Computers are getting smaller and faster day by day because electronic components are getting smaller and smaller. But this process is about to meet its physical limit. Electricity is the flow of electrons. Since the size of transistors is shrinking to the size of a few atoms, they cannot be used as switches because electrons may transfer themselves to the other side of a blocked passage by the quantum tunneling process.
Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that explores the physical world at a fundamental level. At this level, particles behave differently from the classical world taking more than one state at the same time and interacting with other particles that are very far away. Phenomena like superposition and entanglement take place. Quantum computers can easily crack the encryption algorithms used today in very little time whereas it takes billions of years to be the best supercomputer available today. Even though quantum computers would be able to crack many of today’s encryption techniques, predictions are that they would create hack-proof replacements. Quantum computers are great for solving optimization problems.
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