Talk:Quantum tic-tac-toe

Need sample games

Need to add sample games or screen shots. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chalko (talk • contribs) 09:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

Declaration of interest

I am new to Wikipedia, and my first impressions are that you folks don't take yourselves too seriously -- but then again, there is a month's worth of reading in the Policies and Guidelines and discussions thereof. So I am going to play conservatively and follow the advice on the COI page and, declare myself an interested party. Then I am going to follow Robinh's advice and "Be Bold." Then you folks can do whatever you want with what I write; as I understand things, once I post stuff here, it is not mine anymore.

I am an interested party because I am a longtime friend of the inventor of Quantum Tic Tac Toe. He first showed me the game a couple of days after it came to him, in January 2000. I have no financial interest in the game, just a personal one. However, I am probably one of the most knowledgeable people you will find aside from the inventor.

Other sources of information: The rules seem to say that I cannot provide such, but I will risk telling you that there are a number of published papers by the inventor that use the game as an illustration of some facet of quantum mechanics, and that there is a web site devoted to the game. You and Google can take it from there.

If it is acceptable to you folks for me to edit the article itself, let me know. It would certainly be more convenient than restricting myself to the talk page. Thank you.

(Two minutes later) ACK! OK, so how long does one stay logged in to Wikipedia, once one logs in? The above declaration is by me, but the system logged me out during the period I was composing it and perusing the Conflict of Interest page (and its talk page). Sorry, apologies, mea culpa. --Swwright 00:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Go for it. Be Bold. We will all act in good faith, and the world or at least wikipedia will be a better place --Chalko 07:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• • Hey, wait a minute, what am I apologizing for? Users should never apologize for the software's shortcomings! At the very least, when I click Save page, I should be warned that I was logged out behind my back. OK, enough, there's doubtless a better place for this gripe -- yes, there is (Wikipedia talk:How to log in), and this has been complained about for at least three years. There is a way to fix the problem after the anonymous edit is recorded; see Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit:

    "While still logged out, revert to the version in the history immediately before the edit. Then log in and re-revert to the version after the edit, re-entering your original edit summary."

    When one logs in, one will so remain for thirty minutes according to someone on the login talk page. One can sidestep this feature by enabling "Remember my login on this computer" on one's preferences page (a small security risk; Wikipedia does not record one's password in a cookie, but rather a user ID). --Swwright 22:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment

This was in 'The Rules'. I guess it should be here:

"(I'm new to Wikipedia. Before investing more effort in this page, is this going in the right direction? Comments and suggestions are solicited. If positive, I'll finish the page over the next few weeks. If negative, I'll try another approach. To whomever responds, thanks for your help.) AllanGoff (talk) 03:33, 23 March 2008 (UTC) To Be Continued..."

Thekingofspain (talk) 23:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it trivial?

Classic tic tac toe trivially ends in a draw, if both players play correctly. What about the quantum version? Is there a strategy that guarantees a win or a draw? --Mlewan (talk) 20:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I have run a full Brute Force Search. Quantum Tic-Tac-Toe ends in a first player win by 0.5 points. The winning move is for Player 1 to play on squares 1 and 9. Unfortunately I am submitting a paper at the moment for this and will update the page more thoroughly once I am done and can link since the Wiki policy says no original research... --AnanyaKumar —Preceding undated comment added 07:27, 26 December 2010 (UTC).

All external links are bad

Sorry for my english, the 1st link is "404 not found", the 2nd seems to be bougth (commercial link), for the 3rd i don't know well iphone App but the page don't seem about the tic tac toe game.46.193.0.244 (talk) 00:29, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Links for online play

I think this article should have a link for online play—I think a reader could be interested in that. @Skyerise you removed me adding an external link a while ago as "spam", I'm curious about why :-) Niplav (talk) 17:30, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

@Niplav: Because this is an encyclopedia, not a place to promote apps. Links should have quality information about the topic. We have a list of types of links that should not be added. The first link you added was mainly intended to promote a website, failing #4. The other two links were to itunes and the Google Play Store, which fail #6: sites that primarily exist to sell products or services. It doesn't matter whether the app is free. We don't link to Amazon, we don't link to iTunes or the Apple App store, and we don't link to the Google Play Store. The idea that we should link to online games is inconsistent with our function as an encyclopedia. Links should be to sources of information about the subject. We are not a web directory to everything and anything associated with a topic. Skyerise (talk) 19:29, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense. The reasons you listed sound like they're mostly based either on whether the website linked to has (1) the purpose of selling a product or service, or (2) on whether the link added is intended to promote a website. (1) is well-taken, I'll keep that in mind in the future. (2) confuses me: I have no affiliation with any of the things I linked, so I didn't intend to promote them—I in fact didn't know about them until I was searching for examples of quantum tic-tac-toe :-)

As for links being informative: I dunno, Lichess links to lichess.org, and Full Tilt Poker links to fulltilt.com. (I'm kind of afraid to point out more borderline cases for the fear that you'll remove them as well :-/).

I get that there's a worry about impartiality, but from a position of UX linking to an instance of the thing the page is talking about seems pretty straightforward to me. Niplav (talk) 17:28, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

The reason those have those links is that they are the official website for the topic. Official websites are always permitted. But a general topic like this one does not have an official website, so that exception doesn't apply here. Skyerise (talk) 20:45, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Edit Request: Addition of "Quantum TiqTaqToe" variant

Hello :) I am the creator of Quantum TiqTaqToe (usually just "TiqTaqToe") and the founder of QuantumPlayed, which constitutes a conflict of interest. I am proposing the addition of a short section outlining my variant of the game, as it differs significantly in its mathematical model and collapse mechanics from Alan Goff's version, and has been used in academic research regarding quantum AI at Leiden University and beyond. Moreover, the link on the current page (online implementation) already links to my variant, which is hence incorrect in the sense that it is not an implementation of the ruleset described on the page.

I have drafted a neutral summary below with independent sources. I would appreciate it if an independent editor could review this for inclusion, perhaps under a "Variants" heading?

Proposed text: Another variant, (Quantum) TiqTaqToe, was developed by computational physicist Evert van Nieuwenburg at Leiden University as a tool for studying quantum artificial intelligence and for educational purposes.[1][3] While Goff's version utilizes "spooky marks" and relies on players to resolve cyclic entanglements, Van Nieuwenburg's variant models the nine board squares as qutrits (states of Empty, X, or O).[2] Players apply unitary gate operations to place pieces in superposition or entangle up to three squares. Rather than collapsing deterministically when a cycle is formed, the TiqTaqToe board typically remains in a quantum state until the board is completely full or until a player measures a square (forfeiting a turn). At that point, the wave function stochastically collapses into a classical state on which a winner is checked, and the game continues if no winning line exists.[2] The game has been utilized in educational settings, and citizen science initiatives to build intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics [1][3], and was among the first quantum games [4]. It featured as one of two games at the first EU ICGA quantum games tournament.

Proposed Sources: [1] Universiteit Leiden. "Playing your way to quantum breakthroughs: how quantum games help people —and AI— understand quantum physics." April 2026. [2] Quantum Frontiers. "Introducing a new game: Quantum TiqTaqToe." July 2019. [3] NVON (Nederlandse Vereniging voor het Onderwijs in de Natuurwetenschappen): "Kwantum-boter-kaas-en-eieren" (Dutch science education journal). [4] Peer-Reviewed Literature: (Academic paper including the game).

Evert v Nieuwenburg (talk) 18:13, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

I can provide more sources to magazine articles that talk about the idea, though those are majority Dutch. I would make a suggestion for a Dutch translation for this content later, too. I hope the above proposal can be the starting point of a discussion on including TiqTaqToe on Wikipedia. Evert v Nieuwenburg (talk) 18:13, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes please do, the source you provided appears to be a tournament schedule, so we would prefer something from the realm of journalism. It doesn't matter if it's in Dutch, we can have it translated. When ready to proceed with the requested information, kindly change the {{Edit COI}} template's answer parameter to read from |ans=y to |ans=n. Regards,  Spintendo  07:46, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Hello Spintendo, thank you for reviewing the request. I added the sources directly to the new proposed text, perhaps they need a brief formatting update.

I would like to ask for your advise on two things:

1) the existing link on the page which points to tiqtaqtoe.com; my proposal would be to move that to the variant section I drafted.

2) a second link that uses the same game rules in a narrative-based game is available at story.tiqtaqtoe.com. It is a free resource that we use in schools, but I am obviously conflicted in 'advertising' it.

Please let me know what adjustments to the draft paragraph you would suggest based on these! Evert v Nieuwenburg (talk) 18:18, 6 July 2026 (UTC)