Quantum Computing And The Meaning Of Life—Not Just ‘42’
How does it work and why is it such a huge deal
But what’s the big deal? Why is quantum computing so impressive to some? How will it revolutionize our digital era?
It’s hardly imaginable what possibilities quantum computing will really grant us in the future. Scientifically and medically, the possible applications are huge.
The simulation run by Google last week calculated a simple chemical reaction. This would allow us to analyze more complex chemical reactions in the future and help to make huge progress in chemistry, possibly finding new chemical compounds and reactions to harness. It could lead the way to find new alloy materials, stronger steel, or other advanced materials like unobtainium.
The latter is, of course, a joke for now, but with the ongoing leaps in quantum computing, it will sooner or later be possible to calculate complex problems within minutes, which otherwise would take thousands of years for a regular computer to calculate (and since nobody wants to wait that long, people simply don’t calculate these problems right now).
But what exactly is quantum computing?
To understand why it’s so incredible, one must look at the difference between a quantum computer and a regular computer. A regular computer works by switching millions of tiny transistors between 1 and 0, or “on” and “off”.
The computer can only tell each transistor to either let an electric current pass or not. There’s no other way and no in-between. So a computer has to switch through the different combinations, one by one.
First, it’s for example 1000101, then 0101101 and then 1100100. These three random numbers already represent 3 different setups and have to occur in order. The computer can not make all 3 of them simultaneously. And though coming up with these 3 will only take the computer a few nanoseconds, having to go through billions of combinations with a lot more numbers (transistors) involved, can quickly become a time-consuming effort.
A quantum computer makes use of a physical phenomenon that takes place in the still quite mysterious quantum world. A so-called “qubit”, which replaces the traditional transistor and consists of a molecule that’s deliberately spun at incredible speeds by shooting it with lasers at pinpoint accuracy while keeping it suspended in a near-absolute-zero environment, will fall into a so-called superposition.
Remember the transistor? It’s either 1 or 0. The qubit, however, can be either 0, or 1, or anything in between (meaning a little of both at the same time). It uses a quantum state, which basically means it’s everything and nothing at the same time.
To describe it really simply: Instead of having to go through the three binary number examples one after the other, a quantum computer can calculate and display all three at the same time.
Imagine the game where you put a little ping pong ball under one of three plastic cups and start switching the cups around. If you were to work like a regular computer, you’d lift them up one by one to find the ball. A quantum computer simply lifts up all three at the same time, finds the ball, and then acts as if it never lifted the two empty cups in the first place.
The first milestone: Quantum superiority
Quantum superiority is the main goal of companies like Google at the moment. When a quantum computer can do something that a regular computer can’t do at all, it’s called quantum superiority. From that point on, quantum computing will take the lead.
The chemical simulation run by Google was not exactly a feat of quantum superiority. IBM’s famous supercomputer made the same calculation before. The difference? It took IBM two and a half days to come up with the results, while Google’s quantum computer was finished in a little over three minutes.
Currently, they have been using 12 qubits. To put it into dimensions: A modern Core i7–8700K CPU from Intel contains about 3 billion transistors.
Can you imagine how fast quantum computing could become if a quantum computer consisted of 3 billion qubits?
Of course, it’s not that easy, and will still take decades to get even close. But to be fair, we would not need a billion qubits to achieve unimaginable computation power compared to modern standards. Just a few hundred qubits would already be enough to revolutionize our technological level.
Security concerns regarding quantum computing
Quantum computing does not only offer advantages though. The incredible increase in computation power also creates new security risks for current systems.
Take a look at Bitcoin for example. Bitcoin works by being “mined”, using computation power to calculate incredibly long sequences of digits. It takes a lot of effort to calculate the strings necessary to receive 1 Bitcoin of value (about $10k as of now). There’s a reason some companies are running so-called Bitcoin mining stations, huge racks of dozens of CPUs and GPUs connected into a computing network, being located underground to help with cooling while they run nonstop to make these calculations and slowly collect more and more Bitcoins.
A quantum computer with sufficient power could calculate the needed numbers within seconds, amassing millions of dollars over the course of a few hours, or maybe even within minutes.
Our own security would be at risk too. You likely have a password for Facebook and co., consisting of roughly 12 digits, mixing numbers, letters and maybe a few symbols like hashtags and question marks. A password like this counts as very secure.
That’s because the simplest form of “hacking” your password would be a Bruteforce attempt. This means a computer would simply try out any possible combination one after another until it finds the right one. For a password with 12 unique digits, there are 479,001,600 possible combinations. It would take tens of thousands of years to Bruteforce the correct password here. And it certainly is not worth the effort to post “I’m an idiot” with your account.
Our current security standard (which is also used by the military to protect sensitive data) is called AES 256 and to this day counts as impenetrable. A Bruteforce attempt to gain access would take billions of years.
But quantum computing could run the same Bruteforce attack in much less time and thus easily gain access to all your valuable data.
So we would need new and secure methods to outplay quantum computing’s incredible calculation speeds. And Bitcoin would most likely collapse under the rise of so powerful computers.
In any case, we would need a new, strong way of protecting ourselves against hacking attempts if hackers would gain access to powerful quantum computing in the future. Luckily, we’re not quite there yet.
A hitchhiker’s guide to quantum computing
With the much higher speeds at which quantum computers could make even complex calculations, scientists would have a new and fast way to calculate physics that would lead to advancements in technology. Especially the quantum realm is still a mystery even to most experts in the field. The rules that apply to this micro-scale are far from being understood completely.
Quantum computing could help answer all questions regarding quantum mechanics. And maybe even faster-than-light travel could become feasible if a quantum computer calculates the necessary knowledge to achieve it.
Higher speeds would also translate into more bandwidth and faster internet. Terabytes of data could easily be transmitted between locations within seconds.
And as with the AES 256 security standard, there are things a normal computer can’t reasonably calculate within our lifetime. A quantum computer however could.
You just feed it a formula that had generations of scientists moan and shake their heads, hit “enter” and be amazed at the results.
Though we are still far from having quantum computers to be used readily by the average Joe for online gaming, it IS the future of computer technology. And it certainly will have a big impact on humanity as a whole.
Whether for the better or worse, we’ll have to wait and see. Let’s just hope that if someone ever dares to ask such a computer for the meaning of life, it won’t just answer “42”. I would be utterly disappointed.