Quantum physics and intuitive reactions

The study of quantum physics reveals some strange stuff.  Experiments with one of the strangest principles of quantum physics — that a particle can be in more than one place at the same time, but can only appear or be observed in one location — are creating some interesting results lately.

Researchers have developed:

• a quantum computer which can find an answer before (or perhaps without) processing the question

Sometimes, people know things by instinct before they give them serious thought, a topic which Malcolm Gladwell popularized in Blink. 

• an encryption algorithm which changes as soon as it’s observed, thereby thwarting cracking attempts by changing the code every time it’s touched

Imagine a combination lock whose code changed every time you touched it, or a password spoken by one person to another that changed (only to their knowledge) every time you eavesdropped to discover what it was.

It’s interesting to see how particles at the subatomic level behave in ways that are apparently more intuitive than rational.

People aren’t afraid of computers that compute like we do; we think it’s great to have a machine do something faster than we can to make our lives easier.  But anyone who had a nightmare about The Matrix probably won’t be able to keep their imagination from wondering what the world will be like when computers think like we do.