• Question: What numeral system do quantum computers use?

    Asked by anon-206964 to Kai, Jose Eliel, Hannah, Hamid, Claire on 14 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Jose Eliel Camargo Molina

      Jose Eliel Camargo Molina answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      Great questions. It is difficult to talk about a numeral system when talking about quantum computers without understanding a little about quantum physics.

      But the easy answer is that they use binary, 1’s and 0’s just as normal computers, but in a very different way.

      A bit in a quantum computer does not need to be 0 or 1, but it can be a combination of both. That combination can have more of one or the other, and that is important information. The amount of each has to do with probabilities and statistics and it gets all very confusing even for me if I don’t use maths to write it down.

      But I think that is the main idea.

Comments