Physicists often like to play with, what appear on the surface, to be silly ideas. For instance, is there a way for someone who knows about Quantum Physics to be able to do know more about the measurable universe than someone who only knows about Classical Physicists.

One of the ways this question is expressed is to ask whether or not it’s possible to win a bit using Quantum entanglement and superposition against someone who is only using a classically based statistical physics paradigm.

For instance, what if one observer (Alice) and another (Bob) decide to bet against each other about whether or not a particle is in one box or the other?

A new paper points out that the observer (Alice) who uses the principles of Quantum Physics has a way of winning 100% of the time:

“Classically, there is a 50% chance of Alice getting it right. If instead she’s adept at quantum mechanics, and has a third box hidden away, she can ensure that she always knows what Bob found in his box. All she has to do is prepare the particle in a state that essentially places it in all three boxes simultaneously, through a phenomenon known as quantum superposition. In effect, there is an equal chance of the particle turning up in any one of the boxes.

After Bob looks in one of the two boxes on the table, Alice measures the state of the particle in her hidden box. If she finds it empty, she knows Bob saw the particle in the box he opened. If she finds that the particle is in a superposition between two boxes, she knows that Bob opened the third box but didn’t see anything inside. In either case, she always knows what Bob found, even though she has no way of knowing in advance where the particle will turn up or which box Bob chose to look in. “

Read the full article here.

A great example of how to use non-locality for fun AND profit.

Of course we can’t do this game just yet…