Quantum computers can solve problems far too complex for normal computers, at least in theory. That’s why research teams around the globe have strived to build them for decades. But this extraordinary power raises a troubling question: How will we know whether a quantum computer’s results are true if there is no way to check them? The answer, scientists now reveal, is that a simple quantum computer—whose results humans can verify—can in turn check the results of other dramatically more powerful quantum machines.
Quantum computers rely on odd behavior of quantum mechanics in which atoms and other particles can seemingly exist in two or more places at once, or become "entangled" with partners, meaning they can instantaneously influence each other regardless of distance. Whereas classical computers symbolize data as bits—a series of ones and zeroes that they express by flicking switchlike transistors either on or off—quantum computers use quantum bits (qubits) that can essentially be on and off at the same time, or in any on/off combination, such as 32% on and 68% off.
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