Currently, encryption is based largely on complex numerical codes that even the most sophisticated computers would, theoretically, fail to break.

But Lo says these numeric codes could be broken in the future with new mathematical theorems.

As a fundamental law of nature, however, quantum uncertainty will never be changed, and will never become obsolete.

I once worked with a professor who exploited this for his own amusement and the class’s education. He’d offer to make a wager with someone from the lecture hall of sixty students: if there were no two people with the same birthday, he’d give that person the course textbook (an over $100 value), but if there were, that person would have to give him $10.

Someone always took him up on it, and as far as I know, he never had to give away his book (but he also didn’t accept the $10, either), because the probability for sixty people is around 95%, if I remember correctly.