A headlong ride through the world of quantum computing

Hey boys and girls! Have you ever wondered how today’s computers work? Well let me tell you a secret: they are based on something called microprocessors and gates. Yes, just like real doors, but don’t worry, you don’t need a key to open them! So these gates are like math operations that can add, subtract, or do other cool things with the bits. For example, we have the AND operation, which basically adds two bits. And that is only the beginning!

But here comes the interesting part, it turns out that doors, and therefore computers, are irreversible. What does that mean? Well, we can’t just run the algorithms backwards. You can’t take a simple multiplication like 2 * 2 = 4 and run it backwards, because the 4 could be the result of other multiplications like 1 * 4 or 4 * 1. That would be a real math mess! But imagine for a moment if that were possible, it would be like finding the secret code for factoring large numbers and dividing them into their factors. Do you know what that implies? Cryptography would shake to its foundations!

Well, this is where a group of genius scientists from the University of Innsbruck come in, who have developed something incredible using quantum computers. Sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, right? Basically, they have managed to reverse the algorithms using the magic of quantum computing. They started with a classic logic circuit that does multiplication, but instead of the usual irreversible gates, they encoded all of the circuit’s logic into the ground states of a quantum system. Imagine that, all the mathematics in little quantum particles!

With this genius, they can solve factorization and multiplication problems using quantum optimization methods. Instead of looking for all possibilities like in the classical method, quantum methods speed up the process, it’s like finding a shortcut in a maze, but instead of walking, we go through quantum tunnels! This discovery is no joke, it offers a blueprint for a new generation of quantum computers that can solve cryptographic problems like factorization, which is a key piece of security today. And best of all, this model can be implemented on the quantum computing platforms we have right now. The future is here guys!

Well, that’s all for now, see you in the next blog! Remember, stay informed and keep that curiosity burning!