The six displayed generators of the Steane code are independent and commuting, so the common positive eigenspace has dimension
it encodes one logical qubit. The binary columns of the underlying Hamming parity-check matrix are all nonzero and distinct. Hence no weight-one or weight-two Pauli lies in the stabilizer normalizer outside the stabilizer. On the other hand,
is logical, and multiplying it by gives the weight-three representative
The analogous statement holds for , so
Now include both and in the proposed error set. Their product is
which is non-scalar on the code and violates the Knill--Laflamme condition. Since multiplying by a logical operator does not change commutation with stabilizers, and have the same error syndrome. A decoder cannot know which occurred and may apply a correction that leaves a logical error.
Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.