We think we live in a world with one set of physical rules. If I'm holding an apple and I let it go, it'll fall to the floor.

But at the smallest scale inside of molecules and atoms, there's another world where normal rules of physics cease to exist.

A world where gravity operates differently,

where a single particle can be in more than one place at a time.

This is the quantum world,

and it's happening all around us.

The quantum realm is its own microscopic universe.

To get in there you have to be incredibly small.

Particles pop in and out of existence.

You try to measure it and it's not there anymore,

but you saw it there a moment ago.

The behavior of things on a small scale is so fantastic.

It's so wonderfully different, so marvelously different than anything that behaves on a large scale.

It's kind of like magic, but real.

And right now, research teams around the world are in the process of harnessing this magic to build quantum computers.

And that means that you and I, dear listener, are living during the start of a technological revolution,

just like the space age or the nuclear age in the past.

Some experts believe that a useful quantum computer could be complete in just a decade.

And when they're ready, certain calculations that would take tens of thousands of years on a regular

supercomputer could be solvable in minutes.

Quantum computers will change the world,

and we're only just starting to ask the right questions

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