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A comment on What makes quantum computing so hard to explain?.

Re:What makes quantum computing so hard to explain? by wolverine876 on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:26AM (#27456649)
> The goal in devising an algorithm for a quantum computer is to choreograph a pattern of constructive and destructive interference so that for each wrong answer the contributions to its amplitude cancel each other out, whereas for the right answer the contributions reinforce each other. If, and only if, you can arrange that, you'll see the right answer with a large probability when you look.

Knowing little about QC, and based on reading that, it seems a qbit would be better called a qgate. It's not the store of data as much as the physical component that manipulates it, based on inputs. - Is that even approximately on target?

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Re:What makes quantum computing so hard to explain? by btilly on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:41AM (#27456727)
By my limiting on QC, it is not approximately on target.

A q-bit really is a store of data that is equivalent to a bit. For example it can be a single trapped particle whose spin is in some superposition of up and down. What makes it different than a regular bit is that you can have 2 q-bits that are correlated, for example they are both in a superposition of up and down, but if one is up then the other is down and vice versa. Which means that an n q-bit system winds up being in some superposition of possible states, each of which is a sequence of n bits.

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Re:What makes quantum computing so hard to explain? by vlmutolo on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:31AM (#27456667)
Well there are "qgates" in the form of the transformations we can apply to qbits. And I would say that the operands of those transformations should probably be called qbits because that's where information is stored in the quantum computer for doing operations. It may not resemble classical data too closely, but it's still an information store.
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