lications such as cryptography. "There is a hope at the end of the tunnel that quantum computers may one day become a reality," says Gilles Brassard of University of Montreal.Quantum Mechanics give an unexpected clarity in the description of the behavior of atoms, electrons, and photons on the microscopic levels. Although this information isn't applicable in everday household uses it does certainly apply to every interaction of matter that we can see, the real benefits of this knowledge are just beginning to show themselves. In our computers, circut boards are designed so that a 1 or a 0 is represented by differering amounts of electriciy, the outcome of one possiblity has no effect on the other. However, a problem arises when quantum theories are introduced, the outcomes come from a single piece of hardware existing in two seperate realities and these realites overlap one another affecting both outcomes at once. These problems can become one of the greatest strengths of the new computer however, if it is possible to program the outcomes in such a way so that undesirable effects cancel themselves out while the positive ones reinforce each other. This quantum system must be able to program the equation into it, verify it's computation, and extract the results.Several possible systems have been looked at by researchers, one of which involves using electrons, atoms, or ions trapped inside of magnetic fields, intersecting lasers would then be used to excite the confined particles to the right wavelength and a second time to restore the particles to their ground state. A sequence of pulses could be used to array the particles into a pattern usuable in our system of equations. Another possibility by Seth Lloyd of MIT proposed using organic-metallic polymers (one dimensional molecules made of repeating atoms). The energy states of a given atom would be determined by it's interation with neighboring atoms in the chain. Laser pulses co...
