As you\u2019ll see, the steps I took in this demo are easily translatable for more complicated pursuits. I also need to disclose that I am tragically bad at coding. I can kind of understand code well enough to retrieve photos from websites, but that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the thing: Even someone like me was able to follow what was going on during the demo. For the purposes of this post, I won\u2019t be listing all the specific codes, but check out the video below for the actual demonstration. You can also find the code for the demo here<\/a>.<\/p>\n A quick primer <\/p>\n Before we jump in, let\u2019s go over some quantum computation basics. Very simply, quantum computers harness the quirky principles of quantum mechanics to perform feats that are potentially unthinkable for even today\u2019s best supercomputers.<\/p>\n That gives them a wide variety of future applications, like extending the life of EV batteries, advancements in medical and basic research, and whatever extremely complex problem that we humans have yet to grasp the answer for.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n We\u2019ve still got ways to go before this becomes a reality, but as my brief attempt at quantum computing shows, some basic tasks are already within reach.<\/p>\n 1. Decide on a problem <\/p>\n Like all computing problems, you first need to identify what it is you want to do, then decide on a program that\u2019ll help you do that. For this demonstration, the goal was to create a magic 8-ball that provides one random answer out of eight possible outcomes. During the demonstration\u2014which took place before Thanksgiving\u2014I asked the magic 8-ball whether my flight to see my family in Minnesota would leave on time.<\/p>\n Sure, I could\u2019ve done the same thing on a classical computer by generating a random integer between 1 and 9, but quantum computers are particularly good at generating truly random distributions, which I tested during the demonstration.<\/p>\n 2. Map problem onto a quantum circuit <\/p>\n This step is one of two translation steps for quantum coding, in which you\u2019re mapping a problem onto a quantum circuit. To do this, you first need a software development kit<\/a> to run quantum circuits or build algorithms on quantum hardware. In this case, we used Qiskit<\/a>, IBM\u2019s open-source software stack that anyone can use to send code to the company\u2019s quantum computers. Then, you install and load the necessary packages to prepare the workspace, after which you can set up a quantum circuit.<\/p>\n The basic unit of information in quantum computers is the qubit. Unlike classical binary bits (0 or 1), qubits can simultaneously represent numerous combinations of 0 and 1 in a phenomenon called superposition, according to MIT Technology Review<\/a>. This capacity is what allows quantum computers to outperform classical computers in processing specific types of problems.<\/p>\n Since my magic 8-ball has eight responses, I\u2019ll be setting up a quantum circuit that uses three qubits to encode eight possible outcomes (23 = 8). The next step is to add an operation to these qubits, which in this case means sending them through quantum gates. To be exact, the operation seen below (\u201cqc.h\u201d) places a qubit onto a \u201cHadamard gate,\u201d which puts the qubits into a state of superposition.<\/p>\n Since the goal is to make some measurements from the qubit, the next couple of lines of code reflect commands that add measurements to the qubits and another one to help visualize the circuit before sending it to a quantum computer.<\/p>\n Believe it or not, that\u2019s about it for how much original thought is required for this mini-project. The final steps are to connect to a real quantum computer, run a few translation commands, and ask it to solve the problem.<\/p>\n Connecting to a quantum computer is very simple and, to be honest, rather anticlimactic. The act itself takes just two lines of code to establish a connection to the backend, which for this demo was IBM\u2019s Kingston, a Heron processor<\/a>, located at a data center in Poughkeepsie, New York.<\/p>\n Then, the translation process, specifically transpilation, essentially reworks the code into instructions that a quantum computer natively supports. The command for this is somewhat of a mouthful, but this single line allows you to transpile your circuit and specify an optimization level for your task. Remember my quantum circuit from before? After transpilation, it looks like this:<\/p>\n Once that\u2019s done, all that\u2019s left is to specify to Kingston the number of samples I want to draw from my magic 8-ball. Sometimes it takes a bit for the computer to return results, since people worldwide can access the servers, but Qiskit provides a job ID in case you want to check again the next day. These operations are, again, fairly straightforward and are available at the demo page<\/a>.<\/p>\n 4. Make sense of the results <\/p>\n I cannot stress enough the similarities between quantum coding and classical coding. For instance, unpacking a quantum computer\u2019s calculations so that they\u2019re useful to me\u2014that is, so I can represent them in a statistically practical way\u2014mirrors how I\u2019d filter the data in classical coding.<\/p>\n Assuming you have the visualization package for Qiskit, this is what you should get when running a code to ask the computer (back to classical in this case, since I\u2019m now working with a dataset that Kingston ran for me):<\/p>\n The number labels of the x-axis represent the different answers from the magic 8-ball in the following order: \u201cYes\u201d (001), \u201cNot today\u201d (001), \u201cDefinitely\u201d (010), \u201cTry again\u201d (011), \u201cSigns point to yes\u201d (100), \u201cNot likely\u201d (101), \u201cSure thing!\u201d (110), and \u201cOutlook not so good\u201d (111).<\/p>\n The counts on the y-axis represent how many times the quantum computer generated each answer out of the 10,000 draws I asked it to perform. So the answer to my question\u2014the timeliness of my Minnesota flight\u2014appears to be \u201csure thing.\u201d<\/p>\n And as a matter of fact, my real flight actually left a little early.<\/p>\n Alternatively, I also tried drawing one outcome for a single answer, which was \u201cTry again.\u201d Okay, so the quantum 8-ball does not give the best planning advice.<\/p>\n Optional step: mull over the implications <\/p>\n This demo represents a very simple application of quantum computing, but the results shown in the histogram reflect some scientifically cool features of working with quantum computers. Notice how the different bars are slightly uneven in height. Some of the responses (like 010, \u201cDefinitely\u201d) vary more than what you\u2019d expect from the standard deviation of 8 random responses drawn 10,000 times.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the effect of noise, in addition to the relatively small (yes, 10,000 is considered small) number of sampling attempts I had the computer do. Still, the variations aren\u2019t too drastic, which speaks to the efficacy of quantum hardware.<\/p>\n For more complicated tasks, scientists will apply various techniques to correct for errors so that the results appear more consistent. Of course, these people (probably) aren\u2019t coding quantum 8-balls so they can ask them if aliens exist. They have more advanced pursuits, like simulating a dizzying number of complex organic molecules in chemistry<\/a>\u00a0or generating truly random numbers for secure financial transactions<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Qiskit](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/qiskit-demo-8-ball-response.jpg\")
A list of potential answers to be drawn from the quantum 8-ball. \u00a9 IBM <\/p>\n![\"Qiskit](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/qiskit-demo-8-ball-setup-e1770929947110.jpg\")
\u00a9 IBM <\/p>\n![\"Qiskit](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/qiskit-demo-q-circuit-visualization-e1770930136414.jpg\")
A visualization of a quantum circuit, pre-transpilation. \u00a9 IBM 3. Optimize for target hardware\u2014and execute! <\/p>\n![\"Ibm](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IBM-system-2-1280x964.jpg\")
IBM Quantum System Two at IBM\u2019s Thomas J. Watson Research Center. This is a different system than what I used for the demo but contains the same Heron processors. \u00a9 Adriano Contreras\/Gizmodo <\/p>\n![\"Qiskit](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/qiskit-demo-q-circuit-visualization-transpilation.jpg\")
A visualization of a quantum circuit, post-transpilation. \u00a9 IBM <\/p>\n![\"Qiskit](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/qiskit-demo-result-chart.jpg\")
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