In mid-October, tech giant Google made headlines with news that it had run a successful quantum computing demonstration. In Google’s trial, this new type of computer process ran a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken the fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to complete.

While we’re a long way from seeing quantum computers in the classroom, some visionaries say advances in the field could have K–12 implications.

“Quantum computing harnesses the quantum mechanics properties of molecules to do an entirely different kind of computing,” says Diana Franklin, research associate professor in computer science at the University of Chicago and co-principal investigator with Enabling Practical-scale Quantum Computation (EpiQC), a consortium of quantum researchers and advocates.

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Advances in Science Help Make ‘Bizarre’ Math Tangible

In subatomic physics, quantum states are all about uncertainty. A conventional computer understands two possible states — the well-known ones and zeros of binary computing. It’s like flipping a coin: Information is stored as heads or tails.

By leveraging uncertainty at the subatomic level, quantum machines can hold information in innumerable simultaneous states. Rather than a coin flip, think of rolling a marble. 

“In quantum computing you can store many more variables in a much smaller space, and update them with a single operation,” Franklin says.

The problem is, quantum science makes most people’s brains hurt. As a result, “quantum mechanics has not really filtered down to high school education at all,” says Kenneth Brown, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University and an EpiQC researcher.

When schools do touch on the topic, “we’ve always taught it as this ‘weird’ thing, this ‘bizarre’ stuff,” Brown says. “Anything we say about it tends to be pretty hand-wavy. It’s very muddled.”

Now, the rise of quantum computing gives K–12 a new tool to make that bizarre math tangible.