What Really Gives a Quantum Computer Its Power?
Richard Fitzgerald · Physics Today · 2000
Quantum computers have been predicted to be exponentially faster than their classical counterparts for some computations, such as the factoring of large numbers. (See the article by Charles Bennett in PHYSICS TODAY, October 1995, page 24.) Whereas classical computers perform operations on information stored as classical bits, which can be in one of two discrete states, quantum computers perform operations on quantum bits, or “qubits,” which can be put into any superposition of two quantum states.