Futurist Isaac Arthur Discusses “What is Quantum Computing” In Interview

(TechRepublic) Futurist Isaac Arthur was recently interviewed by a producer from CNET and CBS News and this article includes the full transcript and video.
Arthur explained that the biggest difference in terms of computational method is that with a quantum computer, we can do certain things that a normal classic computer can’t do. Almost any problem that you can set up on a classic computer has a version of it where it’s going to kind of snowball exponentially, so it has a very large number of possibilities.
it’s also very handy for things like search algorithms because with a normal computer, you could tell it, ‘I want you to find a single sentence in this library or database,’ and it’s going to go through looking at each individual one. With a quantum computer, I could tell it to search a random page in that library, seal it inside that box that creates that superposition, and it will have searched any number of random pages, all of those random pages, and it only has to spend the time to search one page.

This is one in the series of interviews with Arthur:

• Here’s when we can expect the next major leap in quantum computing
• How quantum computing will be used to model elections
• Quantum encryption: How it works
• Quantum computing: Myths v. realities