4 ms·

I'm pretty uneducated on the subject, but I wonder if we could have quantum computers that exist on a spectrum with standard digital computers, such as by havin

• abdullahkhalids 8y ago
  That's a good and a bad question. Let me rephrase your question. A classical (standard digital) computer can solve some problems efficiently/easily, and others not so. A quantum computer can efficiently solve all problems that classical computers find easy, and some of the problems that classical computers find hard. Now, your questions seems to be, if I make a midway computer that has some superposition in it, would it be stronger than a classical computer? The answer is yes and no. There are indeed some problems that this midway computer can solve faster than classical computers. But these problems are mostly mathematical curiosities, interesting that they exist, but not useful at all for any practical problem. If you look at only the practically useful problems, then either you keep things simple and make a classical computer and deal with not being able to solve some problems. Or you make things complicated and make a quantum computer and solve some more problems efficiently. In other words, edge cases aside, the jump from classical computers to quantum computers is a qualitative change, and not a continuous spectrum as you wonder.