Quantum computers are like kaleidoscopes: Why unusual metaphors help illustrate science and technology

Quantum computing is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates: You never know what you're gonna get. Quantum phenomena—the behavior of matter and energy at the atomic and subatomic levels—are not definite, one thing or another. They are opaque clouds of possibility, or more precisely, probabilities. When someone observes a quantum system, it loses its quantum-ness and "collapses" into a definite state.