Ever since the birth of the computer and it?s evolution to the PC and Macintosh, researchers have been working hard on creating the quantum computer, a new algorithm that will make the already fast computer capable of unparalleled speeds.
But new developments have created an interesting question that might be answered by regular software, not superpositions and uncertainty principles: can classical computing match the quantum speed with software algorithms?
If you are not a quantum physicist or a computer wiz like the professionals at Computer Geeks, then you are probably wondering what the first two paragraphs mean and why you should pay attention to them.
Work on the super-fast computer is based on the algorithm, which is a list of well-defined instructions for completing a task, like running the internet or playing a video game. It starts at an initial computation and then proceeds through successive states, until eventually the number reaches a terminating final state.
It is the transition from one state to another that is the key to the original question posed earlier.
Some transitions are deterministic, some are randomized, but with the quantum algorithm is a large quantity number that can be solved faster than the classic, or regular algorithm.
John Watrous, who works at a university for quantum computing, had this to say on the subject: ?We could try to build quantum computers to solve problems but we could also just design new algorithms to solve problems.?
A test was ran to challenge a new algorithm, which a regular computer can run, and it was paralleled with a quantum algorithm. The new one matched the efficiency of the quantum.
This means that the algorithm could some day be used in commercial computing, especially in programming, where it can be used to get a fast answer using very little memory.