Qubits are the quantum equivalent of bits, but they work very differently from classical bits (the bits used in our computers). Qubits, like classical bits, can be in states of 0 and 1, also known as spin up and spin down, but what makes qubits useful is the concept of quantum superposition.

This is the Bloch sphere in the 0 state. Both theta and phi are at 0 right now.

cos(0/2) = 1

sin(0/2) = 0

This means that there is a 100% chance that this qubit is in the state of 0.

This is generally the starting state of qubits when it comes to quantum computing.

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First we will look at the Pauli-X gate,also known as the NOT gate,and works very similarly to the NOT gate in classical computer science.All it does is switch the probabilities of |0>and |1>. So if we start the qubit with a 100%possibility of being0,then this gate will change it to a 100% possibi...

I hope that this article was a nice introduction to quantum gates and some of the math behind it. There are many things I could not mention or explain in this article for the sake of time and staying on-topic but this is the groundwork to start learning more concepts.

In Brief,

Superposition is essentially when a qubit is in a state somewhere in between 0 and 1 that then becomes either 0 or 1 when observed. A very common example is one of a spinning coin. When you flip a coin, there is a mixture of heads and tails (like a qubit being in the states of 0 a...

The Hadamard gate is very important because it puts the qubit into a state of superposition. It corresponds to a 90-degree rotation around the x and the z axes.

After applying the Hadamard gate you are in between the 0 and 1 states, meaning there is a 50% chance that the qubit will result ...

Qubits can be represented using an equation, which is what we will do.

This equation is very useful when working with the Bloch sphere, which is a great tool for visualizing the state of a qubit.

Now let me explain what is going on. The |0> and |1> are just the states of 0 and 1, usin...

If you know a bit about computers, you may know that computers use bits, which can either be on or off, usually referred to as 1 and 0 respectively. The states of these bits can be modified using logic gates like

One important thing to remember when it comes to the Bloch sphere and quantum gates is the phase of the qubit. The phase will generally “point” in the same direction as the arrow. If we look at the equation, phi is the angle of the arrow on the 2D (x and y axes) plane. The phase is very important...

The Z gate was applied after a Hadamard gate.

The Z gate changed the phase to π

The T and S gates both have inverse gates that correspond to a rotation in the opposite direction. For example, if the inverse of the S gate was applied after a Hadamard gate, the phase would be 3π/2. Th...

These three gates correspond to rotations around the z-axis by different amounts, with T being a 45-degree rotation, S being a 90-degree rotation and Pauli-Z being a 180-degree rotation.

The T gate was applied after a Hadamard gate.

The T gate changed the phase to π/4