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Article #2794Entangled Boxes
From: Eraser
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:48
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:48
32 lines
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2870 bytes
Something like this was used to explain quantum entanglement in a book by Julian Brown called, Quest for the Quantum Computer: A single black box has: an on-off switch, a dial with six positions, one red and one green light, a counter which counts how many times the box was turned on. To operate the box, randomly select any dial position and then switch the box "on". Note which light turns on, red or green. Then switch the box "off". The color of the light that gets turned on is guarranteed to always be completely random. There is a 50:50 chance for either the red or green light coming on, regardless of whether the dial's position was changed or not. Now whenever two such black boxes have been switched "on" the same number of times, they will have the same counter number. Then, they will both show the same color light if their dial positions are the same. But whenever the dial on one of the two boxes is in a position opposite to the position of the dial of the other box, the color of the two box's lights will be different (one will be red and the other will be green). And whenever the dial on one of the two boxes is in a position adjacent to the dial position of the other box, the color of the two box's lights will be the same on average 3/4ths of the time. Two such black boxes can be said to be 'entangled'. Can they be physically manufactured without the ability to send information between them?
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X-Google-Thread: 10b299,3301d62af6050290,start X-Google-Thread: 109428,3301d62af6050290,start X-Google-Attributes: gid10b299,gid109428,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!news.glorb.com!news.aset.psu.edu!support1.mathforum.org!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: Eraser <Eraser@Pencil.Box> Newsgroups: rec.puzzles,geometry.puzzles Subject: Entangled Boxes Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:48:21 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Fermat's Margin Lines: 35 Sender: approve@support1.mathforum.org Approved: approve Message-ID: <1307n3lknkrne1b@corp.supernews.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: support1-2.mathforum.org X-Trace: support1.mathforum.org 1174664901 16896 144.118.94.12 (23 Mar 2007 15:48:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@support1.mathforum.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:48:21 +0000 (UTC) To: geometry-puzzles@moderators.isc.org Return-Path: nntp-bounce@supernews.net Delivery-Date: Fri Mar 23 09:56:09 2007 Return-Path: <nntp-bounce@supernews.net> by support1.mathforum.org (8.11.6/8.11.6/The Math Forum, $Revision: 1.9 primary) with ESMTP id l2NDu8o21937 for <approve@mathforum.org>; Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:56:09 -0400 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1437 X-Orig-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com