How do people program quantum computers?

[jimistephen]

40 minutes ago, spidsepttk said:

What base is it?

It's kind of base 2, but instead of being 1 OR 0 it can be 1 OR 0 or 1 AND 0 or 1 AND . So where a "normal bit" could be 1 or 0, a Qbit could look like

0, 1, 10 , 11. It's almost like a 2D bit. That's a very simple way of looking at it, I've heard that it can actually be anything between 0 and 1 as another way to explain it.

 

Lets not forget that quantum PC are so accurate at math that right now they can get 3 * 5 = 15 correct 60% of the time.

[Guest]

Just now, jimistephen said:

It's kind of base 2, but instead of being 1 OR 0 it can be 1 OR 0 or 1 AND 0 or 1 AND . So where a "normal bit" could be 1 or 0, a Qbit could look like

0, 1, 10 , 11.

So since there are 4 possible combinations, would it be base 4?

[jimistephen]

No, not base 4, you're still thinking about it in linear terms, which is what we've been taught to think of it in. It's still base 2, it's either a 1 or a 0. But wrapped up in that it could be a 0, a 1, a 1 and a 0, or a 1 and a 1.

 

What this 

and this

 

and this

 

[fizzlesticks]

Kind of sorta explains a bit of it. And you can play around with a simulator here https://cnotmz.appspot.com/

[straight_stewie]

2 hours ago, Remixt said:

I've seen a few documentaries over QC and how they use Qbits to program it. But how the hell does that actually work? Does anyone know what it really looks like?

From DWave, the only in production quantum processor.
Basics (Yes, you can use high level languages): DWave Technology Software

Hardcore (less than engineering, but much more in depth): Programming With DWave, Map Coloring Problem (PDF)

Get ready to math.

[Aseliot]

Taken from http://www.quantumplayground.net/#/home 

Quote

The most basic operations performed on qubits are defined by quantum gates, similar to logical gates used in classic computers. Using quantum gates one can build complex algorithms, usually ending in a measurement operation, which obtains a classical value of qubits (either 0 or 1, but not a superposition). The state of a quantum computer, a set of qubits called quantum register, can be visualized in a number of ways, typically as a 2D or 3D graph, on which points or bars represent superpositions of qubits, while their color or bar height represent amplitude and phase of a given superposition. An interesting property of quantum gates is their reversibility, allowing for program execution both forward and in reverse without any side-effects.

IBM has the Quantum experience which looks like this. (http://www.research.ibm.com/quantum/)

 

 

And here's some complicated stuff appears to explain how things work.

 

https://quantiki.org/wiki/basic-concepts-quantum-computation

 

Other than that I haven't really looked into it too much or understand it either. Qbits are really good for calculation permutations/combinations. As far as I know there is no real programming language for these computers yet it's like the very early days of the first computers where they just used 0 and 1 to make calculations.