Short Wave Is The Quantum Future Here?
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Dec 15, 2025 
Katia Riddle, an NPR science correspondent specializing in physics and technology, dives into the intriguing world of quantum science. She discusses the increased investment from governments and tech giants aimed at unlocking quantum's potential. Katia explains complex concepts like quantum tunneling, superposition, and the differences between classical bits and qubits through relatable analogies. Moreover, she shares insights on the timeline for real-world applications, revealing that while the future is promising, meaningful impacts may still be decades away.
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Quantum Uses Weirdness To Compute
- Quantum leverages weird consistent behaviors of subatomic particles like superposition to do computation differently than classical machines.
- That allows qubits to represent many possibilities at once, enabling new ways to simulate molecules and particles.
Qubits Encode Many Possibilities
- Quantum computers use qubits that can be zero and one at the same time, giving them probabilistic parallelism.
- That lets them represent many combinations simultaneously rather than checking each one sequentially like classical computers.
Dimmer-Switch Metaphor
- Katia Riddle used a light-switches-with-dimmers metaphor from physicist Dominic Walleman to explain quantum computing.
- The metaphor shows quantum machines represent many configurations at once like dimmed lights rather than binary on/off switches.