World record setting experiment brings quantum computing a step closer to reality

Despite recent successes in the field, creating a quantum computer is really hard. For one thing quantum bits in a super positioned state (or qubits, the basic unit of data for quantum computing) have a hard time surviving at room temperature. Typically, these superposition states last for only a few seconds, but in a recent experiment at Oxford University, researchers were able to keep a quantum system alive for a full 39 minutes. "These lifetimes are at least ten times longer than those measur...