[ale] Qubit vs bit

[Ed Cashin]

Hi. It’s not just on, off, or both.

They use probability “amplitudes” to describe superpositions, but ignoring
that, think about regular probabilities: 30% on and 70% off; or 100% on and
0% off; or sqrt(2)% on and 1 - sqrt(2) % off—infinite possibilities.

The value is really flexible. The storage, transmission, and measurement is
tricky. Gates are not that bad, I think.

On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 9:25 PM David Jackson via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> I'm trying to understand how superposition alters representing state.
>
> I was thinking we're talking it's 3**n  where n is the length of the word
> length.
> Where each bit is either "on" "off" or both "on and off" (superposition).
> So unless I'm wrong, that would be a "trinary" language to represent state?
>
> I've read many articles and watched many YouTubes, but I'm just trying to
> understand the basic difference between a qubit and a bit in terms of
> representing state.  I understand that the superposition allows for
> simultaneous state representation, but doesn't that still limit you to a
> "trinary" representation of state?  3**n  ??
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Dave
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
-- 
  Ed Cashin <ecashin at noserose.net>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20200802/067d2c07/attachment.html>