maybe even those who tell me
they don't understand a word of my blog.

I have quibbles with this book, but they're merely the

quibbles I'd have with a colleague, not the forehead-banging
frustrations I have with popular manglings of quantum
computing. Chris seems to be optimistic about quantum
algorithms for finance; I'm much less so. Chris hates the
many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, while
I'm (as Chris says in the book) about as positive as you can
be about many-worlds without actually believing it. (On the
other hand, Chris and I stand shoulder to shoulder against
MWI-inspired misconceptions about quantum computing,
like “QCs just try all the answers in parallel” or “a thousand
qubits are equivalent to 21000 classical bits.”)

On reflection, though, I'm glad that I can find things to

quibble with in this book. Otherwise I'd be overpowered
with regret that I hadn't written it! And that, of course, is
just about the highest praise I can give.

Scott Aaronson
Austin, Texas, 2024
The Quantum Age
The nineteenth century was known as
the machine age, the twentieth century will go
down in history as the information age. I
believe the twenty-first century will be the
quantum age.

—Paul Davies

Computers are everywhere—you might even be reading this

on one! But what is it that computers do? Let’s step back and
ask instead what it is we want them to do.

Algorithms and programs

Consider the fact that there is nothing your digital computer
can compute that a room full of people with pen and paper
could not. Remember long division? Imagine those people are
doing long division—a sequence of memorized steps on new
pieces of data. The steps your teacher drilled into you are
called an algorithm. The steps are abstract rules that people
with pen and paper could carry out, people with an abacus,
electronic circuits with a Windows operating system, and so
on. Given a particular set of tools, the specific instructions
needed to carry out the steps using those tools are called the
program. (You have several programs unique to your brand

2
of computer that are carrying out the steps of algorithms
right now.)

Regardless of the tools used, if the algorithm is followed

faithfully, the answer will always be the same. People with
pen and paper are prone to errors and are slow. Electronic
circuits are near perfect and extremely fast. The choice is
clear. Let’s put it another way. There are plenty of algorithms
we want—or need—to carry out. Wouldn’t it be great if we
could engineer a device to do it for us quickly and accurately?
Yes, of course it would.

Remarkably, every algorithm we can think of can be cast as

a program that changes sequences of 1s and 0s one step at
a time. If we could build a machine that can represent any
sequence of 1s and 0s and accept instructions (programs) for
changing one sequence into another, we could use it to carry
out the steps in any algorithm instead of doing it ourselves.
Indeed, this is what a modern digital computer is—a machine
that can perform any computation for us.

Although a digital computer can carry out the steps of any

algorithm, some algorithms have digital programs that
require too many steps to be feasible. For example, solving
certain equations using digital computers is completely
infeasible, even if the computer could do it in principle. We

3
know, roughly speaking, the equations we would need to
solve to determine what would happen when a hypothetical
drug molecule interacted with a biological molecule. There
are even algorithms to solve these equations. Many of the
world’s supercomputers chug away, running inefficient
programs to solve such equations. But it’s just too hard—so
we “solve” the equations with genetically modified mice
instead.

The quantum ask

As before, we ask the following: wouldn’t it be great if a
machine could be built especially for the purpose of carrying
out these equation-solving algorithms? Yes, that would be
fantastic. But what would it need to do exactly? As it turns
out, scientists have found algorithms whose steps change
not sequences of 1s and 0s but sequences of complex
numbers—numbers like the square root of -1 and π. These
algorithms, though constrained not to be all-powerful, have
far fewer steps than the original algorithms.

In some sense, these algorithms are not special—children

could be trained to carry out the steps like long division. But
that would be as inefficient as it is cruel. So, the original
question becomes more precise. Can we build a machine that
can represent any sequence of complex numbers and accept
programs to change one sequence into another? Indeed, we
can—and that device is called a quantum computer.

4
Nowadays, many algorithms are phrased as steps that
change sequences of complex numbers rather than 1s and
0s. These so-called quantum algorithms could be performed
by hand or using a digital computer, but it would take a long
time. A quantum computer is a special-purpose device used
to carry out these steps directly and efficiently.

Many things can be used to represent a 1 or 0. Digital

computing technology has settled on the transistor, billions
of which are in your computer now. But how do you
“naturally” represent complex numbers? As it turns out,
there’s a theory for that! Quantum physics demonstrates
that complex numbers are encoded by the fine details of light
and matter. Really, they are all around us—we just don’t
have the finesse to get at them with our clumsy hands. But
science and engineering have progressed through the past
100 years to give us the required level of control. We can now
build devices to encode complex numbers and change them.

At the time of writing, all quantum computers in existence

are prototypes—they are small and not reliable enough to be
practical. They also don’t have quantum programs at the
level of abstraction that we have for digital computers. There
is no “quantum” version of the word processing program I’m
writing this on or the web browser program you potentially

5
downloaded it on. The most interesting thing to imagine is
what those quantum programs might look like—after all,
when digital algorithms were being invented and the early
computing machines were built to implement them, no one
could have imagined that programs for future versions of
those machines would exist to write blogs, share videos,
perform bank transactions, and all the other things we take
for granted. We know quantum computers will be able to
solve some important problems for us, but what we will
eventually have them do for us is unimaginable today
because human foresight rather poor.

Swiss Army computer

Even if I had a use for every one of the tools on a Swiss Army
knife, I still would not buy one—it’s too bulky, and I’m not
headed into the woods anytime soon. Such a knife illustrates
that specialized tasks are best carried out using specialized
tools. If you open a hundred bottles of wine per day, for
example, a Swiss Army knife has a corkscrew—but you are
far better off buying a machine optimized for opening bottles
of wine.

A computer is like a Swiss Army knife but for calculations. A

computer can solve all sorts of mathematical problems. And
that’s extremely useful because many everyday problems can
be phrased as math problems. Obvious examples are
determining how much tip to leave at a restaurant, figuring

6
out what time to catch the bus to arrive early for that
meeting, adding up the values in a spreadsheet, and so on.
Less obvious examples that are really just hidden math
problems are recognizing faces in a digital photo, formatting
words in a document, and seamlessly showing two people’s
faces to each other on other sides of the world in real time.

The central processing unit, or CPU, inside your tablet,

smartphone, or laptop is tasked with carrying out any
possible set of instructions thrown at it. But, because it can
do anything, it’s not the best at doing specific things. This is
where the other PUs come in. Probably the most famous is
the GPU, or graphics processing unit.

Maybe graphics aren’t something you think about a lot. But

even displaying something as simple as text on your screen
requires coordinating the brightness and color of millions of
pixels. That’s not an easy calculation for a CPU. So, GPUs
were made as special-purpose electronic devices that do the
calculations required to display images well and not much
else. The CPU outsources those difficult calculations to the
GPU, and video gamers rejoice!

The QPU
Calculations involving the multiplication and addition of
complex numbers are very time-consuming for a CPU. As you

7
now know, these kinds of calculations are essential for
solving problems in quantum physics, including simulating
chemical reactions and other microscopic phenomena. It
would be convenient for these kinds of calculations if a
quantum processing unit (QPU) were available. These are
confusingly called quantum computers, even though they
are chips sent very specific calculations by a CPU. I predict
they will eventually be called just QPUs.

You won’t find a QPU inside your computer today. This

technology is being developed by many companies and
academic researchers around the world. The prototypes that
exist today require a lot of supporting technology, such as
refrigerators cooled using liquid helium. So, while QPUs are
“small,” the pictures you will see of them show large
laboratory equipment surrounding them.

What will the future QPU in your computer do? First of all,
we could not have guessed even ten years ago what we’d be
doing today with the supercomputers we all carry around in
our pockets. (Mostly, we are applying digital filters to
pictures of ourselves, as it turns out.) So, we probably can’t
even conceive of what QPUs will be used for ten years from
now. However, we do have some clues as to industrial and
scientific applications.

8
At the Quantum Algorithm Zoo (quantumalgorithmzoo.org),
65 problems (and counting) are currently listed that a QPU
could solve more efficiently than a CPU alone. Admittedly,
those problems are abstract, but so are the detailed
calculations that any processor carries out. The trick is in
translating real-world problems into the math problems we
know a QPU could be useful for. Not much effort has been
put into this challenge simply because QPU didn’t exist until
recently, so the incentive wasn’t there. However, as QPUs
start to come online, new applications will come swiftly.

Simulate all the things

My favorite and inevitable application of QPUs is the
simulation of physics. Physics simulations are ubiquitous.
Gamers will know this well. When you think of video games,
you should think of virtual worlds. These worlds have
physical laws, and the motion of the objects and characters
in the world needs to be calculated—this is a simulation.
Physics must be simulated when designing aircraft, bridges,
and any other engineered system. Physics is simulated in
science, too—entire galaxies have been simulated to
understand their formation. But quantum physics has
resisted simulation because CPUs are really bad at it.

Once we can simulate quantum physics on QPUs, we can

simulate chemical interactions to rapidly design new
materials and medicines. We might also be able to simulate

9
the physics at the creation of the universe or the center of a
black hole, and who knows what we will find there.

The takeaway
Qubits, superposition, entanglement, parallelism, and other
quantum magic you’ve read about elsewhere are not useful
concepts to think about if you only want a five-minute
summary of quantum computers. The basic thing you need
to know about QPUs is the same thing you know about
GPUs — they are special-purpose calculators that are good at
solving a particular kind of mathematical problem.

If, at some point, you end up with a job title that has the
word quantum in it, it will probably be a software job (much
like there are 20 software engineers for every computer
hardware engineer today). The most challenging problem a
Quantum Solutions Engineer might face is in translating the
calculations their business currently performs into problems
that can be outsourced to a QPU. They may not even use or
need to understand concepts like superposition and
entanglement! So, you have a pass if you’d like to be spared
the details.

The bigger problem today is that the details of quantum

concepts are not avoided, but replaced with poor analogies
and mysticism. The Quantum Age looms, but today, we are

10
in the Quantum Dark Ages, where myth and superstition run
rampant.

11
 Whence Quantum
Computing?
“History is not the past but a map of the past,
drawn from a particular point of view, to be
useful to the modern traveller.”

— Henry Glassie

Almost any discussion of quantum computing—whether in a

research article, popular science magazine, or business
journal—invokes some comparison to what is called
“classical” computing. It’s nearly impossible to talk about
quantum computing without using the phrase, so we better
start there.

The term classical in classical computing is borrowed from

conventions in physics. In physics, we often denote pre-1900
physics as “classical” and post-1900 physics as “modern.”
Modern physics includes general relativity and quantum
physics. General relativity is Einstein’s theory of curved
space and time, which explains the force of gravity. This
theory, while instrumental in enabling us to comprehend
awe-inspiring images of galaxies, has its most direct
technological application in GPS, the Global Positioning

12
System crucial for satellite navigation. Yet, even this
remarkable application is not standalone—it also requires
quantum technology for accurate functioning.

Quantum computing theory might have some things to say

about places of extreme gravity, like black holes, but we will
stay grounded on Earth and won’t say more about general
relativity in this book. The reason is that, in contrast to
general relativity, quantum physics has a broader range of
applications that span diverse fields. It is the backbone of
lasers and light bulbs, the lifeblood of medical scanners and
radiation therapy, and the cornerstone of semiconductors
and electron microscopes. It governs the precision of atomic
clocks and the power of atomic bombs, among many others.
And it is the fuel for quantum computers.

The potency of quantum physics and its technological

implications stem from exploring a new world—the
microscopic world of atoms. By uniting three of the four
fundamental forces of nature, quantum physics presents us
with rules governing the basic constituents of matter and
energy. The fourth force, gravity, while undeniably
significant, is relatively weak—evident when we effortlessly
overcome Earth's gravitational pull each time we stand up.
The paradigm shift from classical to quantum physics
propelled humanity from the era of steam engines and

13
machinery to the digital, information-driven age. Now, it is
driving us into the quantum age.

In the remainder of this chapter, I want to give you a bit of

context about how and why quantum computing came to be.
Until recently, quantum and computing were mostly
separate fields of study, although they overlap significantly
in their engineering applications. So, we’ll go over the
“quantum” and “computing” parts first before bringing them
together.

The “quantum” in quantum computing

The story of quantum physics started in 1900 with Max
Planck’s “quantum hypothesis.” Planck introduced the idea
that energy is quantized, meaning it comes in discrete
packets, which came to be called quanta. The problem
Planck was studying was dubbed the black body radiation
problem. A black body is an idealization of an object that
absorbs and emits radiation. It's a pretty good approximation
for hot things in thermal equilibrium, like the Sun or a
glowing iron pot, which give off roughly the same spectrum
(colors) when at the same temperature. In other words, if you
heat something up so that it glows “white hot,” it will be the
same temperature as the Sun (roughly 6000 ℃). The problem
was that no one could figure out why using the physics of
the time (now called “classical” physics).

14
As Planck was doing his calculations, he discovered that if
energy has some smallest unit, the formulas worked out
perfectly. This was a wild guess he made in desperation, not
something that could have been intuited or inferred. But it
deviated from classical physics at the most fundamental
level, seemingly rendering centuries of development useless,
so even Planck himself didn’t take it seriously at first. Indeed,
it took many years before others began to pay attention and
many more after that before the consequences were fully
appreciated. Perhaps not surprisingly, one of those who did
grasp the importance early on was Albert Einstein.

Among his illustrious list of contributions to science,

Einstein used Planck’s quantum hypothesis to solve the
problem of the photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect is
a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from a
material when exposed to light of a certain frequency.
Classical physics could not explain why the energy of these
ejected electrons depended on the frequency (color) of the
light rather than its intensity (brightness) or why there was
a cut-off frequency below which no electrons were emitted,
regardless of the intensity.

Einstein proposed that light itself is quantized into packets

of energy, which later came to be called photons. Each
photon has energy proportional to its frequency, in
accordance with Planck's quantum hypothesis. When a

15
photon hits an electron, if its energy (determined by its
frequency) is sufficient, it can overcome the energy binding
the electron to the material and eject it. Quantization had
taken hold. This marked a profound transition in physics,
which is still the source of confusion and debate today.
Before photons, light was argued to be either a wave or a
particle. Now, it seems that it is both—or neither. This came
to be known as wave-particle duality.

Until this point, quantum theory seemed to apply only to

light. However, in parallel with these developments,
experiments were starting to probe the internal structure of
atoms in evermore detail. One curiosity was spectral lines.
Specific lines or gaps were present when observing the light
that the purest forms of elements (hydrogen, helium, lithium,
and so on) emitted or absorbed. Many formulas existed, but
none could be derived from classical physics or any
mechanism until Niels Bohr paid a visit to England in 1911
to discuss the matter with the leading atomic physicists of
the day.

Bohr's model proposed that electrons in an atom could only

occupy certain discrete energy levels, consistent with
Planck's quantum hypothesis. When an electron jumps from
a higher energy level to a lower one, it emits a photon of light
with a frequency that corresponds to the difference in energy
between the two levels. This model provided a way to

16
calculate the energies of these spectral lines and brought the
atom into the realm of quantum physics. He presented the
model formally in 1913.

A decade later, Louis de Broglie proposed in his Ph.D. thesis

that not just light but all particles, including electrons, have
both particle and wave characteristics. This was a
revolutionary idea that was quickly put to the test and
verified. At this point, it was clear that quantum theory was
more than a technique that could be applied as corrections
when classical physics didn't fit the data. Scientists started
to theorize abstractly using concepts of quantum physics
rather than turning to it only as a last resort.

In 1925, Werner Heisenberg invented matrix mechanics to

deal with the calculations underpinning the theory. Using it,
he showed that it is impossible to measure the position and
momentum of a particle simultaneously with perfect
accuracy. This uncertainty principle became a fundamental
and notorious aspect of quantum theory. At the same time,
Erwin Schrödinger developed a mathematical equation to
describe how de Broglie's waves might change in time. The
variable in the equation—called the wave function—
describes the probability of finding a particle in a given
location or in a particular state.

17
In contrast to matrix mechanics, Schrödinger's picture was
called wave mechanics. There was a brief debate about which
of the two alternatives was correct. However, Paul Dirac
showed that both are equivalent by axiomatizing the theory,
demonstrating that a simple set of principles can derive all
that was known about it. He also combined quantum
mechanics with special relativity, leading to the discovery of
antimatter and paving the way for further developments in
quantum field theory, which ultimately led to the so-called
Standard Model of Particle Physics that supported the
seemingly unending stream of particle discoveries in high-
energy particle accelerator experiments.

However, by the middle of the 20th century, quantum

physics was more or less a settled science. The applications
of the theory far outstripped the discoveries, and the majority
of the people using it resembled engineers more so than they
did physicists. We’ll get to those applications briefly, but
first, we need to jump ahead before jumping back in time.
During the 1960s and ‘70s, engineers in the laboratories of
information technology companies like Bell and IBM began
to worry about the limits of the new communications and
computing devices being built. These things require energy
to function, and energy is the primary concern of physics.
Did the laws of physics have anything to say about this? And,
if they did, wouldn’t the most fundamental laws (quantum
laws) have the most to say? Indeed, they did, and this is

18
where the two theoretical fields of physics and computing
converged. But to appreciate it, we must tell the other half of
the quantum computing backstory.

The “computing” in quantum computing

Often, in quantum physics, it is useful to compare the results
of some theory or experiment to what classical physics might
predict. So, there is a long tradition in the quantum vs.
classical comparison. This tradition was adopted first not by
computer scientists or engineers but by quantum physicists
who started to study quantum computing in the ‘80s. Unlike
in physics, the adjective classical in classical computation
does not mean it is pre-modern — it is just a way to
distinguish it from quantum computation. In other words,
whatever quantum computing was going to be compared to,
it was bound to be referred to as “classical.”

The device I am using to create this is anything but classical

in the usual sense of the term. A modern laptop computer is
a marvel of engineering, and digital computing would not be
possible without quantum engineering. The components
inside your computing devices, like your smartphone, are
small enough that quantum mechanics plays an important
role in how they were conceived, engineered, and function.
What makes my laptop “classical” is not the hardware but
the software. What the device does at the most abstract
level — that is, compute — can be thought of in classical

19
physics terms. Indeed, anything your smartphone can do, a
large enough system of levers and pulleys can do. It’s just
that your computer can do it much faster and more reliably.
A quantum computer, on the other hand, will function
differently at both the device level and at the abstract level.

Abstract computational theory, now referred to as theoretical

computer science, was born in the 1930s. British World War
II codebreaker Alan Turing devised a theoretical model of a
computer now known as a Turing machine. This simple,
abstract machine was intended to encapsulate the generic
concept of computation. He considered a machine that
operates on an infinitely long tape, reading, writing, or
moving based on a set of predetermined rules. Remarkably,
with this simple model, Turing proved that certain problems
couldn't be solved computationally at all.

Together, Turing and his doctoral supervisor, Alonzo

Church, arrived at the Church-Turing thesis, which states
that everything computable can be computed by a Turing
machine. Essentially, anything that computes can be
simulated by Turing’s theoretical device. (Imagine a modern
device that emulates within it a much older device, like a
video game console, and you have the right picture.) A more
modern version relating to physics states that all physical
processes can be simulated by a Turing machine.

20
In 1945, John von Neumann expanded on Turing's work and
proposed the architecture that most computers follow today.
Known as the von Neumann architecture, this structure
divides the computer into a central processing unit (CPU),
memory, input devices, and output devices. Around the same
time, Claude Shannon was thinking about the transmission
of information. In work that birthed the field of information
theory, Shannon introduced the concept of the “bit,” short
for binary digit, as the fundamental unit of information. A bit
is a variable that can take on one of two values, often
represented as 0 and 1, which we will meet again and again
in this book.

In his work, Shannon connected the idea of information with

uncertainty. When a message reduces uncertainty, it carries
information. The more uncertainty a message can eliminate,
the more information it contains. Shannon formulated this
concept mathematically and developed measures for
information, realizing that all types of data—numbers,
letters, images, sounds—could be represented with bits,
opening the door to the digital revolution. Nowadays, the
concept of a bit underlies all of digital computing. Modern
computers, for example, represent and process information
in groups of bits.

21
Fast forward to the ‘70s, and the field of computer science
was in full swing. Researchers devised more nuanced notions
of computation, including the extension of what was
“computable” to what was computable efficiently. Efficiency
has a technical definition, which roughly means that the time
to solve the problem does not “blow up” as the problem size
increases. A keyword here is exponential. If the amount of
time required to solve a problem compounds like investment
interest or bacterial growth, we say it is inefficient. It would
be computable but highly impractical to solve such a
problem. The connection to physics emerged through what
was eventually called the Extended Church-Turing Thesis,
which states not that a Turing machine can’t merely simulate
any physical process but that it can do so efficiently.

Today, all computers have roughly the same architecture. A

single computer can do any computational task. Some
problems are hard to solve, of course. But if you can prove it
is hard to solve on one computer, then you know there is no
point in trying to design a new kind of computer. Why?
Because the first computer can efficiently simulate the new
one! This is what the Extended Church-Turing Thesis says,
and it seems like common sense to the modern digital citizen.
But is it true? Maybe not. When we think about simulating
a physical process based on quantum physics, it appears that
a digital computer cannot do this efficiently. Enter quantum
computing.

22
A brief history of quantum computing
Quantum computing was first suggested by Paul Benioff in
1980. He and others were motivated by the aforementioned
interest in the physical limitations of computation. It became
clear that the mathematical models of computation did not
account for the laws of quantum physics. Once this was
understood, the obvious next step was to consider a fully
quantum mechanical model of a Turing Machine. Parallel to
this, Richard Feynman lamented that it was difficult to
simulate quantum physics on computers and mused that a
computer built on the principles of quantum physics might
fare better. At the same time, in Russia, Yuri Manin also
hinted at the possibility of quantum computers, both noting
their potential access to exponential spaces and the difficulty
of coordinating such. However, the idea remained somewhat
nebulous for a few years.

In 1985, David Deutsch proposed the universal quantum

computer, a model of quantum computation able to simulate
any other quantum system. This Quantum Turing Machine
paralleled Turing’s original theoretical model of computation
based on digital information. This model of a quantum
computer is essentially equivalent to the model we work with
today. However, it still wasn’t clear at the time whether or
not there was an advantage to doing any of this. Finally, in
1992, Deutsch and Richard Jozsa gave the first quantum
algorithm providing a provable speed-up — a quantum

23
computer can solve in one run of the algorithm what it might
take a conventional computer a growing number as the
problem size gets larger. It’s an admittedly contrived
problem, but it is quite illustrative, and the so-called
Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm will be discussed later.

One of the concerns at the time was how robust a quantum

computer would be to noise and, indeed, any small amount
of error in the algorithm destroys the computation. Of
course, we could redefine the problem to be an approximate
one. That is, the problem specification allows a small amount
of error. The Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm then still solves the
problem (it solves it perfectly, so also approximately).
However, now, a digital computer can easily solve the
approximate version of the problem. So, the “quantum
speed-up” disappears.

Ethan Bernstein and Umesh Vazirani modified the problem

in 1993 to one where small errors were allowed. They also
devised a quantum algorithm that solved the problem in a
single step, while any classical algorithm required many
steps. In 1994, Dan Simon devised another problem along
the same lines. However, this time, the quantum algorithm
used to solve it provided a provable exponential speed-up.
That is, as the input size of the problem grows, the best
classical algorithm requires a number of steps growing

24
exponentially, while the quantum algorithm requires, at
most, a linear number of steps.

Simon’s algorithm was the inspiration for perhaps the most

famous quantum algorithm: Shor’s algorithm. In 1994, Peter
Shor presented a quantum algorithm that can factor large
numbers exponentially faster than the best-known classical
algorithm. Since most public-key cryptography is based on
the assumed hardness of factoring, Shor sparked a massive
interest in quantum computing. The race was on.

Detractors quickly dug in their heels. The most common

criticism was the incredible fragility of quantum information.
It was (and still occasionally is) argued that a quantum
computer would have to be so well isolated from its
environment as to make it practically infeasible. Classically,
error correction employs redundancy — do the same thing
many times, and if an error happens on one of them, the
majority still tells the correct answer. However, as we will see
later, quantum data cannot be copied, so it would seem error
correction is not possible.

Peter Shor showed how to encode quantum data into a larger

system such that if an error happened to a small part of it,
the quantum data could still be recovered by suitable
decoding. There was a three-qubit code and a five-qubit code

25
and, not long after, entire families of codes to protect
quantum data from errors. While promising, these were still
toy examples that worked in very specific instances. It wasn't
clear whether any required computation could be protected.

Recall that one crucial difference between bits and qubits is

that the latter forms a continuous set. For example, 1 is a
different state of information than 1.000000001, and so on.
Would we need a continuous set of instructions for quantum
computers for every possible transformation of quantum
data? Keep in mind that a single instruction suffices to do
any computation with bits. It's typically called the NAND
(“not and”) gate, and it produces an output bit of 0 when its
two input bits are 1 and outputs 1 otherwise. It's amazing to
think everything your computer can do, which is basically
everything, can be done by repeatedly applying one single
instruction to long lists of zeros and ones. Naively, this would
be impossible for qubits. Robert Solovay and Alexei Kitaev
independently proved that it isn't.

The so-called Solovay-Kitaev theorem showed that any

quantum algorithm could be achieved with a small fixed set
of instructions. This was not only important theoretically but
also in practice. Quantum engineers now need only concern
themselves with making a handful of operations work well—
the rest can be built up from them. But while this sounds
promising, there was still a loophole for the naysayers. Error

26
correction is not perfect, even for digital electronics. (Blue
Screen Of Death, anyone?) Although quantum error
correction demonstrated that the most common errors
occurring during the execution of these instructions can be
corrected, eventually, rare errors will happen, and those will
spoil the computation. Imagine you have a leak in the roof
and a bucket that can catch 99% of the water. Sounds great,
but eventually, the 1% that’s missed by the bucket will flood
the house. What you need is a bucket and a mop. With
quantum computer errors, we had the bucket but not the
mop.

The theoretical pinnacle of quantum computing research is

known as the Fault-Tolerant Threshold Theorem. In the late
‘90s, several researchers independently discovered that
quantum error correction allows quantum computation to
happen indefinitely, so long as the rate at which errors
happen is below some threshold. The exact value depends on
the details of the computing model, but for the sake of
argument, let’s say it is 1%. What does this number mean?
If you can engineer the fundamental components well
enough so that errors happen less than 1% of the time, then
a properly constructed quantum code will produce errors in
your computation less than 1% of the time. In other words,
you can correct errors faster than they are made, provided
those errors occur at a rate below the threshold.

27
And that was it. Before the turn of the century, all the pieces
were in place, and we just needed to wait until someone built
the damn thing! But here we are, decades later, without a
quantum computer — what gives? Is quantum technology a
pipe dream? Is it too dangerous to build? Does it require
access to other dimensions? And, just how exactly is the
thing supposed to work? It’s time we answered the real
questions.

28
 Myth 1: Nobody
Understands This
Quantum Stuff
“Nobody understands quantum physics.”

— Richard Feynman

What a quote! But, to be fair, there are so many to choose

from!

“Those who are not shocked when they first come across
quantum mechanics cannot possibly have understood it.”—
Niels Bohr

“Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense.”—Roger

Penrose

“If it is correct, it signifies the end of physics as a science.”—

Albert Einstein

29
“I do not like it, and I am sorry I ever had anything to do with
it.”—Erwin Schrödinger

Cute. But no one would guide their philosophical attitudes

and technology predictions based on what a bunch of dead
guys didn’t understand, right? I mean, who would do that?
Everyone, that’s who!

Here's how the argument might go. While the principles we

do understand have been enough to begin building quantum
computers, it's possible that as we push the boundaries of
our understanding, we might discover new principles or
limitations that make quantum computing impossible or
impractical. But this is just plain wrong. We understand
quantum physics exceptionally well—so much so that we
have built our entire modern society through the exploitation
of our understanding of it.

You are already using quantum technology

Don’t think that all this hype about quantum technology is
merely going to lead to a societal revolution—because it
already has! Every piece of modern technology has the
fingerprints of quantum physics on it. Quantum computers
seem less miraculous, and their inevitability becomes more
acceptable when this is understood. So, let’s understand it!
But first, there is something important to keep in mind.

30
While our precision engineering and control at the
microscopic scale was a continuous process of improvement,
there is still a clear distinction between first-generation
quantum technologies, which you will learn about in this
chapter, and second-generation quantum technologies, which
include quantum computers. Once we understood the fine
structure of light and matter, many new paths in
understanding and engineering opened up. Yet, these did not
require the manipulation of individual atoms or photons to
discover, nor did they need access to the fundamental
constituents to exploit. Now, we can control the world down
to individual atoms. It’s still quantum physics, but it
provides us with more possibilities—most of which we
probably don’t even know about yet!

Consider the following analogy. When you bake a cake, you

start with a collection of individual ingredients: flour, sugar,
eggs, etc. When we gained the ability to refine and perfect the
quality of these ingredients, our culinary achievements
evolved from avoiding starvation to celebrity bake-offs. But,
we can still only mix these ingredients together to form a
general batter. This is similar to how quantum physics
informed us of the constituents of matter, but we were
limited to exploiting those in bulk quantities. Now, imagine
being able to alter each grain of flour or sugar crystal, much
like how we can now manipulate individual atoms. This

31
would allow Gordon Ramsay to require customization of
reality TV cakes to an unprecedented degree, with demands
on texture, taste, and appearance beyond its recognition as
food. Controlling individual atoms could allow us to design
the world from scratch, producing things beyond our
imagination and unrecognizable to an experience trained in
a classical world.

Although that is beginning to sound like hyped-up science

fiction, our ability to manipulate the world at the most
fundamental scale is better seen as the natural evolution of
technological progress. But what will it evolve from? Let’s
look at some examples.

Transistors
Arguably, the most important technological consequence of
quantum physics is the mighty transistor. If you are sitting
on your mobile phone right now, you are currently sitting on
a billion of these now-tiny devices. But they weren’t always
tiny, and the story of this technology is at least as old as
quantum theory.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, physicists discovered

that silicon and some other materials had electrical
properties that fit between conductors and insulators—they
could conduct electricity under certain conditions but not

32
others. Classical physics could not explain this behavior, nor
could it aid in exploiting these properties. Quantum physics
provided the needed theoretical framework to understand
these materials. The discrete energy levels of Bohr’s atomic
theory generalize to the so-called band theory of solids.
Instead of the specific energy levels for electrons in a single
atom, bulk materials have “bands” and “gaps” in how
electron energy can be organized in materials. Band theory
suggests that conductors have many energy levels for
electrons to move into, which allows electric current to flow
easily. Insulators, on the other hand, have large “band gaps,”
preventing electron movement. Semiconductors have a small
band gap that electrons can cross under certain conditions.

The detailed band structure of any material can be deduced

by solving Schrödinger’s equation. This is an impossible task
for all but very contrived scenarios. Thus, most of the art and
science of the quantum physics of solid material is in crafting
useful approximations. Indeed, the sole purpose of the
largest sub-field of physics—called condensed matter
physics—is approximating quantum physics for large
systems of atoms. Basically, any person or company that has
sourced a product, component, or ingredient with specific
properties has at least indirectly benefitted from quantum
physics research. A modern transistor, for example,
demands a long list of properties to function correctly.

33
The transistor was invented in 1947 by John Bardeen,
Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs. While
“big” compared to today’s transistors, it was still only the size
of a coin. Its purpose was to amplify electrical signals to
replace the bulky and much less efficient vacuum tube. By
using two closely spaced metal contacts on the surface of a
small chunk of semiconductor material, the transistor could
regulate electric current by exploiting the band structure
properties of the material. After the initial demonstration,
progress was rapid. In addition to replacing vacuum tubes
as a necessary component in electric circuits, transistors
also replaced vacuum tubes as computer switches. By 1954,
the first “all-transistor” computer was built, and the rest, as
they say, is history.

Lasers
A laser used to be a LASER (Light Amplification by
Stimulated Emission of Radiation), but it is now so
ubiquitous that it's both a noun and a verb. While you don’t
want to be arbitrarily lasered, whenever you scan a barcode
at the supermarket, for example, you are harnessing the
power of lasers.

At the heart of laser operation is the phenomenon called

“stimulated emission.” This process was first described by
Einstein in 1917, using the early ideas of quantum physics.
Recall that an electron in an atom sits on discrete energy

34
levels. When the electron changes levels, it absorbs or emits
a photon. The energy of the photon is exactly the difference
in the energy levels. Spontaneous emission happens when
atoms in high-energy states randomly drop to low-energy
states. All the light you see, and all the light ever seen before
the 20th century, was due to atoms randomly changing
energy levels. Einstein suggested that an atom in an excited
state (with its electron at a high energy level) could be
stimulated to drop to a lower energy state with a photon
matching the energy level difference, thereby creating two
identical photons.

Despite Einstein's theoretical work, it wasn't until the 1950s

that scientists were able to build devices that took advantage
of stimulated emission. The first was developed by Charles
Townes and his colleagues at Columbia University in 1954,
though it still wasn’t practical and only amplified microwave
frequencies rather than visible light. A proper laser was first
demonstrated in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes
Research Laboratories. It was red, by the way. But while
impressive, it was still famously described as a
“solution looking for a problem.” Interestingly, most
applications of lasers today solve problems no one even
dreamed of having in 1960.

Just like the transistor, the laser has found many uses.
Today, lasers are used in a wide variety of fields, from

35
medicine and telecommunications to manufacturing and
entertainment. They are used to cut steel, perform delicate
eye surgeries, carry information over fiber-optic cables, read
barcodes, read and write music and video onto plastic discs,
and create mesmerizing light shows. Our modern world
could not exist without the laser, which will continue to pay
dividends when applied to second-generation quantum
technology.

Atomic clocks
If you've ever used GPS (Global Positioning System) to
navigate, which is nearly impossible not to unless you carry
no devices and drive yourself around in a twenty-year-old
vehicle, then you've indirectly used an atomic clock. Since it
has the word “atom” right in it, you know it has something
to do with quantum physics.

The development of atomic clocks was made possible by

understanding the detailed internal quantum nature of
atoms. Electrons in atoms occupy discrete energy levels and
can transition between these levels by absorbing or emitting
specific frequencies of light. That's old news to us now.
What's new is that these levels can be manipulated with
electric and magnetic fields—otherwise, single energy levels
can be split. This splitting can even come from electric and
magnetic fields generated from within the atom—electrons
carry an electric charge, after all! The natural splittings are

36
subtle but reveal what was called the fine and hyperfine
structure of atoms. In the 1930s, Isidor Rabi developed the
technique of magnetic resonance, enabling the precise
measurement of these features.

Since the energy level structure is a fixed property of atoms,

and the frequency they omit would create a very precise
“ticking,” Rabi later suggested that atoms could be used to
define an extremely stable clock. In 1949, the United States
National Bureau of Standards built the first atomic clock
using ammonia. But it was the cesium-based clock,
developed in 1955 at the National Physical Laboratory in
England, that truly revolutionized timekeeping.

Cesium-based atomic clocks work on the principle of

measuring the frequency of cesium atoms when they
transition between two specific energy levels. The lowest
energy hyperfine transition of cesium atoms oscillates
exactly 9,192,631,770 times per second, and this frequency
was so constant and reliable that in 1967, it was adopted as
the new standard for the second, replacing the previous
standard based on the Earth's orbit. Our definition of time
itself is based on quantum physics.

These incredibly precise timekeepers have been used in a

variety of applications, from synchronizing

37
telecommunications networks like the internet to testing the
predictions of Einstein's theory of relativity. However,
perhaps their most well-known application is in the Global
Positioning System. Each of the 24 satellites in the GPS
constellation carries multiple atomic clocks on board. The
tiny differences in the time signals sent by these clocks,
caused by their different distances from the receiver, allow
the receiver's position to be triangulated within a few meters.
Measuring distances is hard, but since light has a constant
speed, distance can be inferred by how long it takes to
travel—provided you can accurately measure time.

The atomic clock is a prime example of a quantum

technology that has become indispensable in our modern
world. Whether it's enabling global navigation or the internet,
the atomic clock demonstrates that we are living in the
quantum technology revolution—the first one, anyway.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Magnetic Resonance Imaging, commonly known as MRI, is a
powerful tool in the medical world, providing detailed and
non-invasive images of soft tissues in the body—something
traditional X-rays struggle with. The technology behind MRI
is rooted in quantum physics, drawing directly from the
principles of magnetic resonance mentioned with atomic
clocks.

38
One of the hallmarks of quantum physics was the discovery
of spin, a property internal to subatomic particles that forces
them to act like tiny magnets. Individually, they are very
weak and, when surrounded by others aligned in random
directions, are impossible to detect. However, they will align
themselves with a strong enough magnet, and that’s where
the giant superconducting coil magnets of an MRI machine
come in.

In MRI, the focus is mainly on the spin of hydrogen due to

the abundance of water in our bodies. When placed inside
the MRI machine’s strong magnet, these spins align with it.
A signal is then applied perpendicular to this magnetic field,
causing the spins to tip away from their aligned state. When
the signal is removed, the spins return to their original
alignment, but in the process, they emit signals back. These
signals, from the collective relaxation of billions upon billions
of tiny magnets deep within hydrogen atoms, are what the
MRI machine captures and converts into images.

The densities and types of tissues result in varied relaxation

times, meaning the signals received from various tissues will
differ. This difference allows for a contrast in the images and
enables the detailed visualization of organs, tumors, and
other structures.

39
Without understanding the spin properties of atomic nuclei,
the development of MRI would not have been possible. Today,
MRI is used globally to diagnose a myriad of conditions, from
brain tumors to joint injuries, showcasing yet another
practical application of quantum physics in our everyday
lives.

And many more…

While we have covered some of the most significant
applications of quantum physics in technology, there are, of
course, many more. For instance, nuclear energy and,
unfortunately, weapons are widespread applications relying
heavily on the principles of quantum physics via nuclear
physics. Without knowledge of the internal workings of
atoms, we would not have the over 400 nuclear reactors
providing 10% of the world’s electricity, nor would we have
the over 200 research-grade reactors that also produce
radioactive material for industrial and medical purposes.

Speaking of which, beyond MRI, quantum physics has had a

profound impact on medical technology. Positron Emission
Tomography (PET), for example, uses the obscure-sounding
anti-particle to the electron to construct images of the body’s
internal processes. A PET scan introduces a small amount of
radioactive material into the body, which emits radiation as
positrons. When they meet electrons, the emitted positrons
annihilate and produce two gamma rays in opposite

40
directions. The PET scanner detects these gamma rays,
infers the source, and hence maps out the journey of the
radioactive material within the body.

Semiconductor technology has led to numerous advances

over the years beyond the ubiquitous transistor. While
reliant on quantum physics for many aforementioned
reasons, quantum knowledge is doing double duty in tunnel
diodes. In these devices, electrons can “tunnel” through
energy barriers instead of requiring to go over them, as one
might expect from classical physics. Various versions of
these are used to improve everything from Christmas lights
and solar cells to lasers and thermometers.

Moreover, quantum concepts and mathematics have begun

to find applications in fields far removed from traditional
physics. Quantum biology, for instance, applies quantum
principles to biological processes, investigating phenomena
like photosynthesis and bird navigation, where a classical
description alone may be insufficient. “Quantum” finance
borrows mathematical techniques from quantum mechanics
to model financial markets and to understand their
seemingly random fluctuations better.

Quantum physics is far more embedded in our everyday lives

than we might initially realize. From the electronic devices

41
we use to navigate our world to the medical technologies that
help diagnose and treat illnesses to the mathematical models
that power our financial systems—the principles of quantum
mechanics are an integral part of our intentionally
engineered modern world. And this doesn't even touch on the
second-generation quantum technologies that are on the
horizon. As our control of quantum systems continues to
improve, more applications will come, so this all begets the
question, what exactly don’t we understand about quantum
physics?

Quantum teleology
Quantum physics is almost always taught chronologically.
Indeed, I just did that in the previous chapter. You read
about a long list of 20th-century scientific heroes who
uncovered the wild and untamed world behind our fingertips.
The story had modest roots in Planck’s 1900 hypothesis that
energy is discrete. Though we didn't need to make it that far
for the purpose of introducing quantum computers, the
standard tale of quantum physics usually crescendos with
John Bell’s work on “spooky” entanglement in the 1960s.
Today, as the story goes, we are on the cusp of the yet-to-be-
written second quantum revolution.

Along the way, the standard story tells of a piece of great

machinery that was simultaneously being created next to
quantum physics, called quantum mechanics, which allowed

42
graduate students to blindly turn the mathematical crank to
make predictions about newer and more extreme
experiments. It is often said that generations of physicists
would “shut up and calculate” to earn their degrees and
professorships to eventually repeat the program again with
the next cohort. The wild horse of quantum physics had
apparently been stabled but not tamed.

When Richard Feynman made the casual remark about

“understanding,” he was not only opening his now-famous
lecture on quantum physics, he was inadvertently venturing
into the realm of philosophy, which he famously derided. In
epistemology—the study of knowledge itself—understanding
is not just a mechanical mastery but a rich concept that
probes the underlying meaning and connection between
ideas. This brand of philosophy seeks to clarify the very
nature of knowing and being. As you might have expected
from such a grandiose task, there's more disagreement than
agreement amongst philosophers on even the definition of
the word.

On the other hand, we all have some intuitive notion of

understanding. In the everyday world, understanding might
be likened to knowing how to ride a bike, but in physics, it's
about grasping the forces that make the bike move. You
might not know the physics behind balance and motion, but

43
you come to “understand” how to ride it through feel and
experience.

When we talk about physicists' understanding, we're

stepping into a workshop where the universe's machinery is
laid bare. A physicist strives to see the gears and levers
behind phenomena, aiming for an intuitive grasp of why
things happen as they do. This is not merely knowing the
equations but being able to feel them, like instinctively
leaning into a turn.

However, in the realm of quantum physics, the rules of the

game seem to change. Understanding here is like trying to
catch smoke with your bare hands—it slips and dances
between your fingers. The intuitive mechanics known in
classical physics fade, and in their place are abstract
mathematical objects and formulas. You can follow them,
learn them, even use them, but a concrete mechanical
understanding of them appears impossible. Imagine riding a
bike—built by no one—with all its mechanisms hidden and
impossible to reveal.

If all the mixed messages about quantum physics confuse

you, I want you to erase everything you know about it and
memorize the next paragraph.

44
Quantum physics is a branch of science that describes
highly isolated systems—things that don’t interact randomly
with other stuff around them. Traditionally, these are small,
like atoms, but now we can engineer artificial systems under
high isolation. Anything that is extremely isolated requires
quantum physics to be described accurately. The
information such things encode is quantum information. If
you attempt to use classical physics or classical information
to make predictions or statements about such things, you
may end up being very wrong.

Quantum physics does not tell us what reality lies beyond

our experience. It only tells us that, whatever it is, reality is
nothing like the mechanical worldview we have come to take
for granted in realms where it works. Thus, if
“understanding” demands such an explanation of the
world—displaying the causes and effects that make it go—
indeed, no one yet has it.

But this myth is not about philosophy because this is a book

about technology. So, we will stick to the everyday use of
words. That is, using a tool is exactly how you come to
understand how it works. Generally, people stop demanding
explanations of things they are familiar with. We will
eventually become so familiar with quantum technology that
understanding will be a word reserved for one's ability to
successfully navigate its use. In much the same way that my

45
inability to “understand” the point of TikTok does not stand
in the way of it being a successful app, our lack of
“understanding” quantum physics does not stand in the way
of building quantum computers.

If Feynman were alive today, I think he’d contextualize this

quote better. He might say, “Quantum mechanics cannot be
understood using classical physics and information—it must
be understood in the language of quantum information.” Or,
perhaps, he’d be pithier and say, “Nobody speaks quantum
information.” Indeed, nearing the end of his career, he said,
“Nature isn’t classical, dammit, and if you want to make a
simulation of nature, you’d better make it quantum
mechanical, and by golly, it’s a wonderful problem, because
it doesn’t look so easy.” The workshop he said this at in 1981
is often considered the birthplace of quantum information
and computation.

46
 Myth 2: Qubits Are
Zero And One At The
Same Time
“Well, some go this way, and some go
that way. But as for me, myself,
personally, I prefer the shortcut.”

— Lewis Carroll

You probably think that a qubit can be 0 and a 1 at the same

time. Or that quantum computing takes advantage of the
strange ability of subatomic particles to exist in more than
one state at any time. I can hardly fault you for that. After
all, we expect places like the New York Times, Nature,
Science, New Scientist, Time Magazine, and Scientific
American, among many others, to be fairly reputable
sources, right? Apparently not. Nearly every popular account
of quantum computing has this “0 and 1 at the same time”
metaphor.

I say metaphor because it is certainly not literally true that

the things involved in quantum computing are 0 and 1 at the

47
same time. Remember that computers don’t actually hold 0s
and 1s in their memory. Those labels are just for our
convenience. Each bit of a digital computer is a physical
thing that exists in two easily distinguishable states. Since
we use them to perform logic, we could also have labeled
them “true” and “false.” Now it should be obvious—”true and
false at the same time” is just nonsense. (In formal logic, it is
technically a false statement.)

The problem is even worse, though, because not only is “0

and 1 at the same time” a gross oversimplification, but it is
also a very misleading analogy.

If 1 = 0, I’m the Pope

Me and the Pope are clearly two people. But assume 1 = 0.
Then 1 + 1 = 0 + 1. Since 2 = 1, me and the Pope are also one
person. Therefore, I am the Pope.

You see where the problem is, right? From a false premise,
any conclusion can be proven true. This little example was
humorously pointed out by the famous logician Bertrand
Russell, though he wasn’t talking about qubits. However, we
can clearly see that starting with a blatantly false statement
is going to get us nowhere.

48
Consider the following logic. First, if a qubit can be 0 and 1
at the same time, then two qubits can be 00 and 01 and 10
and 11 at the same time. Three qubits can be 000 and 001
and 010 and 011 and 100 and 101 and 110 and 111 at the
same time. And… well, you get the picture. Like mold on that
organic bread you bought, exponential growth!

The number of possible ways to arrange n bits is 2 to the

power of n—2n, a potentially big number. If n is 300, then 2
to the power of n is 2300, which is more than the number of
atoms in the universe! Think about that. Flip a coin just 300
times, and the number of possible ways they could land is
unfathomable. And 300 qubits could be all of them at the
same time. If you believe that, then it is easy to believe that
a quantum computer has exponential storage capacity and
power. That would be magic. Alas, this is not how qubits
work.

Clearly, we just need to get “0 and 1 at the same time” out of

heads.

Escalating quickly
Let’s skip ahead to the end just for a brief moment. I’m going
to tell you what qubits actually are, if only so that I can say
I never held anything back. If you take a formal university
subject in quantum computing, you will learn that qubits are

49
vectors in a complex linear space. That sounds complicated,
but it’s just jargon. Vectors are lists of numbers, spaces are
collections of vectors that are linear because you can add
vectors together, and the word complex refers to numbers
that use the square root of -1, which is also called an
imaginary number.

Vector spaces are used everywhere, from finance to data

science to computer graphics, and despite the term
“imaginary” associated with the square root of -1, complex
numbers have very real applications as well. Their beauty lies
in their ability to simplify and streamline otherwise
complicated mathematical problems across various
disciplines, from fluid dynamics to electrical engineering. So,
the tools themselves are not mysterious. The rules for how
these things are used in quantum computing are not
complicated either. However, this is where I will stop short of
turning this into a math textbook because I’m sure you’re
here to read words and sentences rather than symbols and
equations.

In short, a qubit is represented not by “0 and 1 at the same

time” but by two complex numbers. These numbers take on
a continuum of values, so they are indeed much more
versatile than the binary option afforded to a single bit.
However, they do come with limitations that prevent them
from being a computational panacea. If confusion sets in at

50
any point, remember that qubits are lists of complex
numbers, and there is a very solid mathematical framework
for dealing with them.

Putting the word quantum in front of everything

In the Marvel movie Ant-Man and The Wasp, the term
“quantum” is bandied about so liberally that Paul Rudd
(playing Ant-Man) nearly breaks the fourth wall to ask on
behalf of the audience, “Do you guys just put the word
quantum in front of everything?”

While this was meant to be a joke in the context of the

movie's dialogue, the answer in the real world is an emphatic
yes. It’s an inside joke that to be a quantum information
theorist amounts to opening a classic textbook on
information theory and literally placing the word “quantum”
in front of every definition and theorem. Though we have
quantum information, quantum entropy, quantum
channels, quantum coding, quantum this, and quantum
that, we didn’t hold on to “quantum bits.” In fact, we did
away with it rather quickly.

Qubits were introduced in a 1995 physics paper titled

Quantum Coding by Benjamin Schumacher as follows.

51
“For our elementary coding system we choose the two-level
spin system, which we will call a ‘quantum bit’ or qubit. The
qubit will be our fundamental unit of quantum information,
and all signals will be encoded into sequences of qubits.”

Boom. Qubits burst on the scene with authority! But

wait...what’s this buried in the Acknowledgments section?

“The term ‘qubit’ was coined in jest during one of the author’s
many intriguing and valuable conversations with W.K.
Wootters, and became the initial impetus for this work.”

Ha! The lesson? Always see a joke through to the end.

Writing in qubits
Usually, you will see qubits “written” with a vertical bar, |,
and a right angle bracket, ⟩, which come together to form
something called a “ket.” There is always something “inside”
the ket, which is just a label. Just as variables in
mathematics are given letter symbols (“Let x be…” anyone?),
an unspecified qubit is typically given the symbol |𝜓⟩. The
notation, called Dirac notation, is not special among the
various ways people denote vectors, but physicists have
found it convenient. Since quantum computing was born out
of this field, it has adopted this notation.

52
The other important thing to note is the use of the word state,
which is confusingly overloaded in both physics and
computation. The object |𝜓⟩ is often called the state of a
qubit or that the qubit is in the state |𝜓⟩. Sometimes |𝜓⟩ is
taken to be equivalent to the physical device encoding the
information. So, you’ll hear about the state of physical qubits,
for example. This is more of a linguistic convenience than
anything else. While there is nothing wrong with using this
short-hand in principle, it is what leads to misconceptions,
such as things being in two places at once, so caution is
advised.

Imagine I hand you a USB stick with a message. It might be

said that I’ve given you several bits—as if the information
were a physical quantity and the USB stick is the bits
containing my message. But, again, that’s just a convenient
and economical way to speak about it. Really, I have given
you a physical device that can represent a bunch of binary
options. I encode my message into these options, and you
decode the message by looking at it. The state of the USB
stick can be described by my message, but it is not literally
my message.

The same logic applies to qubits. I can encode qubits into

physical devices. Out of convenience, we say those devices

53
are qubits. It may then seem like the statement “the qubit is
in the state |𝜓⟩” implies that |𝜓⟩ is a physical quantity. In
reality, |𝜓⟩, which is quantum information, can only describe
the state of the physical device—whatever current
configuration it might be in. That configuration might be
natural, or it might have been arranged intentionally, which
is the process of encoding the information |𝜓⟩ into the
physical device.

Much like the process of encoding bits into a USB stick is

referred to as “writing,” encoding qubits into some quantum
device is the writing of quantum data. In the old parlance of
quantum physics, this is the same as “preparing” a quantum
system, where |𝜓⟩ summarizes the repeatable laboratory
procedure to bring a physical system into a particular
configuration. In the past, this was for the purpose of
experimentation. Now, it is done for the purpose of
computation.

All this is to say that, within any specialized discipline,

people are sloppy with their jargon. The trouble with
quantum computing is that the sloppy jargon is the only
thing that leaks out of a field that remains specialized. When
these phrases are combined with our everyday conceptions
of the world, we get weird myths.

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Superposition
It’s been mentioned that a qubit is simply a pair of numbers.
There are infinitely many pairs of numbers, but also some
special ones. For example, the pair (1,0) and the pair (0,1)
are pretty special. In fact, they are so special they are given
their own symbols in Dirac notation: |0⟩ and |1⟩. Among the
myriad of options, this choice was made to keep the
connection to the bits 0 and 1 in mind.

The other pair of numbers that usually gets its own symbol
is (1,1). The symbol for this pair is |+⟩, and it’s often called
the “plus” state. Why plus? Ah, we’ve finally made it to
superposition and the origin of “0 and 1 at the same time.”
This is the only bit of math I’ll ask you to do. What is (1,0) +
(0,1)? That’s right, it’s (1,1). Writing this with our symbols,
|+⟩ = |0⟩ + |1⟩.

The qubit is not in the |0⟩ state, nor is it in the |1⟩ state.
Whatever we might do with this qubit seems to affect both
|0⟩ and |1⟩ at the same time. So, it certainly does look like it
is both 0 and 1. Of course, the reality is more subtle than
that.

How would one physically encode the state |+⟩? Naively, the
equation suggests first encoding 0, then encoding 1, and,

55
finally, adding them together. That seems reasonable, but it’s
not possible. There’s never any addition happening in the
physical encoding or processing of qubits. The only reason it
is written this way is out of convenience for scientists who
want to write the states of qubits on paper. Taking a state
|+⟩ and replacing it with |0⟩ + |1⟩ is an intermediate step
that students learn to perform to assist in calculations done
by hand. A quantum computer could not do this, nor would
it need to. A quantum computer holds in its memory |+⟩, full
stop.

Any pair of numbers that is not (1,0) or (0,1) can be written

as a sum of the two of them. Such states are called
superposition states, and the nomenclature gets distorted
into phrases like “the qubit is in superposition.” You can
probably imagine, or have already seen, many
misinterpretations of such a statement. The words tempt us
to think that a qubit in superposition is in multiple states
simultaneously. However, the simplest true interpretation,
though not all that compelling, is just “a qubit in
superposition is not one that is encoded as either |0⟩ or |1⟩.”
This is exactly why I never get invited back on quantum hype
podcasts…

At this point, you may be wondering why we use the labels 0

and 1 in the first place if they are so prone to confusion.

56
There is a good reason for it, and it comes when we attempt
to read qubits.

Reading quantum information

Sorry, but you can’t read quantum information.

In a world where classical physics reigns supreme, reading

data is straightforward. If you've saved a document on your
computer, when you open it later, you expect to find the
same content. Moreover, reading the content amounts to
directly perceiving the symbols encoding bits of information.
It is so obvious and intuitive we barely give it a second
thought. But when it comes to quantum data, things are
much different.

In classical physics—and everyday life—measurement is the

process of determining the value of pre-existing properties of
things, like weight, dimensions, temperature, and so on.
With a well-calibrated instrument, we can “read off” what
was always there. We can encode information into these
properties and, if all else remains the same, decode the
information later.

Now, think about an atom for a moment. It’s tiny.

Unimaginably tiny. There are mountains of irrefutable
evidence that atoms are real, even though no one has ever

57
seen an atom. What we see with our naked eyes is
information on the displays of large instruments. But that
information is classical, represented in the digital electronics
of the device as bits. In short, any attempt to gain
information from a quantum system results in bits, not
qubits. We cannot simply “read off” the state of a qubit.

In physics, there is plenty more jargon surrounding this,

including measurement, observables, and collapse—none of
which is important for quantum computing. All we need to
understand is that reading quantum data results in classical
data—n qubits of information produce n bits of information
when read.

As an example, take some qubit of information—some |𝜓⟩

from earlier. Suppose it is encoded into the energy levels of
an atom. Any attempt to “read” the atom by, say, measuring
the amount of energy it has will result in a binary outcome.
(The atom will decay and give off a photon of light or not.)
That’s one bit of information. Since |𝜓⟩ is specified by two
continuously varying numbers, one bit is not nearly enough
to resolve which pair it is. In other words, you can’t read
quantum information.

58
Quantum measurement
In the previous example, an atom was imagined to encode a
qubit of information in its energy state. When read, one of
two outcomes will occur. If the atom is in the high energy
state, it will release that energy as a photon. But, now it has
no energy, so it must be in the low energy state. While there
are many clever ways to write and read qubits from physical
systems, none of them can avoid this situation. Some of the
verbs that have been associated with the outcome of a read
qubit are destroyed, deleted, collapsed, and other gruesome-
sounding terms. A more straightforward way to say it is
simply that the physical system no longer encodes the
quantum data.

Going from the classical notion of measurement to the

quantum one is a huge physical and philosophical leap and
something scientists and philosophers still debate about. So,
I’m not going to attempt to give a complete answer to why
reading qubits works this way, but I’ll give you the gist of it.
To “measure” even large classical systems is often invasive.
Things like biopsies make that obvious. A less complicated
example is tire pressure. Given a tire, we assume the air
inside it has some pressure—some fixed value for that
property of air, which is true of the air whether we attempt
to measure it or not. However, actually measuring the air
pressure requires opening the value to move a needle on
some gauge. By letting at least a little bit of air out, we’ve

59
changed the value of the very thing we were attempting to
measure.

You might intuit that the more you learn about a system, the
more you change it. Quantum physics is what you get when
you take that idea to the extreme. We can manipulate
quantum objects without disturbing them, but then we
would gain no information from them. We can eek a small
amount of information at the cost of little disturbance, but
extracting the most information possible necessitates
maximum disruption. Imagine a tire pressure gauge that lets
out all the air and only reports whether the tire was
previously full or not. You learn a single bit of information
and are always left with a flat tire. Though that’s a good
analogy, I promise that quantum computers are more useful
than it sounds.

A game of chance
So far, we have that qubits encode quantum data but can
only reveal a smaller amount of classical data. But there's
something that should be nagging at you—surely the
outcome has to depend somehow on the quantum
information |𝜓⟩. Otherwise, what's the point? Indeed.
However, it's not the outcome itself that depends on |𝜓⟩, but
the probability.

60
Quantum physics is not a deterministic theory. It gives us
very accurate predictions of probabilities for the possible
outcomes of experiments, but it does not tell us which
outcome will happen on each occasion. That is, when we read
a qubit, the classical bit we receive is random. Recall the plus
state from before, |+⟩ = |0⟩ + |1⟩. When read, it will produce
the bit 0 or the bit 1 with equal probability. You might call it
a quantum coin—a perfectly unbiased random event. Indeed,
this is the basis of commercially available QRN, or Quantum
Random Number, generators.

It’s going to be our mantra by the end of this book, but a

qubit is a pair of numbers. Let’s give the pair symbols (x,y).
If either of the pair is zero, the result of reading the qubit will
be deterministically 0 or 1. That is, reading the state |0⟩
results in 0, and reading the state |1⟩ results in 1. All other
states have some unavoidable randomness. If x is larger than
y, the outcome is biased toward 0. There’s a mathematically
precise rule for this called the Born Rule in quantum
mechanics, but it requires too much symbolic baggage to
present here. Besides, you’ve got the general idea.

Why care about coin tosses?

If quantum computing is based on such uncertainties, how
can it be useful? This is where the richness of quantum
algorithms comes into play. Quantum algorithms are
designed around the uncertainties associated with reading

61
qubits. The task of an algorithm designer is to amplify the
probabilities associated with correct solutions and minimize
the probabilities of incorrect ones. So, even if individual qubit
measurements are uncertain, quantum algorithms as a
whole guide the computation toward a useful outcome. This
is the topic of the next myth, so there’s more to come on
algorithms.

To summarize, a qubit is not “0 and 1 at the same time” but

rather is described by a pair of numbers representing its
state. This mathematical framework is rich and allows for a
wide array of manipulations beyond what can be done with
classical bits. Writing and reading qubits involve encoding
them into and decoding them from physical systems, but
with significant differences compared to classical bits. Most
notably, “reading” a qubit is a random event that yields
classical information and destroys the quantum information.
The qubit state influences the outcome's probability but isn't
fully revealed in the process. The challenge, fascination, and
potential power of quantum computing lie in navigating
these intricacies to perform useful computations.

62
 Myth 3: Quantum
Computers Try All
Solutions At Once
“There are two things you should
remember when dealing with parallel
universes. One, they're not really
parallel, and two, they're not really
universes.”

— Douglas Adams

The most fantastical, and hence the most popular,

explanation of quantum computing is that it happens
simultaneously in parallel worlds. While this is based on the
speculations of Very Serious Scientists, it’s not realistic and
leads to misconceptions such as the idea that a quantum
computer tries all the solutions to a problem at the same time
so it can instantly produce the answer.

The idea of parallel universes has long captivated human

imagination. From science fiction novels to blockbuster
movies, the thought of coexisting realities where alternative

63
versions of ourselves live out different destinies is undeniably
intriguing. So, when quantum computing—a field riddled
with complexities and counterintuitive principles—emerged,
it's unsurprising that the allure of the parallel universe
concept became a go-to explanation for many.

Within this captivating narrative, quantum computers were

hailed as miraculous machines that could tap into these
alternate realities. It was suggested that, perhaps, these
computers operated simultaneously across numerous
universes, hence their unparalleled speed and power. Such
an idea is not only a testament to our propensity for wonder
but also an indicator of how complex quantum physics is to
the uninitiated.

Many worlds, one origin

The “quantum tries all solutions at once” myth derives from
the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics,
which can be traced back to Hugh Everett III's 1957 Ph.D.
thesis, On the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. However,
it was mostly ignored until 1970, when Bryce DeWitt
resurrected it in an article, Quantum Mechanics and Reality,
appearing in Physics Today. Since then, a growing number
of physicists have subscribed to the idea, many referring to
themselves as Everettians.

64
Most popularizations of the MWI focus on the metaphors of
a universe that “branches” into “parallel” worlds. This leads
to all sorts of confusion. Not only can you waste your money
on a Universe Splitter iPhone app (which definitely doesn’t
split anything), but physicists even argue amongst
themselves at the level of these metaphors. Let’s call this
kind of stuff Metaphorical Many-Worlds and not discuss it
further. Is there a better way to think about the Many-Worlds
Interpretation than this? Yes—and the first thing we are
going to do is stop calling it that. Everett’s core idea was the
universal wave function. So what is that?

I briefly introduced the wave function as the symbol |𝜓⟩ in

the previous myth. Quick recap: a wave function is a
mathematical variable (like “x” from algebra class, but
dealing with complex numbers) used to calculate what will
be observed in experiments. In the context of quantum
computers, it’s the quantum information (the qubits)
encoded into some physical system. It’s all the information
needed to predict what will happen, summarized in the most
succinct way possible.

The Schrödinger equation dictates how the qubits, or the

wave function, change in time, except, of course, when we
attempt to read that information—recalling that reading
qubits destroys the quantum data. In other words, there are
two rules in quantum physics for how qubits change, and

65
when to apply them is arbitrary and at the discretion of the
user of the theory. This bothers all physicists to some extent
but bothered Everett the most.

And one wave function to rule them all

The executive summary of Everett is this: quantum theory is
consistent without any rule about reading qubits if we
consider the quantum information that describes the entire
universe—the universal wave function. This wave function
evolves according to Schrödinger’s equation always and
forever.

This is where all Everettians start. Popular science writer and

fervent MWI supporter Sean Carroll calls it “Austere
Quantum Mechanics” for its apparent beauty and simplicity.
One state, one equation—all’s right with the world. There’s
also just one problem—it doesn’t fit at all with our experience
of reality. We don’t experience the world as quantum things—
being in superposition and whatnot—we experience a
definite classical world. We really do experience the effects of
reading quantum data. So where does my experience of a
qubit in superposition only revealing a single bit fit into the
universal wave function?

Let’s go back to superposition. Remember that |0⟩ is a qubit

of information in a definite state—reading it deterministically

66
produces the bit 0. We might as well call it a “classical” state.
The same goes for |1⟩. On the other hand, the state |0⟩ + |1⟩
is not a classical state as it cannot be encoded into something
that only holds bits. If we expand on these descriptions to
include more possibilities, the amount of information grows.
Luckily, our notation remains succinct. Let’s say that |world
0⟩ is a definite classical state of the entire universe, as is
|world 1⟩, and they differ only by one bit (the outcome of
reading a single qubit).

In classical physics, “adding worlds” has no meaning, but in

quantum physics, |world 0⟩ + |world 1⟩ is a perfectly valid
state. If we imagine creating a definite classical state for each
of the mutually exclusive events possible and then adding
them all up, we will end up with one big superposition state—
the universal wave function. Now, we don’t need to write that
all down to interpret it—the simple two-state model suffices,
so we’ll stick with that. And, it seems to say not that there is
a single world that suddenly and randomly jumps upon
reading a qubit to either |world 0⟩ or |world 1⟩, but two
worlds that exist simultaneously.

Quantum Dad
David Deutsch is often referred to as the “father of quantum
computing.” As noted in the brief history presented in the
introductory chapter, Deutsch conceived of a model of
computation called a universal quantum computer in 1985.

67
Deutsch’s motivation was to find “proof” that MWI is correct.
Deutsch is clearly a proponent of the MWI, and he has
speculated exactly that which we are referring to as a myth.
In his view, when a quantum computer is in a superposition
of states, each component state corresponds to a “world” in
which that particular computational path is being explored.
He dubbed this “quantum parallelism” and suggested that
the physical realization of a quantum computer would be
definitive experimental evidence of MWI.

Here’s the basic idea in language we have already introduced:

if something acts on the superposition state |world 0⟩ +
|world 1⟩ as a whole, it seems like it simultaneously acts in
both worlds. In his seminal paper, he detailed a small
example (now called Deustch’s algorithm) that makes this
logic more concrete.

The first thing to note is that algorithms of any type are

recipes that solve all instances of a more generic problem.
Recall long division—it was not a sequence of steps that
worked for only one problem, but any division problem. To
describe Deutsch’s algorithm then requires that we
understand the problem it is meant to solve.

Consider a simple one-bit computer that accepts a single bit

as input and produces a single bit as output. There are not

68
many programs we can run on such a computer. The
program could do nothing and return the same bit it
received. Or, it could switch the value of the bit (0 becomes
1 and 1 becomes 0). It might also ignore the input bit entirely.
It could produce 0 no matter what the input was, or it could
produce 1 no matter what the input was. And that’s it. Those
four options are the only possible ways to manipulate a
single bit. We can split these four programs into two
categories: the pair whose outputs added together are odd,
and the pair whose outputs added together are even. Given
a program, Deutsch’s algorithm tells you which category it
belongs to.

If you were given a digital computer with an unknown

program, you would expect that you would need to use it
twice—once for each possible input bit—and add the outputs
together. However, Deutsch showed that if you could input a
qubit into the computer, and that qubit was in a
superposition state, you only need to run the program once.
He later showed, with Richard Jozsa in 1992, that the same
is true no matter how many input bits there are. In other
words, this is a problem that a digital computer requires
exponentially many uses to solve, but only a single use of a
quantum computer. It seems the quantum computer has run
the program on all inputs simultaneously.

69
Deutsch then asked if all of that computation is not done in
parallel universes, where could it possibly happen?

It happens here
The key to Deutsch’s claim is a mismatch in resources. It
doesn’t take that big of a problem before all possible
solutions outstrip the total number of things in the entire
(single) universe we could use to encode bits. Therefore, the
quantum computer must be using resources in other
universes.

The problem with this logic is that it discounts quantum

information altogether. Sure, it takes exponentially many
bits to encode the same number of qubits, but we also have
the qubits here, in this single world. Of all people, those who
envision a cosmos of countless classical universes seem to
lack the imagination to picture a single universe made of
quantum stuff instead of classical stuff.

Any argument that quantum computers access parallel

worlds or more than three spatial dimensions relies on
circular logic that presupposes the objective reality of each
component of a superposition state. In other words, they use
the MWI to prove the MWI.

70
Naive quantum parallelism
Now, even if you still want to believe the MWI to be the one
true interpretation of quantum physics, its implications for
quantum computing are just not useful. In fact, they appear
to be dangerous. Computer scientist Scott Aaronson,
probably the most famous popularizer (and tied for the most
curmudgeonly), bangs on this drum (out of necessity) in
every forum he’s invited to, and he appears to be as
sympathetic to MWI as you can get without officially
endorsing it.

The most obvious logical step from quantum parallelism is

that quantum computers try every solution to a problem
simultaneously. This runs into two major problems, as
Aaronson points out. First, it implies that quantum
computers can efficiently solve some of the hardest problems
we know of (a famous example being the Traveling Salesman
Problem). However, Grover’s algorithm (which we will see
later) is the only known quantum algorithm that can be
applied generically to such problems, and it provably has
only a modest advantage. Technically, unless some new
quantum algorithm appears that would upend our
understanding of computer science, physics, and
philosophy, quantum computers will not be able to solve
such problems efficiently.

71
The second issue with naive quantum parallelism is that
supposing a quantum computer could access alternative
universes, it seems to do so in the most useless way possible.
Rather than performing exponentially many computations in
parallel and combining the results, it simply returns a
random answer from one of the universes. Of course, actual
quantum algorithms don’t work that way either. Instead,
algorithms manipulate the coefficients of superpositions
(whether there is a “plus” or “minus” between |0⟩ and |1⟩) so
that “correct” answers are returned when the quantum data
is read. Crucially, quantum computers can only do this for
very specific problems, suggesting that the power of
quantum data is not access to parallel worlds but simply a
matching of a problem’s structure to the mathematics of
quantum physics.

Einstein to the rescue

Contrary to popular belief, Einsteinian relativity does not
render Newtonian gravity obsolete. In fact, we probably use
and refer to Newton’s idea more now than we did before
general relativity came along, though that is mostly just
because there are more scientists and engineers trying to
launch things around than there were a century ago.
Occasionally, we even appeal to Newtonian gravity to explain
or interpret general relativity. Consider the common
technique of placing a bowling ball on stretched fabric to
simulate the warping of spacetime. As the ball pulls the
fabric down, we can appeal to our intuition from Newtonian

72
gravity to predict what will happen to smaller balls placed on
the fabric. This is analogous to when we try to interpret
quantum computers through the lens of classical
computers—we are explaining the new idea in the context of
the older ones. However, we can also explain older ideas
through the lens of newer ones, which often have much more
explanatory power.

Suppose you’ve just had a riveting lecture on general

relativity—which ought to have blown your mind and
upended your conception of reality—and are now wondering
how the old ideas of Newton fit into the new picture. Einstein
asked us to imagine being in a rocket ship in the dead of
space, with no planets or stars nearby. Of course, you would
be floating inside your rocket ship, feeling weightless. Now,
imagine the rocket ship started accelerating forward at a
constant rate. The ship would move forward, but you would
remain still until the floor of the ship reached you. At that
point, the floor would provide a constant force pushing on
you. You could “stand up” and walk around on the floor,
which now gives you the sensation of weight. In fact, you
have no way of knowing whether the rocket ship is
accelerating in empty space or is simply standing up,
completely still, on Earth. The “feeling” of gravity is just that,
a feeling. In other words, gravity is a “fictitious” force like the
“centrifugal force” keeping water in a bucket that swung
around fast enough. Once you take examples like this on

73
board, you tend to understand both Einsteinian and
Newtonian gravity better. Can we do the same for quantum
computers?

A quick recap. A qubit is two complex numbers—one

associated with 0 and the other with 1. Two qubits are
represented as four complex numbers associated with 00,
01, 10, and 11, and so on it goes. A large number of qubits
is an exponentially large list of complex numbers, each one
associated with a possible ordering of bit values. Ten qubits
have 210, or 1024, complex numbers, one of which is
associated with 0000000000 and another with 1001011001,
and so on. A quantum computation manipulates these
numbers by multiplying and adding them with other
numbers. One classical interpretation is that the quantum
computer is doing classical computation on each of these bit
values simultaneously. That’s simple and neat but, as noted
above, quickly leads to misconceptions. Let’s consider then
taking this quantum computation description for granted
and ask how classical computers fit in.

An interesting generalization of digital computers includes

randomness, which you can imagine comes about by flipping
coins to decide the input of the program. How these
“probabilistic bits” are described is actually remarkably
similar to qubits. One probabilistic bit is two numbers—the
probability of 0 and the probability of 1. Two probabilistic

74
bits are four numbers representing the probability of 00, 01,
10, and 11. Just like with qubits, ten probabilistic bits have
210, or 1024, probabilities, one of which is associated with
0000000000 and another with 1001011001, and so on. The
situation is nearly identical, except for the fact that instead
of complex numbers, the probabilities are always positive.
Now, suppose I have a probabilistic computer that simulates
the flipping of ten coins. It manipulates numbers for each of
the 1024 possible sequences of heads and tails just like a
quantum computer would. So, does it calculate those
probabilities in parallel universes? No, obviously not. But
clearly, there must be a difference between the two
computers.

When you have a list of probabilities representing bits of

information, and you change those bits of information—by
processing them in a computer, say—then the list of
probabilities obviously changes. In general, the new list is a
mixed-up version of the old list obtained by multiplying and
adding the original numbers together. But here’s the thing:
if all those numbers are positive, they can never cancel each
other out. Multiplying and adding positive numbers always
results in positive numbers. Meanwhile, with qubits, the list
can change in drastically different ways because adding
negative numbers to positive numbers can lead to
cancellation. In other words, a classical computation is just

75
a quantum computation restricted to positive numbers that
add up to one.

Rather than picturing quantum computers as some exotic

new addition to our classical world, let's turn things around.
Imagine a world fundamentally quantum, where the large
objects we're familiar with are strangely constrained. They
can only perform a specific kind of computation without the
ability to cancel out possibilities the way full-fledged
quantum systems can.

Deflating the multiverse

Quantum computations happen in this universe, not the
multiverse. But the media, always on the hunt for tantalizing
stories, grabbed onto this narrative, creating a feedback loop.
The more the idea was mentioned, the more ingrained it
became in public consciousness. Over time, the concept of
many worlds became intertwined with quantum computing
in popular discourse, leading to the prevalent yet
misconstrued belief that quantum computers work by
operating simultaneously across parallel universes.

The portrayal of quantum computing as a magical tool that

can solve all problems by computing in multiple universes
can lead to misunderstandings and inflated expectations. It's
crucial to separate the fascinating yet speculative ideas

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about the nature of reality from the actual, proven
capabilities of quantum computers. While Deutsch was
inspired by the MWI and sees quantum computers as
evidence for it, the actual operation and utility of quantum
computers don't require MWI to be true. In other words,
quantum computers work based on the principles of
quantum mechanics, and their functionality is independent
of the philosophical interpretation of those principles.

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 Myth 4: Quantum
Computers
Communicate
Instantaneously
“I cannot seriously believe in it because
the theory cannot be reconciled with the
idea that physics should represent a
reality in time and space, free from
spooky action at a distance.”

— Albert Einstein

Entanglement is surely the most misunderstood concept in

quantum physics, often depicted as a kind of mystical
connection enabling instant communication across vast
distances. This misunderstanding has led to widespread
speculation about quantum computers exploiting this
phenomenon to achieve instantaneous data transfer. But
like the myths before it, this concept of “spooky action at a
distance” as a computational resource strays far from the
realities of quantum mechanics and the operational
principles of quantum computing.

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While the quantum data within quantum computers is
indeed entangled, we can reframe our understanding such
that this should seem inevitable rather than miraculous.

Where did entanglement come from?

In 1935, Albert Einstein and two colleagues, Boris Podolsky
and Nathan Rosen, wrote a paper elucidating the conceptual
problem quantum physics posed for our classical notions of
space and time. Either quantum physics disobeyed
Einstein’s theory of relativity, or quantum physics was not a
complete theory. Einstein dismissed the former—the
infamous “spooky action at a distance”—suggesting that
there must be some deeper reality behind the equations of
quantum physics. Since the theory didn’t specify what these
might be, they came to be called “hidden variables.”

After a New York Times headline read “Einstein Attacks

Quantum Theory,” attention was drawn to the feature
Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen identified. Erwin Schrödinger
was the first to name it and its own English translation,
calling it entanglement. Of it, he said entanglement is “the
characteristic trait of quantum mechanics, the one that
enforces its entire departure from classical lines of thought.”
Then, he left physics to become an Irish biologist. Besides
some wordy and pedantic public debates between Einstein
and Niels Bohr, not much more was said about entanglement

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for decades. War and the shift from science to engineering in
quantum physics produced the “shut up and calculate”
generation, which frowned upon what they saw as fruitless
philosophical matters. Of course, there are always a brave
few.

One of the brave souls was John S. Bell. In 1964, he

proposed an experiment that could rule out exactly the kind
of hidden variables that the now-late Einstein hoped for. His
proposed experiment—and many refinements that came
later—are known as Bell experiments. The quantities these
experiments measure are compared to Bell inequalities.
Entanglement is necessary to violate the inequalities, which
in turn rule out local hidden variables. John Clauser and his
student, Stuart Freedman, performed the first real Bell
experiment eight years later. This could have ended the
debate, but the hope for hidden variables was strong. People
began looking for so-called “loopholes” that might leave room
for Einstein’s desires. Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger
followed with their own experiments to close the loopholes a
decade later. In doing so, they paved the way for extremely
precise control of entangled quantum states, which ushered
in a new era of quantum technology.

Explainer-level nonsense
The gist of any quantum entanglement story is that it arises
when particles interact and create a “link,” which we call

80
entanglement. Importantly, entanglement remains no matter
how far apart they might be. The state of each individual
particle is not well defined, but their joint (entangled) state
is. Thus, the two particles must be considered as a single
entity spread across a potentially vast distance. If you believe
that story, I agree it’s mystical, just as the internet told you.

The mechanics of what is going on when actually creating

entangled states of quantum things seem to corroborate this
story, though. We’ve been creating entangled states of
photons, for example, this way for decades. A single high-
energy photon enters a special transparent material that
converts it into two lower-energy photons that fly off in
different directions. Because of an ambiguity in which
photon has which property, quantum physics says they are
entangled. Numerous experiments have verified the
predictions of measuring the two entangled photons, with the
latest separations being tens of kilometers. In fact, each new
experiment has accompanying press releases staking their
claim on the current quantum entanglement distance record.

The fact that physical properties, like polarization in the case

of photons, are correlated in these experiments makes it feel
like a real link has been created. But that’s not the only way
to create entanglement.

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Cutting the link
Quantum mechanics makes accurate predictions in the
context of entangled systems. It doesn’t actually contain or
suggest the model of entanglement as a physical connection
between two distant objects, though. That model is wrong.
To see why, consider that entanglement can be created
between two particles without ever having them interact.
They can be so far away from each other that not even light
signals can reach one another, meaning nothing physical
could have mediated the “link.”

First, imagine two atoms separated by a large distance and

both in an excited state. When either atom decays, it releases
a photon that is detected at a central station midway between
the two distant atoms. Since the detector cannot distinguish
which of the two atoms decayed, the state of the pair
becomes correlated. Quantum mechanics dictates they must
be entangled, but it says nothing about a physical link.

The atoms never interacted or exchanged any information. In

fact, they couldn’t have—the only signal that something had
happened made it halfway between them when the
entanglement was created. Are we to believe a physical link
of double that size was immediately generated? I hope not.
So, what’s going on then?

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Classical entanglement
Imagine if, instead of atoms, there were two distant boxes,
each with a ball in it. The ball might be removed and sent to
you from either box. At some median location, you receive a
ball in the post. Immediately, the boxes become correlated—
one is empty, and the other is not—because you don’t know
which box the ball came from. While the boxes, still
separated by a great distance, instantly formed this
connection, it is simply your ignorance and future
expectations about what might be revealed that define the
correlation. There is certainly no mystical “link” that
physically manifested between the boxes the moment the
post arrived, and the same is true for atoms. The point here
is that, like correlated bits, entanglement is simply correlated
qubits.

Now, of course, there must be some difference between the

very classical “balls in boxes” situation and the quantum
atoms. In the classical world, correlated events cause one
another or can be traced back to a common cause that could
have determined the outcome. An infamous example is the
fact that cities with more police have more crime. Neither
causes the other, though. The confounding factor is city
size—bigger cities have both more police and more criminals
simply because they have more people. There is always
something that explains correlations in classical
information. In the case of the balls, in principle, someone

83
could know the whole situation—which box was empty and
where each ball was. That’s just not possible with atoms and
photons.

When we attempt to “explain” quantum correlations, we

naively and unavoidably constrain ourselves to stories
phrased in classical information. These are essentially
hidden variables, which we ought to know won’t do. You can
explain quantum entanglement, but it must be phrased in
quantum information. Demanding a classical explanation of
entanglement is like demanding the behavior of rabbits be
explained in terms of apples.

Technobabble
The point of mathematics is simplifying things that would
require otherwise long-winded and complicated sentences.
So, we replace the things we are talking about with symbols
and numbers. If classical bits are unknown, we write them
as a list of probabilities (p1, p2, p3, …). In the case of the two
boxes, our ignorance of the contents of each box is a
probabilistic bit, as introduced in the previous chapter. The
first box is associated with a pair of probabilities (p1, p2).
Again, this is just a way more succinct way than writing (the
probability that this box has a ball, the probability that this
box has no ball). Between the two boxes, there are four
possible situations, which would have a list of numbers like
(q1, q2, q3, q4).

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Now, here’s the important point: if the list of four
probabilities for the pair of them can’t be equally described
as two separate lists of two numbers for each of them, then
the information they share must be correlated.
Mathematically, you can take this as the definition of
correlation. For example, (0, 0.5, 0.5, 0) represents the
situation when one ball is received at the central location.
There is zero chance both are empty and zero chance both
have a ball. We are certain one is empty, and one has a ball—
we just don’t know which is which. Since we don’t know what
box it came from, either each box is empty or contains a ball
with 0.5 probability. Each box alone has the same probability
pair (0.5, 0.5), but these individual lists don’t capture the
complete situation—a bigger list is always needed to capture
the correlations.

You now know what regular old classical correlation is.

Luckily, entanglement is not much different. Let’s recall the
definition of a qubits. Instead of two positive numbers that
add up to one, a qubit is represented by two numbers (which
could be negative) that add up to one after you square them.
For example, (0.6, −0.8) represents a qubit. Clearly, these are
neither positive nor do they add to one. But if you square
each of them, you get (0.36, 0.64), which adds to one. When
you square the numbers in the qubit list, it tells you the
probability of each possible answer to the question the qubit

85
represents. If one atom is described by a qubit (0.6, −0.8),
then we would find it excited with a probability of 0.36 and
decayed with a probability of 0.64.

For the pair of atoms, the two-qubit state has four numbers.
For example, (0, 0.6, −0.8, 0) tells us that only one atom will
be found in the excited state, but with unequal probabilities.
If the list representing the pair of atoms can’t be equally
represented by two smaller lists for each atom individually,
they are correlated. But since they are qubits instead of bits,
we give such a list a new name: entanglement. That’s it. In
quantum information, entanglement is correlated qubits.

Interference
Lists of probabilities change by multiplying and adding up
the individual numbers to create new ones. As pointed out in
the last chapter, multiplying or adding positive numbers can
only produce more positive numbers. Whereas, with qubits,
the list can change in drastically different ways because
adding negative numbers to positive numbers can lead to
cancellation. Borrowing terminology from wave mechanics,
this is often referred to as interference, where two waves
cancel when the crest of one meets the trough of another.

Quantum computers perform calculations in far fewer steps

than classical computers by using interference—

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choreographing the cancellation of unwanted numbers in
qubits of information. While the computer doesn’t use
entanglement as some physical fuel, we can show that
without it, the computations it performs can be easily
simulated with classical digital computers. That is, a
quantum computer, made of atoms and photons, for
example, that never realizes entanglement is no less
“quantum” than anything else but also no more powerful
than a digital computer. In some sense, though, this is not
surprising. After all, a digital computer that never produces
correlated bits would be extremely useless—no more
powerful than flipping a bunch of fair coins.

Beam me up
Correlated qubits are necessary for quantum computation
and can be seen as a resource for primitive information-
processing tasks. The whimsical names of these tasks don’t
help our myth-busting endeavor, however.

Take, for example, quantum teleportation. Entanglement is

necessary to “teleport” quantum information between
locations using only classical information. While this doesn’t
mean teleportation in the sci-fi sense of instantly
transporting matter, it does involve the transfer of quantum
information in a way that’s not possible without quantum
entanglement. When thinking about entanglement as a
physical connection, things like teleportation do indeed

87
sound like science fiction. However, quantum teleportation
is just shifting the location where information is stored in an
efficient way. If I were narrating the protocol, I might say the
following.

“Two qubits are correlated. I take one and compare it to a

third. Now, two of the three qubits have been read. Having
learned something about that comparison, I manipulate the
unread qubit so that it’s described in the same state as the
third one before reading it.”

It’s not that you are meant to follow the logic there—the
protocol itself is not trivial. However, compare this to an
explanation from Popular Mechanics (A. Thompson, March
16, 2017).

“If we take two particles, entangle them, and send one to the
moon, then we can use that property of entanglement to
teleport something between them. If we have an object we
want to teleport, all we have to do is include that object in the
entanglement… After that, it's just a matter of making an
observation of the object you want to teleport, which sends
that information to the other entangled particle on the moon.
Just like that, your object is teleported, assuming you have
enough raw material on the other side.”

88
Thinking about quantum information as physically
corresponding to classical objects quickly descends into
magical thinking. Not only does it not help explain the
concepts, but it further mystifies quantum physics and gives
it the illusion that supernatural forces are at play.

Just correlations
Most of what you hear and read about quantum
entanglement is the shooting down of attempts to force it into
a classical worldview, but framed with headlines like
“quantum physicists just proved nature is spooky.”
Technically, we call the results no-go theorems because they
rule out theories that would restore classical objectivity to
quantum physics. Classical objectivity is comforting because
it provides a reliable and persistent model of the world. It
allows us to predict and control our environment with
remarkable ease as we cobble together rigid objects to act as
simple machines that extend our natural abilities and more
complicated ones that have enabled a mostly cooperative
global technological society.

We found and exploited regular patterns in the world. But

the comfort of objectivity is an illusion—an illusion that has
made “physics” synonymous with “objective reality.” This is
not a problem for classical information since there is a
perfect correspondence between bits and easily recognizable
binary alternatives in the objective world we have created.

89
But that’s a very narrow view influenced by the success of
classical physics and engineering. Quantum physics, with
things like entanglement, throws a wrench into this neat
classical picture of the world.

Yes, entanglement challenges our deepest desires for a

universe of rigid cause-and-effect relationships. However, as
noted when debunking Myth 1, unless you “speak” quantum
information natively, you won’t “understand” entanglement
in the mechanical way you understand most other things.
But, from a higher vantage point, you can appreciate it.
Classical correlations are relationships between bits of
information. The easiest high-level description of
entanglement is the correlation between quantum bits
(qubits) of information. In the same way that correlated bits
are ubiquitous and inevitable, so is entanglement. Quantum
bits belong to a theory of information where correlation is the
norm, not the exception. Sure, to encode entangled qubits
faithfully into the world might be an engineering challenge,
but the concept is ultimately substrate-independent, living
in the abstract realm of information and algorithms—no
mysterious links, instantaneous communication, or spooky
actions.

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 Myth 5: Quantum
Computers Will
Replace Digital
Computers
“Create the hype, but don’t ever believe it.”

— Simon Cowell

We are immersed in a “replacement culture” that assumes

new technologies will completely supplant their
predecessors. This mindset, which has witnessed the
transition from records to CDs to streaming or from landlines
to wireless handsets to mobile phones, might naturally lead
many to assume that quantum computers will replace digital
ones.

It's easy to be caught up in the buzz and excitement

surrounding emerging technologies, especially something as
ground-breaking as quantum computers. Predictions of
them replacing our everyday devices, from laptops to
smartphones, permeate popular culture and the media. This

91
is a form of hype that misrepresents the potential of quantum
computing.

This chapter will first describe the likely trajectory of

quantum technology and detail why conventional computers
will always be needed and, in some cases, remain superior to
quantum computers.

GPUs to QPUs
As mentioned in the introductory chapter, a quantum
computer is unlikely to be a “computer,” as we colloquially
understand it, but a special-purpose processing unit—the
QPU. The term QPU (quantum processing unit) is analogous
to the graphics processing unit (GPU).

The history of the GPU begins in the late 1990s, with Nvidia
introducing the GeForce 256 in 1999, often celebrated as the
first GPU. Originally, GPUs were designed to accelerate
graphics rendering for gaming and professional visualization,
offloading these tasks from the CPU (central processing unit)
to increase performance and efficiency.

Over the years, GPUs evolved from specialized graphics

accelerators into highly parallel, multi-core processors
capable of handling a wide range of computing tasks. This
transition was facilitated by developing programming models

92
like CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), which
allowed developers to use GPUs for tasks beyond graphics
display, including scientific research, machine learning, and
something to do with cryptocurrencies.

Adopting GPUs for parallel processing tasks significantly

accelerated computations in fields requiring intensive
mathematical calculations, transforming industries and
research. This shift underscored GPUs as indispensable for
specific applications rather than general computing needs.

Currently, QPUs are in their nascent stages, with ongoing

research focused on overcoming significant challenges such
as error rates, qubit coherence times, and scalability.
Quantum computing is still largely experimental, with
prototypes and small-scale quantum computers being tested
in research labs and by a few commercial entities. To guess
at the quantum technological future is an exercise in crystal
gazing, but here we go…

I predict that the developmental trajectory of QPUs will

mirror that of early digital computers and GPUs,
transitioning from rudimentary and highly specialized
devices to more sophisticated and versatile computing
platforms. However, due to the inherent complexity and
specialized nature of quantum computations, QPUs will

93
evolve into complementary components of classical
computers optimized for specific tasks intractable for CPUs.
Much like GPUs, QPUs will eventually be utilized beyond the
applications we envision for them today, but they will never
replace CPUs or even GPUs.

Before we get into what QPUs might do, let’s outline what
they certainly won’t do. But before that, we need to talk about
what problems are hard and why.

Computational complexity
Theoretical computer scientists categorize computational
problems based on the amount of computational resources
(like time and space) required to solve them, essentially
dividing them into “easy” and “hard” problems.

Imagine you're trying to crack a safe that uses a pin code.

Let's start with a four-digit pin, where each digit can be either
a 0 or a 1. For the first digit, you have two options. For the
second digit, you also have two options, but now, combining
it with the first digit's options, you get four total possibilities
(00, 01, 10, 11). By the time you reach the fourth digit, you're
looking at sixteen possible combinations (0000, 0001, ...,
1111). Clearly, this safe is not very secure.

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Now, imagine each digit in the pin can be more than just 0
or 1. Let's say there are n options for each digit, and the pin
is d digits long. The total number of combinations is n to the
power of d (or nd, which is n multiplied by itself d times). If
the number of digits d stays fixed, but you increase the
number of options n for each digit, then the total number of
combinations grows polynomially because polynomials
involve variables raised to fixed powers. For example,
sticking with a four-digit pin but increasing the options for
each digit from just 0 and 1 to, say, 0 through 9, the safe
gets more secure because the total combinations jump from
16 to 10,000 (which is 104).

On the flip side, if you keep n fixed (like sticking to 0 through

9 and not adding more) but increase the number of digits d,
you see an exponential growth in combinations because the
variable changing is in the exponent. This means for each
new digit you add, you're multiplying the total number of
combinations by n, not just adding n more combinations. If
the new safe has six digits instead of four, we go from 10,000
combinations to a million!

Cracking locks where the number of digits is fixed but the

number of options can grow is “easy” because the number of
steps grows polynomially. Such a problem belongs to the
class labeled P (for Polynomial time). Since problems in the
class P are already easy for classical computers, quantum

95
computers won’t significantly speed them up. An algorithm
is called efficient if it runs in polynomial time. So, both
classical and quantum algorithms for this problem are
efficient.

On the other hand, cracking locks where the number of

options is fixed but the number of digits can grow is “hard”
because the number of steps grows exponentially. Note that
even though the problem is identical to the one considered
in the previous paragraph for any given lock, problem classes
require some flexible notion of input size. Since the input is
different between the two scenarios, the problems really do
occupy different classes. When the number of digits can
change, the problem belongs to the class NP
(Nondeterministic Polynomial time). This class contains all
problems for which a solution can be easily verified. In this
case, given the correct combination, it is trivial to test it.

For the more difficult problem of cracking a lock with variable

digits, the algorithm of trying every combination is not
efficient. In fact, there is no efficient classical algorithm for
this problem. It’s not expected that an efficient quantum
algorithm exists for this problem, either. (Though, if you
believed the last myth, you might be forgiven for thinking so.)

96
In summary, quantum computers aren’t useful for cracking
pin numbers for two reasons. Either the problem is too
easy—in which case a classical computer suffices—or the
problem is too hard for any computer. By now, you must be
wondering what problems a QPU is actually useful for.

BQP
Ideally, we’d like to define a class of problems that can be
solved with a quantum algorithm in polynomial time. In
classical complexity theory, most problem classes are
defined relative to a deterministic algorithm. But quantum
algorithms end when quantum data is read, a random
process. So, we need to add probability to the definition.

Bounded-error Quantum Polynomial time (BQP) is the class

of problems that can be solved with a quantum algorithm in
polynomial time with a probability of error of at most ⅓. (The
⅓ is an arbitrary choice, strictly less than ½ if you were
wondering.) This class includes all the problems that are
“easy” for a quantum computer. Some problems in this class
are assumed to be hard for classical computers, but there is
some fine print.

Briefly, there are huge, century-old open questions in the

theory of computer science that would net you fame and
fortune if you solved them. One such example is, does P =

97
NP? Another: is NP contained in BQP? We suspect the
answer is “no” to both of these questions, but there is
currently no mathematical proof. This is why many
statements about computational speed-up are couched in
dodgy language, and some aren’t. We don’t really know if
quantum computers are any different from classical
computers, but we highly suspect they are. In this book, for
brevity, I won’t add all the necessary caveats to statements
about complexity as if it were a graduate class in computer
science.

As mentioned in the introductory chapter, the Quantum

Algorithm Zoo (quantumalgorithmzoo.org) lists problems
known to be in BQP—that is, efficiently solvable with a QPU.
It’s a long list, but most of the problems are extremely
abstract. The most famous is probably factoring, which is
solved by Shor’s algorithm. But that is better suited for the
next myth. Here, I’ll describe the “obvious” one.

Quantum simulation
In both classical and quantum physics, scientists use
mathematical models called Hamiltonians to describe how
things behave—from the interactions of tiny particles to the
workings of complex materials. However, understanding and
predicting the behavior of these systems can be incredibly
complex, requiring massive amounts of computational
power, even for supercomputers. Today, many

98
approximations are used to make the problem tractable, yet
at the expense of accuracy.

Given a Hamiltonian model, a detailed simulation of it with

a digital algorithm is so inefficient that it’s not even
conceivable that we will ever have the classical computing
power to solve it. However, it has been shown that some
Hamiltonian model simulations can be efficiently carried out
on a quantum computer.

At a high level, the idea is both simple and intuitive. Given

the Hamiltonian model, break it up into smaller and smaller
chunks until each chunk is an elementary quantum logic
instruction. Then, carry those instructions out on a universal
quantum computer! Of course, it’s harder than it appears to
do the “chunking,” but it intuitively feels easy because we
are using quantum physics to mimic other quantum physics.

Why is this important? Well, as Feynman said, “Nature is

quantum mechanical, damn it.” So, if we want to engineer
and control Nature at the finest scales, we need to be able to
model and simulate it in much the same way we model and
simulate everything from bridges to airplanes before we
attempt to build them. Indeed, quantum simulation may
help scientists and engineers design new materials with
exciting properties, like superconductors that work at room

99
temperature or ultra-strong and lightweight materials. These
could revolutionize fields like energy, transportation, and
electronics. By simulating complex molecules accurately,
quantum simulation could speed up drug discovery and even
allow scientists to probe exotic new phenomena in a virtual
environment free from terrestrial constraints, furthering our
understanding of the universe's fundamental workings.

These are surely lofty goals, and this area of quantum

algorithm research is a work in progress. We are still far away
from a simple pipeline that takes the desired properties of
complex systems on one end and pops out solutions on the
other. It may be that every potentially revolutionary
application is one of the “worst case” scenario problems that
even a quantum computer can’t efficiently solve. However,
that doesn’t necessarily render quantum computers useless
because two algorithms can be technically inefficient while
one is much faster than the other.

Brief aside on solving “hard” problems

We try to solve “hard” problems all the time. Just because a
problem doesn’t omit an efficient algorithm doesn’t mean we
can’t solve it—we simply need to evaluate how much time
and energy we are willing to put into solving it. Historically,
algorithm breakthroughs have occasionally turned the tide,
making previously intractable problems manageable. A
classic example of this is the development of the Fast Fourier

100
Transform (FFT) and its profound impact on signal analysis,
which can serve as a bridge to understanding the potential
of quantum algorithms that don’t omit exponential speed-
ups.

The FFT is an algorithm for computing the Discrete Fourier

Transform (DFT) and its inverse. The DFT is used across
various fields of science and engineering, from signal
processing to solving partial differential equations. Before the
introduction of the FFT, computing the DFT was a
computationally expensive task, requiring n2 operations for
n data points. The FFT reduced this complexity to n·log(n)
operations. While this appears to be a modest square root
speed-up, it enabled the practical processing of large
datasets.

Imagine a communications system such as Wi-Fi using

1,000 subcarriers in its signal. The difference between using
the DFT and the FFT in encoding and decoding that signal
would be 1,000-fold. That’s the difference between one
second and fifteen minutes or one day and nearly three
years. While it doesn’t provide the highly sought-after
exponential advantage, the FFT exemplifies how a clever
algorithm can change the landscape of computational
problem-solving. It allowed for real-time signal processing
and practical image compression, among many tasks that
were previously prohibitive.

101
While the hype around quantum computing speed-ups often
invokes the term “exponential,” we also suspect that QPU
can provide square-root speed-ups generically. Again, while
this sounds modest, keep in mind the FFT and all that it has
done for society when you say that!

Grover’s search algorithm

Imagine you have a massive, unsorted database—think of a
disorganized phone book with millions of entries. You need
to find a specific person's number, but you don't know where
to start. With a classical computer, machine, or just yourself,
you'd have to check the entries individually. On average,
you'd have to search through about half the database before
finding the right one. In the worst case, you’d end up
checking the entire phone book!

While we are unlikely ever to find a scrabbled-up phone

book, many problems can be recast as essentially the same
thing. Finding the correct combination for a pin number is a
perfect example. Thus, solving this problem faster is
practically relevant, which is where quantum fits in. Grover's
search algorithm is a quantum algorithm that speeds up the
process of finding a marked item in an unsorted database.
How does it do that? First, as a fun exercise, let’s give the
popular version that utilizes the myths already discussed.

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Quantum-powered search. Instead of checking items one by
one, a quantum computer can use superposition to examine
all database entries at the same time. It's like looking at all
the pages of the phone book simultaneously. Okay, now you
know that’s not really how it works. So, what’s a better
explanation than simply “complex math?”

Recall from previous chapters that qubits are long lists of

numbers that can be both positive and negative. Steps in an
algorithm amount to multiplying and adding these numbers
together to get a new list. When positive and negative
numbers combine, they tend to produce smaller numbers,
while like-signed numbers reinforce each other to produce
larger numbers. Grover’s algorithm works by first assuming
some “oracle” exists that multiples the number at the
location of the marked item by −1. So, all the numbers are
the same, except for one, but it’s “hidden”—the algorithm
can’t know which it is. The next step is diffusion, which
spreads the numbers around like a wave dissipating. Equal
numbers don’t affect each other, which we would expect from
the symmetry of the situation. However, each number shares
an asymmetric relationship with the marked number. The
effect is that every number has a bit of its value shaved off
and given to the marked item’s number.

103
By repeating the above process, the number corresponding
to the marked item becomes larger and larger while every
other number approaches zero. Think of it as the right entry
becoming brighter while all others fade. The algorithm
cleverly manipulates the quantum information so that the
marked entry becomes more likely to be found when the data
is finally read.

The steps in Grover’s algorithm use the intuition of how

waves behave and where interference will occur, which is
completely different from how digital algorithms are
designed. This illustrates both the difficulty and potential of
quantum algorithms. They require new insights to develop,
which means many problems we haven’t even thought about
could be amenable to them.

While Grover's algorithm gives merely a square root speed-

up over exhaustively searching databases, recall the FFT and
its implications.

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 Myth 6: Quantum
Computers Will Break
the Internet
“Amateurs hack systems, professionals hack people.”

— Bruce Schneier

Y2Q, Q-Day, Quantum Leap Day, Q-Break, the Quantum

Apocalypse—whatever you want to call it—the day quantum
computers are destined to shatter the internet, decrypting
the world's secrets as easily as a child unwraps their
birthday gifts. In anything but hushed tones, we’ve been
warned of a digital apocalypse, where privacy crumbles and
chaos reigns, all with the flick of a quantum switch.

While it is true that a quantum algorithm exists that can

decrypt most messages sent over the internet, the reality of
using it is a different story altogether. Of course, like most
stories, we need to start at the beginning.

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A brief history of internet encryption
The internet's precursor, ARPANET, was developed as a
project by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of
the U.S. Department of Defense in the late 1960s. Encryption
at this time was primarily a concern for military
communications. Crudely speaking, there are only two types
of people in this context: us and them. Every physical device
can carry the same secret used to encrypt messages.
However, in a non-military context, every pair of people in
the network needs to share a separate secret. Every new
person added to the network would have to find some way of
transmitting a unique new secret to every person already in
the network. This was a seemingly infeasible proposition
until the mid-1970s.

In 1976, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman introduced

public key cryptography, fundamentally changing the way
encryption could be used over networks. This method
allowed two parties to create a shared secret over an insecure
network channel. A year later, the RSA (named for Ron
Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman) algorithm was
published, providing a practical method for secure data
transmission. This algorithm become the foundation for
secure communications on the internet, which is simply the
amalgamation of multiple networks with standardized
communication protocols.

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In the 1990s, as the internet became more commercialized
and accessible to the public, the need for secure transactions
became apparent. The introduction of the Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL) protocol by Netscape in 1994 was a critical step
in enabling secure online communications and transactions.
By the 2000s, with the increasing prevalence of cyber
threats, encryption became indispensable. Technologies like
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), end-to-end encryption in
messaging apps, and secure browsing protocols for websites
become standard practices. Today, it is simply assumed that
your interactions on the internet are private. But why and
how?

To crack a code
To understand the challenge of breaking internet encryption,
especially using RSA, let's simplify the layers and protocols
into a more digestible scenario. Imagine you're shopping
online at your favorite bookstore and decide to purchase a
new book from your favorite author (winky face emoji). At
checkout, you're prompted to enter your credit card details.
This is where RSA encryption steps in to protect your
information.

When you hit “submit” on your credit card details, your

browser uses the bookstore's public key to encrypt this
information. The process, devoid of the mathematical
symbols you probably don’t want to see while enjoying a

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quick read, can be likened to locking your credit card details
in a box. The bookstore has the only key (the private key)
that can unlock the box. Even though the locked box travels
across the vast and insecure network of the internet, only the
bookstore can open it upon receipt, ensuring that your credit
card information remains confidential. However, by
inspecting the lock carefully enough, you could deduce what
the (private) key looks like, make one, and unlock the box.
The question is: how long would this “breaking” of the lock
take?

The security of this transaction relies heavily on the RSA

algorithm's use of large prime numbers to generate both the
public and the private keys. The public key is openly shared,
while the private key remains a closely guarded secret of the
bookstore. The strength of RSA lies in the fact that, with
current computing power, it is virtually impossible to deduce
the private key from the public key due to the difficulty of
factoring the product of the two large primes used in their
creation.

Consider the following number:

25195908475657893494027183240048398571429282126
20403202777713783604366202070759555626401852588
07844069182906412495150821892985591491761845028

108
08489120072844992687392807287776735971418347270
26189637501497182469116507761337985909570009733
04597488084284017974291006424586918171951187461
21515172654632282216869987549182422433637259085
14186546204357679842338718477444792073993423658
48238242811981638150106748104516603773060562016
19676256133844143603833904414952634432190114657
54445417842402092461651572335077870774981712577
24679629263863563732899121548314381678998850404
45364023527381951378636564391212010397122822120
720357.

This number (2048 bits long if written in binary) is the

product of just two prime numbers (numbers without
factors). It’s not difficult to create such a number—simply
take two large prime numbers and multiply them together.
Your calculator could perform this feat almost instantly. The
hard part is doing the reverse, factoring the larger number
into its smaller components. I didn’t do that for the number
above. That number is RSA-2048. At the time of writing, only
RSA Security LLC, the company that published it, knows
which two prime numbers were multiplied together to
produce it. In fact, if you can “crack” it, they’ll give you
$200,000.

The largest RSA number factored as part of this challenge

was 768 bits long. It took the equivalent of a single computer

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2,000 years to solve. In short, if someone could solve this so-
called Integer Factorization Problem efficiently, they’d “break”
the internet and blow some minds because of how difficult it
appears to be. Shor's algorithm, which has been mentioned
several times, does exactly what internet security and
cryptography experts thought was impossible—it efficiently
solves the integer factorization problem.

Enter the quantum

Peter Shor introduced his factoring algorithm in 1994 at the
35th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer
Science. The reaction was a swift mixture of skepticism,
excitement, and concern.

As with any sudden and major breakthrough, many were

justifiably skeptical. Quantum computing was still very
theoretical, with only a handful of researchers working in
this fringe field. As other researchers dug into the details,
they realized its theoretical significance. It wasn't just its
potential to break encryption but the fact that it represented
one of the first convincing examples of a quantum computer
outperforming classical ones by a vast margin.

More than just a theoretical curiosity, Shor's algorithm

galvanized research into quantum computing. It provided a
tangible goal—if a quantum computer could be built, it would

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have immediate and dramatic practical implications. This
was of obvious concern to cryptographic security experts who
were still primarily deployed in a military context.

Nowadays, we routinely teach Shor’s algorithm to

undergraduate students. The lesson typically appears near
the end of a semester-long course on quantum computing,
which assumes the students have been introduced to far
more technical and mathematical background than provided
in this book. However, the gist can still provide insights.

Much like Grover’s search algorithm, which solves the search

problem in a way completely different from its digital
counterpart, Shor’s algorithm takes advantage of the way
quantum data represents complex numbers. The best-
known classical algorithm for factoring is called the General
Number Field Sieve. In many ways, it’s more complicated
than Shor’s algorithm. Indeed, quantum computers don’t
appear to be useful aids in any of the steps in the best
classical algorithm. Shor’s algorithm takes a more direct
route to solving the problem—one not taken in classical
algorithms because it's far less effective.

Shor realized that factoring can be broken down into steps,

and most of the steps are easy (even for digital computers),
but one step is hard. The hard step is finding the pattern in

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a periodic function. While this is not conceptually hard—in
fact, it’s the same problem the DFT and FFT discussed above
are applied to—it is computationally hard for digital
computers.

Recall that the list of numbers carried by quantum data is

exponentially long in the number of qubits—that’s 2n
complex numbers for n qubits. The FFT approximates the
DFT but would still require more than 2n steps to calculate it
for this list of numbers. However, Shor and others showed
that the DFT can be applied to the quantum data with a
quantum computer using only n2 steps (quantum logic
operations), an exponential speed-up.

As a quick aside, note that Shor’s algorithm is also not

deterministic, underscoring again the critical differences in
how we approach digital and quantum algorithm design.

How far away is it?

As you know, quantum computers today are not powerful
enough to apply Shor’s algorithm to anything but small toy
examples that grade-schoolers could have factored. So, when
will they be big enough to break the internet?

In 2021, Craig Gidney and Martin Eker estimated that Shor's

algorithm could crack RSA-2048 with a 20,000-qubit

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quantum computer. This assumes those qubits work more
or less perfectly. However, even if they don’t, we can rely on
redundancy and error correction to get us there. Many poorly
performing components can come together to act as a better-
performing “virtual” component. Virtual qubits are also
called logical qubits, whereas the raw physical systems (like
atoms and photons) are called physical qubits.

Research in error correction is constantly improving, moving

toward higher tolerance of errors and lower overheads. Using
the best-known techniques and projected error rates, Gidney
and Eker suggest that 20 million physical qubits would be
required. That sounds like a lot at a time when even glossy,
hyped-up press releases claim qubit numbers in the
hundreds.

Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, made an astute

observation in 1965: the number of transistors packed into
an integrated circuit seemed to double roughly every two
years. This observation, later termed Moore's Law, became
an informal but remarkably accurate predictor driving
exponential growth in computing power over decades. The
underlying principle is a feedback loop—as computing power
increases, chip manufacturing processes improve, enabling
even more transistors to be crammed into smaller spaces,
leading to a further boost in computational ability.

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While quantum computing is still in its early stages, there
are signs it may follow a similar exponential growth
trajectory—a quantum Moore’s Law, as it were. If we start
with roughly a hundred qubits today, and the number of
qubits doubles every two years, it suggests that in about 34
years (around 2058), quantum computers could become
powerful enough to crack even the most robust RSA
encryption standards. Researchers like Jaime Sevilla and
Jess Riedel support this timeline, publishing a report in late
2020 that claimed a 90% confidence of RSA-2048 being
factored before 2060.

Store now, decrypt later

While factoring large numbers is the theoretical target, the
practical implications are worth considering today. Take, for
example, the online word processor used to write this very
text, which employs secure communication using a 256-bit
public key. That’s much weaker than a 2048-bit key,
suggesting it would be vulnerable sooner than the 2058
estimate.

Imagine a nefarious entity collecting and storing encrypted

data today. Even without the ability to decrypt it
immediately, they could wait until sufficiently powerful
quantum computers exist, say around 2058, and then easily
decipher the stored secrets. Why does that not bother me?

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Well, I don’t have 34-year secrets. But government agencies
likely do. Secrecy of data has a shelf life, and quantum
computers render the immediacy of that more palpable.

While the constant hype about quantum computers can

desensitize us from such threats, governments and major
corporations have weighed the odds. In late 2023, US
security agencies published a factsheet on the impacts of
quantum computing, urging all organizations to begin early
planning for Q-Day—though, of course, they didn’t use that
term.

The goal of so-called post-quantum cryptography is to develop

crypto-systems that are secure against quantum computers
running Shor’s algorithm and, hopefully, any other quantum
algorithm. Ideally, the system would also work with existing
communications protocols and networks.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is

an agency of the United States government with a mission
spanning various domains, including within the realm of
information technology and cybersecurity. NIST's
involvement in cryptography dates back several decades,
with milestones such as developing the Data Encryption
Standard (DES) in the 1970s and the Advanced Encryption
Standard (AES) in the early 2000s. It's unsurprising then

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that NIST has been proactive in preparing for the transition
to post-quantum cryptography. It launched the Post-
Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project in 2016
with a call for algorithms that could withstand attacks from
quantum computers.

Since then, NIST has gathered proposals for quantum-

resistant cryptographic algorithms from around the world
and selected candidates for further analysis and testing by
hosting public workshops and soliciting feedback to ensure
they meet various criteria. As of the latest update, NIST has
announced its intention to publish the new post-quantum
cryptographic standards in 2024. These standards will
include specifications for quantum-resistant algorithms that
have been rigorously tested and evaluated. Major internet
companies like Google and Apple have already announced
the migration of some services to include additional security
layers with quantum-resistant techniques. So, the internet
may be safe after all! (Don't worry, your Bitcoins will likely
be safe as well.)

The quantum future

Amidst concerns of a quantum apocalypse, it's vital to
differentiate between the messengers of doom—often
amplified by tech journalism—and the voices of the quantum
research community. The latter seeks not to incite fear but
to illuminate the path toward understanding the ultimate

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limits of our ability to know and control the natural world. In
the viral vortex of discussions surrounding quantum
computing's potential to disrupt current cryptographic
standards, a beacon of hope shines through: Quantum Key
Distribution (QKD).

In a typical QKD scenario, two people wishing to

communicate securely use a quantum channel to exchange
qubits that will be used to encode bits of a secret key. The
quantum properties of these qubits ensure that any attempt
by an eavesdropper to intercept and read the key would
irreversibly alter their state, thus revealing the intrusion. The
fact that reading qubits destroys the quantum information is
not a bug but a feature!

Once a secret key is successfully exchanged and its integrity

verified, it can be used to encrypt and decrypt classical
messages using conventional cryptographic techniques.
Thus, the security of communication is guaranteed not by
the hardness of computational problems but by the
inviolable principles of quantum physics.

QKD heralds a future where communications can be secured

against any adversary, regardless of their computational
power. This quantum-safe key distribution method could
revolutionize how we protect sensitive information, rendering

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it immune to the threats posed by quantum computing
advancements.

Since we don’t have quantum channels lying around,

implementing QKD on a global scale faces technological and
infrastructural challenges. Specialized hardware will be
required to mitigate the difficulty of transmitting qubits over
long distances without degradation. Research and
development in quantum repeaters and satellite-based QKD
are among the avenues being explored to overcome these
obstacles.

While Y2Q might get clicks, quantum computing will

eventually bring about the opposite of disaster—a global
quantum internet providing an additional uncrackable layer
of security.

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 Myth 7: Quantum
Computing Is
Impossible
“You insist that there is something a
machine cannot do. If you tell me
precisely what it is a machine cannot do,
then I can always make a machine
which will do just that.”

— John von Neumann

Quantum computing is not without its detractors. Their

arguments come in two flavors. The first style of argument
against quantum computing is usually simplified as
quantum systems are too complex to control at the level
necessary for reliable computation. Recall the exponentially
long list of numbers needed to specify a qubit. How could we
possibly keep track of and control all those? This is not only
defeatist but also naive. Complexity often manifests from
simple rules, which we seek to manipulate to build up large
quantum devices.

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The other argument against quantum computing is that
noise and errors will be so unavoidable that quantum
computations will break down before answers can be
reached. Naysayers need only point to existing quantum
computers to illustrate their claim, not to mention the hype,
empty promises, and failed predictions of “within the next
five years.”

Let’s not dive straight in but take a step back.

What really is a quantum computer?

What is called a quantum computer today seems to be a
matter of taste. Consider the fact that my smartphone works
by flipping bits encoded in transistors that are only a few
dozen atoms thick. There are about a billion of them inside
my phone, which could not be made without understanding
quantum physics. But my smartphone is not a quantum
computer—it’s a digital computer. This is because it encodes
bits—digital, classical data—and not qubits, the building
blocks of quantum data.

But wait. It’s not that simple. I can indeed encode qubits
quite faithfully with the transistors in my smartphone. My
smartphone could quite comfortably emulate a perfect
quantum computer, provided it had less than 30 qubits or

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so. When I hijack all the computing resources in my phone
to do this, it really is a 30-qubit quantum computer.

But you could argue that in that scenario, the qubits aren’t
physical. When I googled “what is the most powerful
quantum computer,” the top hit was a press release from a
company I won’t name claiming that their quantum
computer was the most powerful. The device encoded one
qubit of information onto each of six individual atoms
isolated in a specialized ion trap sitting on an integrated
chip—a marvel of modern engineering, no doubt. In such a
device, you can make a correspondence between the
information you want to encode and the information needed
to describe each atom. Thus, qubits are physical.

But… not quite. Once we have large, reliable quantum

computers, the qubits will not be encoded onto individual
atoms or any other quantum degrees of freedom, for that
matter. Error-correcting codes will be used to encode the
qubits virtually to protect them from physical errors. This is
part of the reason why simply counting qubits in a device
doesn’t reveal its true utility and why one company can claim
their device is “more powerful” than competing devices,
which might have ten times as many qubits. I could
facetiously pick up a pile of dirt and say it is a quantum
computer since each dirt atom encodes quantum data. The
problem is, I wouldn’t be able to reliably encode it, read it,

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and certainly not process it. My 30-qubit smartphone,
however, does reliably encode quantum data. In fact, by
some accepted measures, it is the most powerful quantum
computer!

Many companies quote the “quantum volume” of their

devices. At the time of writing, a solid 10-qubit device would
have a quantum volume of 1024, for example. The quantum
volume measures the difficulty a digital computer would face
in emulating a given quantum device. It is 2 to the power of
the number of qubits (provided that the same number of
layered instructions could be carried out without error). Ten
qubits that can carry out ten complex instructions without
error thus have a quantum volume of 2¹⁰ = 1024. My
smartphone can carry out instructions perfectly forever, and
so it has a quantum volume of 2³⁰ or about a billion. (This is
not surprising because it has 8 billion bytes of RAM, and it
takes about 8 bytes to represent a qubit of data.)

Alright, I admit I’m being pedantic. The real reason

smartphones aren’t called quantum computers is because
they are limited to 30 qubits, and there is no way the
technology can scale significantly beyond that. Meanwhile,
there is hope for quantum hardware companies that the
devices they are building can scale up the number of qubits
and the errors down indefinitely.

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Maybe they shouldn’t call their devices quantum computers
today, though—at least not until they outperform my
smartphone. The question then is when will that happen?
The nice thing—if you really think this is a problem—is that
quantum computing is a divergent technology. Far enough
into the future, there will be no ambiguity about whether a
computer device is really a quantum computer because there
will not be enough atoms in the universe to construct
smartphone memory capable of encoding the quantum data
the new device can carry. So, one solution is to just hold off
on our bickering until that time.

What will it take to get there?

In the early days, quantum computers were built by graduate
students in poorly funded physics labs. Ever the industrious
types, these physicists constructed prototype devices that
were meticulously concocted Rube Goldberg machines as
much as they were quantum computers. Exposed cables and
duct tape are sufficient to demonstrate the concept but do
not feature in any path to scalability. Yet, this exemplifies
both the challenge and the hope for quantum computers.
Yes, new supporting technologies will need to be developed,
but also new supporting technology will be developed
because that’s what a bunch of humans collaborating on
solving problems tend to do.

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Let’s consider an example.

Superconducting qubits are so named because they use

superconducting circuits cooled to extremely low
temperatures. This is done to maintain their
superconducting properties and limit thermal (heat)
fluctuations. Each qubit is an “artificial atom” made using
the same techniques as conventional microelectronics
fabrication. Why use existing infrastructure to build
something radically new? Well, you work with what you got.
However, this aspect of building quantum computers is not
a bottleneck. Indeed, specialized superconducting chip
foundries are cropping up to address the specialized needs
of quantum technology.

Once constructed, maintaining near-absolute-zero

temperatures for many qubits requires advanced and
scalable cryogenic technology. These needs have pushed
existing providers to innovate, creating bespoke solutions
specifically for quantum computer chips. Early examples of
superconducting qubits had all of the electronics required to
control and read them sitting outside the “fridge.” This was
borne out of the necessity of experimentation to separate
systems and because conventional electronics weren’t
designed for cryogenic temperatures. Today, researchers are
designing ways to bring the control and readout logic to the

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level of the qubits, closing yet another gap in full integration.
And so on it will go.

Each company involved in building quantum computers has

some vision of how their technology will scale, but look
carefully at their roadmaps, and you’ll notice quite a few gaps
where “miracles” need to occur. But such breakthroughs are
inevitable. History shows us that innovation often comes
from unexpected places, such as the discovery that graphene
could be produced with a pencil and sticky tape. These
moments of serendipity, combined with relentless pursuit
and ingenuity, are what will bridge the gaps on the roadmap
to scalable quantum computing.

Bootstrapping—the iterative process where each

advancement builds upon the last—will play a crucial role in
quantum computing's development. Just as tomorrow's
CPUs are designed using today's CPUs, quantum computing
will likely follow a similar evolutionary trajectory, with each
generation of quantum computers facilitating the design of
its successor. Take a careful look at the design of any
complex system, and you will quickly convince yourself that
no one person can comprehend all of it. Such systems are
built up over years and decades, the collective effort of many
individuals collaborating with the very technology they are
trying to scale.

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The final coin analogy
Find a coin. Flip it. Did you get heads? Flip it again. Heads.
Again. Tails. Again, again, again…
HHTHHTTTHHTHHTHHTTHT. Is that what you got? No, of
course, you didn’t. That feels obvious. But why?

There are about 1 million different combinations of heads

and tails in a sequence of 20 coin flips. The chance that we
would get the same string of H’s and T’s is 1 in a million. You
might as well play the lottery if you feel that lucky. (You’re
not that lucky, by the way—don’t waste your money.)

Now imagine 100 coin flips or maybe a nice round number

like 266. With just 266 coin flips, the number of possible
sequences of heads and tails is just larger than the number
of atoms in the entire universe. Written in plain English the
number is 118 quinvigintillion 571 quattuorvigintillion 99
trevigintillion 379 duovigintillion 11 unvigintillion 784
vigintillion 113 novemdecillion 736 octodecillion 688
septendecillion 648 sexdecillion 896 quindecillion 417
quattuordecillion 641 tredecillion 748 duodecillion 464
undecillion 297 decillion 615 nonillion 937 octillion 576
septillion 404 sextillion 566 quintillion 24 quadrillion 103
trillion 44 billion 751 million 294 thousand 464.

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So, obviously, we can’t write them all down. What about if we
just tried to count them one by one, one each second? We
couldn’t do it alone, but what if everyone on Earth helped
us? Let’s round up and say there are 10 billion of us. That
wouldn’t do it. What if each of those 10 billion people had a
computer that could count 10 billion sequences per second
instead? Still no. OK, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that
there were 10 billion other planets like Earth in the Milky
Way, and we got all 10 billion people on each of the 10 billion
planets to count 10 billion sequences per second. What? Still
no? Alright, fine. What if there were 10 billion galaxies, each
with these 10 billion planets? Not yet? Oh, my.

Even if there were 10 billion universes, each of which had 10

billion galaxies, which in turn had 10 billion habitable
planets, which happened to have 10 billion people, all of
which had 10 billion computers, which could count 10 billion
sequences per second, it would still take 100 times the age
of all those universes to count the number of possible
sequences in just 266 coin flips. If that’s not the most mind-
blowing thing you’ve read today...

Why am I telling you all this? The point I want to get across
is that humanity’s knack for pattern finding has given us the
false impression that life, nature, or the universe is simple.
It’s not. It’s actually really complicated. But like a drunk
looking for their keys under the lamp post, we only see the

127
simple things because that’s all we can process. The simple
things, however, are the exception, not the rule.

Suppose I give you a problem: simulate the outcome of 266

coin tosses. Do you think you could solve it? Maybe you are
thinking, well, you just told me that I couldn’t even hope to
write down all the possibilities. How could I possibly choose
from one of them? Fair. But, then again, you have the coin
and 10 minutes to spare. As you solve the problem, you
might realize that you are, in fact, a computer. You took an
input, you are performing the steps in an algorithm, and you
will soon produce an output. You’ve solved the problem.

A problem you definitely could not solve is to simulate 266

coin tosses if the outcome of each toss depended on the
outcome of the previous tosses in an arbitrary way as if the
coin had a massive memory bank. In that case, you’d have
to keep track of all the possibilities, which we just decided
was impossible. Well, not impossible, just really, really, really
time-consuming. But all the ways that one toss could depend
on previous tosses is yet even more difficult to count—in fact,
it’s uncountable. One situation where it is not difficult is the
one most familiar to us—when each coin toss is completely
independent of all previous and future tosses. This seems
like the only obvious situation because it is the only one we
are familiar with. But we are only familiar with it because it
is one we know how to solve.

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Life’s generally complicated, but not so if we stay on the
narrow paths of simplicity. Computers, deep down in their
guts, are making sequences that look like those of coin flips.
Computers work by flipping transistors on and off. But your
computer will never produce every possible sequence of bits.
It stays on the simple path or crashes. There is nothing
innately special about your computer that forces it to do this.
We never would have built computers that couldn’t solve
problems quickly. So computers only work at solving
problems that we find can be solved because we are at the
steering wheel, forcing them to solve problems that appear
effortless.

In quantum computing, it is no different. It can be, in

general, very complicated. But we look for problems that are
solvable, like flipping quantum coins. We are quantum
drunks under the lamp post—we are only looking at stuff
that we can shine photons on. A quantum computer will not
be an all-powerful device that solves all possible problems by
controlling more parameters than there are particles in the
universe. It will only solve the problems we designed it to
solve because those are the problems that can be solved with
limited resources.

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We don’t have to track and keep under control all the details
of quantum things, just as your digital computer does not
need to track all its possible configurations. So next time
someone tells you that quantum computing is complicated
because there are so many possibilities involved, remind
them that all of nature is complicated—the success of
science is finding the patches of simplicity. In quantum
computing, we know which path to take. It’s still full of
debris, and we are smelling flowers and picking the
strawberries along the way, so it will take some time—but
we’ll get there.

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 About the author

Chris Ferrie is an associate professor

at the University of Technology
Sydney in Australia, where he
researches and lectures on quantum
physics, computation, and
engineering. He is the author of
Quantum Bullsh*t: How to Ruin Your
Life with Quantum Physics and with over fifty children’s
books about science, he is the #1 best-selling science author
for kids. You can find Chris online at csferrie.com.

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