The mathematics problem is a bit like Sudoku on steroids. It’s called Euler’s officer problem, after Leonhard Euler, the mathematician who first proposed it in 1779. Here’s the puzzle: You’re commanding an army with six regiments. Each regiment contains six different officers of six different ranks. Can you arrange them in a 6-by-6 square without repeating a rank or regiment in any given row or column? More here.
Excellent article, interesting problem, fascinating solution.
While I believe there might be some promising implications for quantum computing error correction, I feel that “if the officers are in a state of quantum entanglement” might be seen as a bit of a cheat by the people who originally proved that it was impossible 😀 Kind of “assume a spherical cow” territory, and then some.
I’m with Kirk on this one. Euler had it right without the need for fancy-pants quantum computers.