BREAKING: New Phase of Matter

Some more on what makes quantum computers different:

In your regular computer, each but is either a 1, or a 0, on, or off. Technically, since we define 1 and 0 as falling within a range of voltages in a circuit, the voltage can be a wide range of values, but we don't use it that way. We then use each bit to perform calculations by connecting them up to a circuit which can perform that calculation for each bit of data individually.

By contrast, quantum computers generally use qbits which are entangled together in a special way. By entangling them, you end up multiplying the number of values you can encode in a single bit. Beyond that, you also get the ability to do calculations where you "try every possible combination at the same time" and whatever you get out should be something close to the right result. This lets you try to solve problems that would require a classical computer to calculate each possible solution and test them 1 at a time. Once you have too many solutions, trying each one, 1 by 1, becomes impossible, since it's possible to have many more solutions than you could possibly calculate in the lifespan of the universe. But quantum computers can essentially "try every solution at once" and just somehow get the answer (ignoring the difficulty of quantum error correction).