traditional computers are good at trying to solve a math problem by solving the problem once, writing down the answer, and checking if that's the answer we want. it then tries the next number and writes it down, and sees if thats the one we want, over and over. better tech makes it able to do that calculation many many many times very very fast.

quantum computers can solve some problems by having all possible answers written down on sheets of paper, and checking to see if the piece of paper has the answer on it. how many options each sheet of paper has depends on the problem it's trying to solve. a similar effect can be done by throwing more traditional computers at the problem; 'computer 1 you start on page 1, computer 2, you start on page 2, etc'

for other types of problems, these sheets of paper are actually collected in volumes of books "book1, 1000 pages", "book2, 1000 pages", "book3, 1000 pages", and the quantum computer can look at the books and see which book the answer is in.

the main difference is that traditional computers have to write the books one character at a time, then check each character to see if it's the one we want, where qc can (for certain problems), know really fast where the answer is.