>>For anyone following the latest news on quantum computers, the following is quite interesting:
>>
>>http://www.physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/12/1/1
>>
>>( For more general information on quantum computers, see www.qubit.org )
>
>Thanks, Hilmar. I wonder how long it will be before any of this translates into a useful device. The subject has a strange fascination for me, although I really don't understand it. I wish I had the time to study this further, and qubit.org looks like a great place to start - it's one of the best organized and written, focused scientific sites I've ever seen.

I was reading some of this to my 12-year old son yesterday, and he found it to be quite crazy. After all, how can a cat be alive and dead at the same time??? And after that, it becames only weirder.

But that is more or less what quantum mechanics claims - that a quantum system can be in a superposition of several states, in a sense that is not normally observable in the large-scale world.