--- title: What Does it Mean to be ‘Quantum’? A Physicist Explains... description: A physicist explains the foundational concepts of quantum mechanics — superposition, entanglement, and decoherence — and how they underpin quantum computing.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/what-does-it-mean-to-be-quantum-a-physicist-explains-the-basics-behind-einstein-s-spooky-actions--xe9uejsfh twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: What Does it Mean to be ‘Quantum’? A Physicist Explains The Basics Behind Einstein’s Spooky Actions at a Distance | daily.dev og:description: A physicist explains the foundational concepts of quantum mechanics — superposition, entanglement, and decoherence — and how they underpin quantum computing.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-does-it-mean-to-be-quantum-a-physicist-explains-the-basics-behind-einstein-s-spooky-actions--xe9uejsfh og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/xE9UejsFH.png og:image:alt: What Does it Mean to be ‘Quantum’? A Physicist Explains The Basics Behind Einstein’s Spooky Actions at a Distance og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What Does it Mean to be ‘Quantum’? A Physicist Explains The Basics Behind Einstein’s Spooky Actions at a Distance **[The Quantum Insider](https://daily.dev/sources/thequantuminsider)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A physicist explains the foundational concepts of quantum mechanics — superposition, entanglement, and decoherence — and how they underpin quantum computing. Qubits can represent multiple states simultaneously, giving quantum computers potential advantages over classical machines for specific problems like drug simulation, materials discovery, and cryptography. RSA encryption could be broken by sufficiently powerful quantum computers using Shor's algorithm, raising 'harvest now, decrypt later' security concerns. Current quantum computers from IBM, Google, and IonQ remain fragile and specialized, but may play a practical role in medicine, materials science, and cybersecurity within the next decade or two. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Quantum Computers Could Give Scientists a New Way to Explore The Hidden Behavior of Matter](https://daily.dev/posts/quantum-computers-could-give-scientists-a-new-way-to-explore-the-hidden-behavior-of-matter-lofaecqng) · The Quantum Insider · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Will Quantum Computing Replace Your Laptop?](https://daily.dev/posts/will-quantum-computing-replace-your-laptop--okjwhtsol) · Towards Dev · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Reshaping computation with quantum mechanics](https://daily.dev/posts/reshaping-computation-with-quantum-mechanics-txlyyknal) · Nature · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#quantum-computing](https://daily.dev/tags/quantum-computing), [#cryptography](https://daily.dev/tags/cryptography) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-does-it-mean-to-be-quantum-a-physicist-explains-the-basics-behind-einstein-s-spooky-actions--xe9uejsfh) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"What Does it Mean to be ‘Quantum’? 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