 
 
A regular computer would take
thousands of years to crack certain
codes, as it does one operation at a time.
But a computer that could conduct
thousands of computations at once
could crack that code in a second.
Computers are basically a huge bunch of
transistors,
electronic switches that encode the
basic computing bits - 
ones and zeros - kind of like a
light switch.
All computing is made up of a large
number of bits, 
from video games, through Facebook posts, to launching a space mission.
To develop computers that are light
years ahead of today's,
scientists have for years been
trying to exploit one of the weirder facts of 
nature -
quantum superposition, in which an
object can be in several places at once.
Today,
computers are based on electrons whose
electric charges make them interact
with one another,
quickly ruining any superposition
state.
Quantum computers could use
photons, 
uncharged light particles that can maintain
a state of superposition
much more easily. Weizmann Institute
scientists have succeeded, for the first
time, in building a transistor that
switches and guides not electrons,
but photons - a photonic router. To
control the photons' movement,
the scientists trapped a single atom on a
chip, sending it photons with a special,
minute optical resonator. The resonator
holds the photons for a millionth of a
second,
forcing them to interact with the atom.
The photons flip the state of the atom
like a switch, sending the next photon
in line
either left or right. This creates a
quantum router for photons that is also
controlled by the photons themselves.
It can be in a 1 or 0 state, and
anything in between,
all at the same time. This research is
another step forward toward
quantum computing technology, in which
computation will be carried out by light
instead of electricity. A long road is
still ahead,
but we are already well on our way.
