Just as Intel co-founder Gorden Moore predicted in 1965, the number of transistors on integrated circuits has roughly doubled every two years.

In practical terms, this means that the smart phone in your pocket is likely to be 500 times smaller, 100 times lighter, and 100 times faster than a desktop PC bought in the 1980s.

Not to mention 10 times cheaper, after adjusting for inflation.

But there could be rough waters ahead for fans of Moore’s Law, as his famous prediction has come to be known.

The components on computer chips have gotten so small that they’re starting to bump up against a seemingly insurmountable barrier: the crazy, paradoxical behavior of individual atoms and subatomic particles.

In the quest for ever greater speed and power, researchers are looking to the brand-new field of “quantum computing,” which seeks to take advantage of the mind-bending properties of the tiniest building blocks of the universe.

Consider the humble “bit,” the smallest unit of information inside your computer. A bit is, simply put, either a 1 or a 0. To your computer, the letter “a” isn’t a letter at all. Rather, it’s a series of 1s and 0s. “01100001,” to be exact.

The entire world of computing, as we know it — all our smart phones, iPads, laptops, desktops, the Internet — rests on this binary bedrock. “1” or “0.” Think of it as “on or off.”

Unfortunately, the concept of “on or off” belongs to the world of giants like you and me. Subatomic particles play by a different rulebook, known as quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, you don’t have reassuringly simple states like “on” and “off.” You have uncertainty. Make that, clouds of uncertainly. Instead of on, you have, “possibly on.” Instead of off, you have, “possibly off.”

And, stranger still, you also have, “possibly on and off.”

Wait a minute! you say. What does “possibly on and off” even mean? How can a thing be itself and its opposite? And, while we’re at it, how can something be “on,” “off,” and “on and off,” all at the same time?

Welcome to the world of quantum computing!

The good news is that the multiple personality disorder in each “qubit” (cue-bit), which is what they’re calling these new quantum computing “bits,” holds the promise of a gigantic leap forward in computing power. The more variables a computer can juggle, the more computations it can perform simultaneously. Instead of toggling between a ho-hum 1 and a boring 0, each qubit will be multi-tasking, thus making short work of calculations that would take today’s computers thousands — or even millions — of years to complete.

Even more bizarre than the qubit’s “all of the above” relationship with 1s and 0s is a phenomenon called “quantum entanglement,” which in recent years has made the leap from the theoretical realm to the experimental. Just last week, National Geographic reported that researchers in Switzerland and Tokyo had taken advantage of quantum entanglement to teleport some data.

You heard me. I said, “Teleport.” As in, make the data disappear from one place and reappear in another — simultaneously.

The results of this experiment would seem to defy not only logic, but even the laws of causality.

Here’s an analogy of what these researchers accomplished. Abe and Betty are each given a penny. These aren’t ordinary pennies, mind you. They’re special pennies that have been “entangled.” For the sake of our story, let’s just say that a wizard has waved a wand over them, and now the pennies share a kind of mystical connection.

While Abe is admiring his shiny new penny, a scientist shoves him into a Prius and drives him to the other side of town.

Another scientist hangs out with Betty until Abe is comfortably installed on a park bench. Now Betty and Abe are asked to flip their coins. The scientists coordinate the flips over the phone so that they happen at exactly the same time.

Abe’s flip is pretty much what you’d expect. There’s a 50% chance that it’ll be heads, and a 50% chance that it’ll be tails.

And guess what? It’s heads!

But here’s where it gets crazy. The instant that Abe looks at his penny and formulates the thought, “Heads!”, Betty’s penny turns up tails.

They try it again. This time, Abe’s penny is tails. The moment he thinks, “Tails!” Betty’s penny turns up heads.

Every single time Abe flips his coin, Betty’s flip turns out to be the opposite.

Somehow, even though she’s across town, even though the two pennies aren’t physically connected in any way, Betty’s penny knows what Abe’s is doing, and does the opposite.

And here’s the kicker: the information is passing between the pennies instantaneously, which means it has somehow managed to travel faster than the speed of light!

Impossible? Insane? Science-fiction-y?

All of the above?

Substitute the word “qubit” for “penny,” and you’ll have an idea of what these researchers did in their labs last week.

If you think all of this sounds like a lot of malarky, you’re in good company. Albert Einstein and two colleagues cooked up a thought experiment in the 1930s that sounded a lot like my Abe and Betty story, and used it to argue that quantum mechanics was, at best, an incomplete theory, and, at worst, simply wrong. Einstein zeroed in on the absurdity of particles being mystically linked across space and time. He disliked quantum mechanics’ reliance on uncertainty and probability.

He liked to say, “God does not play dice with the world.” Then again, in 1935, when he wrote his critique of quantum mechanics, the notion of a wireless computerized telephone that would fit comfortably in a shirt pocket was the stuff of science fiction.

Personally, I’m bullish on Moore’s Law. I say, onwards and upwards with quantum computing.

Step aside, doubters, and let the teleporting commence!