Qniverse
QNIVERSE ARCADE
Interfere ยท Cancel ยท Escape

QShift

Puzzle 1/5 ยท Dark Port

Steer a photon with interference

The photon enters as a wave and takes every path at once. Where paths recombine, their amplitudes add as arrows โ€” line them up and the port glows; point them opposite and it goes completely dark.

Tap the phase shifters to rotate each path. Make every โ˜ข mine detector go dark and send the photon out the safe port.

Tap to begin
How it works
A single photon enters at the source and flows along the rails. A beam splitter (the โœ• couplers) sends it two ways at once โ€” it travels both arms as a wave of probability amplitude, which carries a phase (an arrow direction) as well as a size.

A phase shifter rotates the arrow on its rail. Tap to turn it by 45ยฐ. When two arms meet again at a splitter, their arrows add tip-to-tail: aligned arrows reinforce (bright), opposite arrows cancel to nothing (a dark port).

Your job: tune the shifters so every โ˜ข mine detector is dark. The panel at the bottom shows each detector's arrows adding up, so you can see the cancellation happen. Classical balls can only pile up โ€” they can't subtract. Here, adding a path can make a detector less likely. Solve all five.