Quantam Physicists Invent Quantum Car.
Drivers can get to destination by not starting the car.

In the wake of the Quantum computer which can solve an algorithm by not running it, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have invented a new Quantum car, which carries passengers to their destination by not driving.

Quantum cars have the potential for getting to certain destinations much faster than classical cars. Speed and efficiency are gained because quantum cars can be placed in superpositions of being both driving and not driving, as opposed to classical cars, which are either driving or not driving.

"It seems absolutely bizarre that counterfactual driving – using driving that is counter to what must have actually happened – could get a passenger to his destination without driving the quantum car," said Paul Kwiat, a John Bardeen Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at Illinois. "But the nature of quantum driving makes this amazing feat possible."

By placing our car in a quantum superposition of driving and not driving the route, we reached the destination even when the car did not drive," said graduate student Onur Hosten, lead author of the Nature paper. "We also showed theoretically how to get to the destination without ever running the car, by using a 'chained Zeno' effect."

Through clever use of beam splitters and both constructive and destructive interference, the researchers can put each car in a superposition of taking two paths. Although a car can occupy multiple places simultaneously, it can only make an actual appearance at one location. Its presence defines its path, and that can, in a very strange way, negate the need for the car to drive

"In a sense, it is the possibility that the car could drive which prevents the car from driving," Kwiat said. "That is at the heart of quantum driving schemes, and to my mind, quantum mechanics doesn't get any more mysterious than this."

Editor's note: upon completion of this article, the author's head exploded from trying to grasp the concepts contained within.