Imagine a computer whose memory is exponentially larger than its apparent physical size; a computer that can manipulate an exponential set of inputs simultaneously; a computer that computes in the twilight zone of space. You would be thinking of a quantum computer. Relatively few and simple concepts from quantum mechanics are needed to make quantum computers a possibility. The subtlety has been in learning to manipulate these concepts. Is such a computer an inevitability or will it be too difficult to build?

By the strange laws of quantum mechanics, Folger, a senior editor at Discover, notes that; an electron, proton, or other subatomic particle is "in more than one place at a time," because individual particles behave like waves, these different places are different states that an atom can exist in simultaneously.

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