How the heart functions, blood circulation, mitosis, and many other activities were being rendered in terms of these new concepts about dynamical systems. It is fair to say that the contribution has been somewhat limited, but biologists and mathematicians keep finding new angles to consider. What is being offered here is that the connection between computational theory and biology may soon be meeting again, both types of scientists should be listening very carefully, for they may hear the whisper of Pythagoras in the new field of quantum computers. Quantum computing is an arcane research area that is slowly becoming a popular topic. The basic idea is that one can carry out basic compute operations by manipulating the quantum states of photons, ions, or even electrons.
Current research includes work on arrays of ions in what are called ion traps.
A laser beam is focused into each ion trap, changes in the quantum state of ion become the basis for computation. These changes in state are considered fundamentally different from the 0 and 1 of binary code, which are called bits. Quantum states also tend to be unstable, and can produce many errors in measurement. So, much early research has been spent on developing computationally efficient error-correction methods. The news is that progress is being made in quantum computing, and there is high likelihood this technology will be commercialized.