Faithful simulations of the world are impossible to create using ordinary computers. Simulating physical reality is, however, the original, express purpose of quantum computers.
In 1981, long before quantum computers gained notoriety as potential tools for breaking encryption, the physicist Richard Feynman planted the seed for what is now a multibillion-dollar effort to build them, famously quipping “Nature isn’t classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you’d better make it quantum mechanical.”
Quantum computers, though still small and rudimentary, have now grown sufficiently advanced that physicists are using them to simulate tiny pieces of nature.
Quantum computers, though still small and rudimentary, have now grown sufficiently advanced that physicists are using them to simulate tiny pieces of nature.
