The newfound structure was named Quipu, after an Incan counting system that involves using knots on cords. The knots convey information based on numbers, colors, and order. Quipu is considered the ...

The name Quipu—a reference to the textile-based recording devices used by several ancient cultures in the central Andes—is both catchy and descriptive. The authors note that one particular ...

Now the ancient system of recording numbers has inspired a new way to encode qubits in a quantum computer. With quipu, knots in a string represent a number. By analogy, a conventional qubit would ...