Vladimir_Nesov comments on Quantum Russian Roulette - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Christian_Szegedy 18 September 2009 08:49AM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 18 September 2009 03:12:30PM *  3 points [-]

For a really mindblowing quantum trick see the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester.

Interesting.

Consider a collection of bombs, some of which are duds. The bombs are triggered by a single photon. Usable bombs will absorb the photon and detonate. Dud bombs will not absorb the photon. The problem is how to separate the usable bombs from the duds.
...
A solution is for the sorter to use a mode of observation known as counterfactual measurement
...
In 1994, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat, Harald Weinfurter, and Thomas Herzog actually performed an equivalent of the above experiment, proving interaction-free measurements are indeed possible.

See also:

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 18 September 2009 06:47:01PM 1 point [-]

As I understand it, the only way to have a known-live undetonated bomb in this branch is to cause it to actually detonate it in other branches.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 18 September 2009 08:14:22PM 0 points [-]

Sorta, but not quite, as the probability of it actually detonating can be brought as close to 0 as one likes (if I'm not mistaken).

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 18 September 2009 09:36:30PM 0 points [-]

Yes - I didn't mean all other branches.

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