because the future of technology has arrived!
It's not artificial intelligence
or virtual reality;
it's something called quantum computing!
And it could completely revolutionize
every aspect of our society,
from healthcare
to finance,
and even national security.
Basically, a quantum computer is a super-
efficient version of the regular computers
you already know and love.
When a regular computer
is used to solve a problem,
it has to filter through all the
possible answers one at a time,
whereas a quantum computer can filter
through one billion possible answers
at once to find the correct one
in just a fraction of a second.
The technology is so advanced that
hardly anyone knows how to program it,
let alone how to use it.
So how much power--and control--
would quantum computing give to
the first country or person who perfects it?
All right, to understand how quantum
computers are going to change your life,
it helps to understand
how they would work first.
Today, computers are binary.
They process information using bits,
where every bit can only exist
as a one or a zero, and nothing else.
A bit is relatively simple;
it is the representation of one state
or another, like if a light bulb is on or off.
In today's computers, a bit is represented
by a current pulse or an electrical voltage.
Are you still with me?
All right, we're almost there.
In the case of quantum computers,
information is processed using qubits.
These are similar to bits, but they can
be ones and zeros at the same time.
To understand the difference
between bits and qubits,
picture a sphere
and give it both a north and a south pole,
where the north pole represents “1”
and the south pole represents “0.”
With a bit, the poles are the only
usable spaces on the entire sphere,
and only one of them can be used at a time.
With a qubit,
the whole sphere becomes a usable territory.
You don't have to grasp the
complicated physics behind it,
but the main point to take away is that
qubits can deliver more complex data,
and allow us to encode more
information into much smaller computers.
Some of the most progressive
tech companies, like Google,
NASA, and IBM have already
made versions of this technology.
Now, they're racing to perfect it.
Once they're perfected, quantum
computers will offer lots of benefits.
For one thing, they'd be a game-changer
in the field of cryptography,
mainly because of their ability
to enhance security protocols
by generating truly random numbers.
Because of this protection, communications
devices that are quantum-based
could be used to transmit
medical and government records,
defense data, or other sensitive materials
without fear of them ending
up in front of the wrong eyes.
Being able to calculate and process
so much information so much faster
would help us to find
new drugs to treat diseases.
It would speed up the development
of life-changing medications.
Quantum computers would give us the power
to better deal with climate change by
allowing for better software models
describing what is
happening to our atmosphere,
and that could to help us reverse
the adverse effects of climate change.
But it's not all good news;
as we said before, no one's perfected it yet.
If the first person who does wants
to use the tech for ulterior motives,
we could all be in trouble.
As soon as a working
quantum computer exists,
our modern cybersecurity methods
would become almost useless.
Today’s encryption algorithms
use huge math equations
and problems that are
virtually impossible to solve.
A quantum computer,
with its zero and one dualities,
would have the power to solve
these algorithms with relative ease.
So I guess we'll just have to cross our fingers
that one of the "good guys" figures it out first.
Maybe we could even use these
early-generation quantum machines
to perfect future models and
make them even more powerful,
but that's a topic for another WHAT IF.
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