Qubits and Superposition — What's Actually Happening
Understanding Quantum Computing
What superposition actually means — and the most common misconception to unlearn. Anchor: RSA and the factoring problem.
1
Learning Material
6 pagesLesson 4 — Qubits and Superposition: What's Actually Happening
Understanding the Complex: Understanding Quantum Computing
The anchor example for Lessons 4–6:
RSA encryption relies on the difficulty of factoring the product of two large primes. A quantum computer running Shor's algorithm could do this efficiently. Why?
To get there, we need to understand what qubits actually are — and what they're not.