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Why do some physicists believe that scalable quantum computing is possible?

The idea of a quantum computer is that a quantum system can be in a Quantum Superposition of many states. then the same calculation can be done on each of the states of the superposition, so the system can do many calculations in parallel. This idea leads to the possibility of much more powerful computers than would be possible with ordinary processors.

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Neo
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  • I don't think that's the idea. Classical linear systems also have superposition principle. What they don't have is entanglement. That's what gives the q.computer an edge in some situations. – MBN Oct 04 '12 at 12:00
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    @MBN quantum computing is look like painting on water! – Neo Oct 04 '12 at 12:07
  • Possible duplicate: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/35218/2451 – Qmechanic Oct 04 '12 at 12:26

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There are working quantum computers right now.

swish
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    Except that it is very likely that what they have is a fancy very expensive special purpose classical computer. – MBN Oct 04 '12 at 11:58
  • @MBN That's very unlikely. I can't imagine why would they create such sophisticated hoax. – swish Oct 04 '12 at 12:12
  • Well, they admit that their computer cannot run Shor's algorithm. What I would call a quantum computer should be able to do that. – MBN Oct 05 '12 at 11:22