Quantum Computing with Dartboards

J Phys Chem A. 2023 Sep 21;127(37):7853-7857. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpca.3c04262. Epub 2023 Sep 7.

Abstract

We present a physically appealing and elegant picture for quantum computing, using rules constructed for a game of darts. A dartboard is used to represent the state space in quantum mechanics, and the act of throwing the dart is shown to have close similarities to the concept of measurement or collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics. The analogy is constructed in arbitrary dimensional spaces, that is, using arbitrary dimensional dartboards, and for such arbitrary spaces this also provides us a "visual" description of uncertainty. Finally, connections between qubits and quantum computing algorithms are also made, opening the possibility to construct analogies between quantum algorithms and coupled dart throws.