Euler’s 243-Year-Old ‘Impossible’ Puzzle Gets a Quantum Solution
The 1779 Euler puzzle: "Six army regiments each have six officers of six different ranks. Can the 36 officers be arranged in a 6-by-6 square so that no row or column repeats a rank or regiment?" Euler said it's impossible.<p>The 1960 proof by mathematicians and computers: "It's impossible."[0]<p>The 2022 solution(?): "In a paper posted online and submitted to Physical Review Letters, a group of quantum physicists in India and Poland demonstrates that it is possible to arrange 36 officers in a way that fulfills Euler’s criteria — so long as the officers can have a quantum mixture of ranks and regiments."[1]<p>My question: If we are permitting this (headline style) to be called a "quantum solution" (to a non quantum problem), should we expect and brace for a torrent of "quantum solutions" to previously impossible problems? Are these meaningful? Or just really cool and interesting?<p>[0] <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-mathematics/article/further-results-on-the-construction-of-mutually-orthogonal-latin-squares-and-the-falsity-of-eulers-conjecture/1152262BF046F8632638FE9C10610136" rel="nofollow">https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.05122" rel="nofollow">https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.05122</a>