The Quantum Theory Behind Quantum Computers

April 15, 2014

As mentioned before, qubits rely on being entangled with each other in order to create a lot of information. Quantum entanglement is the nature of particles to be interconnected to the state of the other particle. These particles can have either an up spin or a down spin at any given time. Being entangled, if we measure the spin of one of the particles to be up and measure the spin of the other particle, in the same measured direction, it will be spin down. So the particles will always have the opposite spin.

This opposing spin is due to how we create entangled particles. Entangled particles are created from energy at the same instance. In the universe conservation of momentum must be maintained. The universe conserves momentum by making the spin of the particles opposite. When the first particle is observed its spin will always be random – a 50/50 chance of being up or down. It has been confirmed through experimentation that the particles share information across any distance to achieve this entangled state. So it doesn't matter the distance of these particle are separated by, they will still have the oppose spin of the other particle. An important note here is that the particles cannot be used to transmit data. If two people looked at the particles and record what the spins were the observations would be random but they would be opposite of the other person.