The Digg Crew wants to hear your thoughts!
Please take our short survey about Digg and potential feature ideas.
Physicists Build a Quantum Gambling Machine
physorg.com — Physicists have realized a quantum gambling machine using optical elements. From a helium-neon laser, a polarizer generates a single photon in a definite polarization state (horizontal or vertical). Then, Alice uses half wave plate 1 to transfer the definite state into a superposition state to alter the probability of the photon’s destination.
TalSiach- 348 diggs
- digg it
- pentupentropy, on 05/02/2008, -7/+2thanks for the digg on the cheap gas submission. This is great, this is what we need. A new way for gamblers to spend money. You could have a billion dollar jackpot for this if you could make it because no one would ever win.
- mclev, on 05/02/2008, -0/+16Great. What next, Schroedinger dice in a dual state of winning and losing?
- digitalArtform, on 05/02/2008, -1/+2I thought they already had chips with Geiger counters that got truly random numbers for gambling.
- fishbert, on 05/02/2008, -0/+3A probability machine, eh?
Isn't that a step in the wrong direction toward Douglas Adams' improbability drive?- humanerror, on 05/02/2008, -0/+8Probably.
- fhernand, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1nice. now they need to invent quantum coins to get that thing started
- Gonasadude, on 05/02/2008, -0/+9Inaccurate. The physicists did not actually build said machine, they only realized that it was possible.
- bumcheekcity, on 05/02/2008, -0/+11Now THIS is a productive use of science. Up next: Quantum Pornography Machine.
- jojo81, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1Woot??
- doctechnical, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2And I thought my obsidian d20 was cool... wait'll they get a load of this at the D&D tourney!
- triobot, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1Why can't gambling be as easy as it use to be? why would anyone create such a mess?
- Flashman, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2This article was harder to understand than poker.
- Phi01, on 05/02/2008, -2/+1But can it play Crysis?
- ghotli, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1catchphrase. dugg down.
- dupeduperson, on 05/02/2008, -3/+1Call me crazy, digg me down, but the model of the "photon" as a quantum of light is not really needed.
Einstein first proposed this idea (but not the name) to explain the photoelectric effect. He said that if light is bundled in energy packets related to the frequency of the light, everything could be explained. The problem is that this makes light much more complicated than it needs to be. The classical explanation of light (an electromagnetic wave) works very well and it can also be used to explain the photoelectric effect.
The basic idea is that light is a perturbation to the quantum system. The greatest probability of transition is when the frequency of the perturbation agrees with E=hf, where E is the energy of the transition. So really, the photoelectric effect has to do with the nature of matter more than the nature of light.
I know all the textbooks talk about photons, its really odd that this idea caught on so much when other ideas can be used to explain it. If you still think I am crazy, I guess that is ok.
Here is a good summary of this idea (better than I can say it) - http://www.dotphys.net/files/ban_photon.html
Search your feelings, you know it to be true.- AlfredR, on 05/04/2008, -0/+1Statements like "search your feelings, you know it to be true" have no place in a scientific discussion. With that said, you're misinformed. Photons are more than just a crazy idea that caught on. Countless scientific experiments are consistent with their existence. I don't know of any that contradict photons being real. Further, from a theory standpoint they're predicted by a gauge theory which doesn't assume their existence before hand. I think you may be misunderstanding David Norwood. According to the paper cited on your page he seems concerned with the misuse of the word 'photon', not if they are real.
- captZEEbo, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2Wow, a lot of hate going towards this. Any advancement towards fairness and understanding of science is a good thing. You could probably even use this for office raffles to ensure no rigging.
- agentem, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2This will fail. Everyone knows that the successful new technologies are always adopted by the porn industry first.
- trollick, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1The worst gambling machine ever
- missingnoh4x, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1Well how am I supposed to cheat now? ***** you, Heisenberg.
- theNazz, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1That's very nice but all I asked for was a deck of cards...
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is