The record-smashing quantum computer reminds me of Prince of Persia. A dizzying array of lenses and prisms that stretch across the room, it looks rather like the light-directing puzzles common in such video games. l long to twist the lenses and shoot laser beams everywhere. That wouldn't make me popular here. A quiet stillness pervades the Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum information, pari of the University of Bristol. Because quantum states are fragile, the building's design dampens vibrations and even fiters the power supply to remove electrical noise. Each part of the machine spread before me is carefully aligned so that mixing a pair of light beans caries out a specific calculation. Now, it's set to turn 21 into 3 and 7, the two prime numbers that it is divisible by. It is the biggest number a quantum computer has ever broken into primes using e famous quantum protocol, Shor's algorithm. Still, I can do the same thing in my head - so whats the big deal? The answer is clearer at my next stop, where I see a wafer of 20 or so chips, each a few cenimnelers long and made of silicon dioxide. Although not yet as capable as the behemoth l first encountered, these chips are the next stage in the lab's attempt to build quantum computers that outperform even the best non-quantum machines. Information on an ordinary computer is stored as bits, which can be either a 1 or a 0. Quantum bis, or qubits, are both at once, so a lange array couid process a great deal more informnalion. But assembling even a handful of qubits is tough because of their fagility, so the best way to scale up is to scale down. "You could potentally start doing biger and more complicated experiments," says my guide, physicisi Graham Marshall. “Bul can you make it so that it doesn't feel the presence of the moon, of the movement of sectonic plates? There is a limit to how well ycu can Siabilize something on that scale," Thats where the chips come in. Instead of using glass prisns to mix photons, chamels filled. with silicon nitride are etched into the chips' surface in patterns that I can just make out. The channels confine and steer photons, guiding them so that they become "entangled"一a quantum property needed for computation. This should lead to computers that are easier to stabilize and so can scale up. A similar chip is already hooked up to the interner, making history as the first quantum processor available to the public. Still, the device doesn't incorporate a photon source or detector-these components spill out scross another bench.
What does the passage mainiy describe?
A.A quantum computer B.A visit to a computer center C.A computer game D.A visit to a quantum lab正确答案D
