What is a qubit? [Was Re: [thelist] What is a k? What is a gig?]

[Peter Kaulback]

In the wee hour of 04:33 PM 6/3/01 +0100, William Anderson bequeathed such 
tales as these:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "CDitty" <mail at redhotsweeps.com>
>To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
>Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2001 4:14 PM
>Subject: [thelist] What is a k? What is a gig?
>
>
> > Good morning all.
> >
> > I am trying to enlighten a friend that is new to the net and computers and
> > am getting a little tongue tied myself.   The questions I am having a
>tough
> > time answering are along these lines.
> >
> > What is a k and how big is it?
> > How many times will it go into 1 meg?  1024 times right?
> > How big is a gig? 1,024,000?
> >
> > How can you explain this to a non-technical person?
>
>1 bit = on or off (1 or 0)
>1 nibble = 4 bits
>1 byte = 8 bits
>1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes
>1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes
>1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes
>1 terabyte = 1024 gigabytes
>1 petabyte = 1024 terabytes
>and so on ...
>
>--
Good description in the table, is there nothing like a nanobit or 
nanobyte?  And my engineering friends are all throwing the qubit around, 
without describing it.
Peter Kaulback