The quantum computer worked even though it was broken

The first experiment was a nail cutter. In December last year, John Martinis and his employees at Google, for the first time, tested a computer chip with 54 so-called quantum bits. They hoped it would pass calculations far beyond what today's very best supercomputers are capable of. The problem was that the chip was damaged. A broken lead meant that only 53 quantum bits worked.

- We thought, oh come on, this is our first chip! It will go wrong. We have to make a new one, says John Martinis.

In the end, they decided to try the damaged equipment after all - which, in order to have the least chance of operating, requires a temperature a few hundred degrees above the absolute zero, minus 273.15 C.

- Fortunately, everything worked extremely well, says John Martinis.

Already in the early 1980s, charismatic physicist Richard Feynman - Nobel laureate and virtuoso on bongo drums - introduced the idea that a quantum computer could solve problems in physics and chemistry where an ordinary computer is biting.

Its superpowers come from the crazy world of quantum mechanics. There, particles can be in several places at once and also behave as if they had telepathic contact with each other.

A quantum computer takes advantage of such effects to solve computational tasks too complicated for ordinary computers. Google developed its quantum chip together with the US Space Agency Nasa, and it fulfilled all hopes. The researchers wrote a scientific report on the experiment - which someone at Nasa happened to publish prematurely a month ago.

- As far as I understand, it was a human mistake not to click in the right box on the external web, says Sergio Boixo, one of the researchers behind the quantum computer.

Someone at the organization that landed the first person on the moon thus happened to slip with the computer mouse.

So far, it is unclear what quantum computers will be used for in practice. Google CEO Sundar Pichai draws a parallel to the flight: In 1903, the Wright brothers conducted a flight that lasted for twelve seconds. At that time, it was difficult to predict how aviation would develop in the future.

Quantum computer research has just begun. They are based on physics that put our habits of logic to an end. Or as Richard Feynman put it: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

The study is published in Nature