Ya wake up in the cells, your head a-boomin and a-thumpin. An officer helps loosen ya tongue, Guantamo style, and before ya even had breakfast, he’s a-shoutin and a-rantin for a confession.<\/p>\n
There’s even a deal on the table. Rat on ya buddy in the next cell and the judge’ll cutcha some slack. Keep schtum and both of youse’ll go down together.<\/p>\n
Ya’ll been there–the prisoner’s dilemma. And ya’ll know the best strategy is to rat on ya buddy and let him rot in jail. It ain’t nothing personal.<\/p>\n
Now Anton “Beam-me-up, Scotty” Zeilinger at the University of Vienna<\/a> has a better idea. He’s gone and created a quantum version of prisoner’s dilemma using an optical quantum computer.<\/p>\n In quantum prisoner’s dilemma, entanglement introduces an element of co-operation whether ya want it or not. So ratin on ya buddy gives ya no benefit over co-operatin with the cops.<\/p>\n This ain’t the first time anybody’s gotten all quantum with a prisoner. Jiangfeng Du and his buddies at the University of Science and Technology of China nailed a similar trick using NMR<\/a> a few years ago.<\/p>\n But it does look like a cool way to show off the buffed-up chrome and fancy wing mirrors on Anton’s latest quantum computer. And it’ll help him and his buddies no end when Friday nite’s a-rompin and a-ruttin turns sour.<\/p>\n