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If the words ‘quantum’ and ‘computing’ seem complicated enough without smushing them together, fear not! This animated explainer will teach you how to build a quantum computer from the qubit up – or, at very least, help you grasp the basics. With nifty animated sequences to explore how quantum computing leverages quantum science, the video covers the broad strokes of the emerging technology, including its potential to revolutionise computing as we know it, and its current limitations.
Video by Scientific American
Animator: Michael Tabb
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
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Fairness and equality
Visit the small Texas community that lives in the shadow of SpaceX launches
14 minutes
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Film and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes
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War and peace
A frontline soldier’s moving account of the fabled ‘Christmas truce’ of 1914
12 minutes
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History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
19 minutes
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Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
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Technology and the self
Why single Chinese women are freezing their eggs in California
24 minutes
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The ancient world
Petty squabbles and bloody battles – the life of an ancient Roman soldier
18 minutes
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Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
5 minutes