In the grand finale of the escape room, you used quantum teleportation to save Eve’s cat from Schrödinger’s box. Quantum teleportation is actually a real phenomenon that is important for quantum computing. Large scale quantum teleportation, like teleporting a cat out of a box is currently not possible. However, a quantum state can be transferred (or teleported) from one position to another, without destroying it. The simplest example is a single qubit represented with an orange circle. A qubit is basically a quantum state that is in a superposition of two base states. It cannot simply be measured and recreated somewhere else, since in a measurement, the state collapses onto one of the two base states and there is no way to retrieve the original superposition from that. Nevertheless, we want to transfer the state to another particle at the final position, represented with a white circle. Its state is currently known.
Since direct measurement and recreation is not possible, another method is used. Entangled particles are used to share this information, represented with blue circles. The blue arrows symbolise that they are entangles. Entangled particles are particles where measuring one of them immediately determines the other.
So, one of them is given to the original position, while the second goes to the location the state is teleported to.
Mathematically the entire set of four particles can be seen as a single entangled state. This means that certain measurements of the two particles at the original position changes the state of both particles at the final position.
A Bell measurement is then made on the set of particles in the original location. This is a measurement that collapses the total state of the four particles onto one of four possible states. The precise mathematics do not matter here, but because of the entanglement between the two particles sent to the beginning and end position, this measurement on the two particles in the beginning position changes the particle in the end position. Moreover, all four possible states in the end position are very similar to the state the original qubit had and can be transformed into the original state by a simple operation. Which operation is needed can be determined by the outcome of the Bell measurement. This information does need to be transferred from the original location to the final location, so no instantaneous travel is possible and no information travels faster than light.
The final operation needed to replicate the original qubit completely is the final turning of the knobs that freed the cat in the end. Very eagle eyed readers might have put together that this cannot actually save the cat, as the entire quantum state of the cat is teleported out of the box. the superposition of alive and dead is actually a part of that state, so this would not change with teleportation. Moreover, once she is outside, the measurement of which state she’s in occurs immediately.