I do a bit of hobby programming and I often search the internet for little oddities that are fun to ponder over. I have read a few passages that try to explain quantum computing to the layman like myself. I have read of the Qubit, the more 'power' version of the bit, and its bad habit of being in superposition. This, to me, sounds as if it sits halfway between 1 and 0.
So, I reason that one can create a qu-binary number with these; something resembling a ternary number, made from 0's, 1's and 1/2's (or Q's). I have read that a quantum computer has more 'power' when it comes to computation because one qu-value is a possibility between at most n^2 regular values in n bits. I have constructed a little problem with this value when you try to store a specific set of regular values in a qu-value.
Imagine a value is a superposition between 2 and 3. In qu-binary, I would write "10 or 11 -> 1Q", as the last bit is "both". OK, so this works. But what about real values 2, 3 and 4 in superposition? in my ternary notation "QQQ" is potentially any of the possibilities 0 through 7, and so actually represents a whole lot more values than I want!?
My question is, how does it really work? Am I thinking about it all wrong? Because this is how the whole subject of Quantum computing looks like from the outside. Or is this an example of quantum computing's non-determinism? I assume all bits are completely isolated from one another and have no qu-knowledge of any other. Maybe something obscure like quantum gates sharing information between bits could explain the problem; or if the bits represent continuous probabilities. I don't know. Could someone explain it for me?