Scientists ‘freeze’ light for an entire minute

In what could prove to be a major breakthrough in quantum memory storage and information processing, German researchers have frozen the fastest thing in the universe: light. And they did so for a record-breaking one minute.

It sounds weird and it is. The reason for wanting to hold light in its place (aside from the sheer awesomeness of it) is to ensure that it retains its quantum coherence properties (i.e. its information state), thus making it possible to build light-based quantum memory. And the longer that light can be held, the better as far as computation is concerned. Accordingly, it could allow for more secure quantum communications over longer distances.

Needless to say, halting light is not easy — you can’t just put in the freezer. Light is electromagnetic radiation that moves at 300 million meters per second. Over the course of a one minute span, it can travel about 11 million miles (18 million km), or 20 round trips to the moon. So it’s a rather wily and slippery medium, to say the least.

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/02/scientists-freeze-light-entire-minute.html

I didn't read the link Didge because frankly I'd find it too mind-boggling to understand. Can you say in simple terms what this means? I mean what's the point of freezing light, and what could it be used for?

Tess. wrote:I didn't read the link Didge because frankly I'd find it too mind-boggling to understand.  Can you say in simple terms what this means?  I mean what's the point of freezing light, and what could it be used for?

I am not sure myself Tess to be honest but I guess it will be to use as a power source, there is another link which goes into greater detail but this is not my area of expertise.

Sorry I could not be more help but when I have time will read more and let you know unless someone in the know can help explain

okay to put in in laymans terms;

you got to hold the light still so you can write on it.

the goal is super fast powerful computing. There are some cool theories about what could be done, one of the more interesting is a computer that could count from 0 to 5 as opposed to just 0 and 1 like all computers now. this would be a great step towards proper artifical intelligence.

Tess. wrote:I didn't read the link Didge because frankly I'd find it too mind-boggling to understand.  Can you say in simple terms what this means?  I mean what's the point of freezing light, and what could it be used for?

God I am glad you said that! I was going like this      :\\:[: ::drnkpst:: ::dunno:: ::hdintowll:: 

then this one just because I wanted to look good  ::=|Q:: 

Tess. wrote:I didn't read the link Didge because frankly I'd find it too mind-boggling to understand.  Can you say in simple terms what this means?  I mean what's the point of freezing light, and what could it be used for?

Quantum computers will be infinitely more powerful than current computers and we are within a few years of creating the first one.

NEC: Closing In on a Quantum Cruncher

These are heady times in the world of quantum physics. A team of scientists at Japan's NEC (NIPNY) reported a breakthrough that could hasten the arrival of lightning-fast quantum computers. Such devices would have the power to make complex calculations in just a fraction of a second, solving mathematical problems that would require millions of years to solve on today's supercomputers.

The NEC team, led by principal researcher Jaw-Shen Tsai, produced a circuit out of two quantum bits, or qubits. Using microelectronics technology, the team connected a pair of qubits so that they acted as one entity, making it possible to hold the pair in a state known as quantum entanglement for one-billionth of a second. Soon, Tsai expects to increase the duration of entanglement, a key to quantum computing, by 1,000 times. "We just used our old method this time, but we have ideas on how to improve performance," he says. The next goal is to create a "universal gate," or logic gate, a building block of quantum computers, later this year.

One of the many confounding qualities of qubits is that they can exist, like atomic particles, in more than one state at a time. As a result, a single qubit is capable of processing more than one bit of data at once. The two-qubit circuit developed by the NEC team managed four states concurrently. In theory, a 100-qubit system could carry out a number of operations equal to 10 followed by 30 zeros simultaneously.

This is extremely cool. Quantum computer can literally do calculations beyond our wildest imaginations and will make current computers look as advanced as the Gas Mantle.

eddie wrote:

Tess. wrote:
I didn't read the link Didge because frankly I'd find it too mind-boggling to understand.  Can you say in simple terms what this means?  I mean what's the point of freezing light, and what could it be used for?

God I am glad you said that! I was going like this      :\\:[: ::drnkpst:: ::dunno:: ::hdintowll:: 
then this one just because I wanted to look good  ::=|Q::

Phoenix wrote:

Tess. wrote:
I didn't read the link Didge because frankly I'd find it too mind-boggling to understand.  Can you say in simple terms what this means?  I mean what's the point of freezing light, and what could it be used for?

Quantum computers will be infinitely more powerful than current computers and we are within a few years of creating the first one.

NEC: Closing In on a Quantum Cruncher

These are heady times in the world of quantum physics. A team of scientists at Japan's NEC (NIPNY) reported a breakthrough that could hasten the arrival of lightning-fast quantum computers.............

The NEC team, led by principal researcher Jaw-Shen Tsai, produced a circuit out of two quantum bits, or qubits. Using microelectronics technology, the team connected a pair of qubits so that they acted..........

 ::rfth::

Is anyone else still going  ::hdintowll:: 

eddie wrote:Is anyone else still going  ::hdintowll:: 

Yup. I still can't get my head round 3D printers.

unless it gives us cheaper gas/electric I don't care!