# Quantum mysteries



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Whenever I read about an advance in quantum computing, like the one described in the link below, I'm left a bit mystified about what was actually accomplished or even what the problem being "solved" was all about. This all sounds impressive, but I need somebody to reduce it to single syllables, so to speak! Anybody?

A quantum computer just solved a decades-old problem three million times faster than a classical computer (msn.com)


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

This is the trick of the algorithm, quantum algorithm is like a huge, immense, astronomical scale of random coin tossing experiment, which is a basis of the Montecarlo method in statistics. The Quantum computing is trying to experiment with the photons in a probabilistic way, you can guess with the amount of the photons concerned, the experiment can go as much as infinite times. What they are finding with observing the photons is some new formulae, or equations to solve some statistic problems. You know, although statistically you toss a coin for a thousand times, the positive and the negative outcomes both could be approximating to 50%, what about a million times, billion times? Also there is coloring problems, how many ways to color a world map with 3-4 colors only without any bordering countries coincide with the same color( known as The Heawood map coloring conjecturepratically, unsolved until today),even what if we expand to countless countries? There are many practical math problems just need experiments like physical problems, and quantum computing pose a great chance of reaching for the almost endless power of experimentation with the volatile movements of the photons. 

However, there is a serious problem with quantum computing, that is its algorithm is not compatible with no classical algorithms, it means in most classical computations quantum computer could be useless, you can not use quantum computer to solve advanced algebraic problems, to compute the series of complex numbers or functions. There are many advanced math that quantum computer can not do. The quantum computational theories and classical math theories just do not converge at all, so far. 

On the other hand, quantum computer use a lot of electricity and a cooling system that is too complex to maintain in commercial use, maybe in cloud service it can be use for policy making simulation soon.


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