> How could those two rotations could get you anywhere besides |1> Obviously they can't, which is why the math shows that they don't. After the first rotation

> How could those two rotations could get you anywhere besides |1> Obviously they can't, which is why the math shows that they don't. After the first rotation, you are the state (|0>+|1>)/sqrt(2). The physical interpretation of this this state is that it represents a 50% chance of being in |0>, and a 50% chance of being in |1>. If you apply this rotation to either of those two possibilities, you arrive back at (|0>+|1>)/sqrt(2), which still has a 50% chance of being in the state |0>. The two paths leading to this are when the intermediate state is |0> or |1>. When you actually do the math (in which "rotation" is just a name we give to multiplying by a unitary matrix, U". You find that you end up in the state (.5-.5)|0>+(.5+.5)|1> = .5|0>-.5|0>+.5|1>+.5|1> = |1>. Here, we can again see the semblance of 2 paths leading to zero (the two |0> terms), however they have opposite signs, so cancel out.