Below is the first few paragraphs of the wikipedia entry for "Quantum Computer". This entry is the product of no less than 4 years of constant updating and editing by hundreds of supposed "experts" in the field (a non-expert would dare not try to make an entry or would very quickly be corrected and edited out by an expert). Now obviously people write these wikipedia articles with the lay masses in mind, since what expert would rely on a wikipedia page for their knowledge.
Absolute nonsense. The writers have done an excellent job here. Terms like superposition, quantum mechanics, etc. etc. are all explained. All you have to do is click on the link and you go to the page where that is explained. This is really a very good way of explaining complicated things from basic principles.
Not all wiki articles are well written, but this one apperantly is, see discussion page:
Quantum computer is a featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute.
And I have to say that I agree 100% with that. Also note that people who are editing are mostly students and interested lay people.
People who professionally work in science are usually too busy to spend much time on these things.
Overall the first paragraph is not bad, but here already in the first sentence we are asked to go learn about the not-insignificant quantum properties of superposition and entaglement before we can understand anything about what sets a quantum computer apart from a conventional computer. Some unanswered questions a typical lay person might have after reading this first paragraph:
* What the hell is an "operation on data" (1st and
4th sentences)?
* When and how did "particles" (4th sentence) come
into this?
* What is meant by "structuring data" (4th
sentence) and how the hell do you
"represent data" (4th sentence) in a computer in
the first place, I thought computers just
"stored data"?
You either have further questions or you don't have them. If you don't understand what superposition is then go to the relevant page. It is explained in a way that even a five year old can understand it. As for your other comments, these things do not stand in the way of getting a basic picture of what a quantum computer is. So you either ignore them or you click on ''computer'', ''computation'', ''integer factorization'' or whatever.
