from the flying-cars,-internet-privacy,-and-secure-comms-for-all dept.
Unlike Bilbo's magic ring, which entangles human hearts, engineers have created a new micro-ring that entangles individual particles of light, an important first step in a whole host of new technologies.
Entanglement - the instantaneous connection between two particles no matter their distance apart - is one of the most intriguing and promising phenomena in all of physics. Properly harnessed, entangled photons could revolutionize computing, communications, and cyber security. Though readily created in the lab and by comparatively large-scale optoelectronic components, a practical source of entangled photons that can fit onto an ordinary computer chip has been elusive.
New research, reported today in The Optical Society's (OSA) new high-impact journal Optica, describes how a team of scientists has developed, for the first time, a microscopic component that is small enough to fit onto a standard silicon chip that can generate a continuous supply of entangled photons.
http://phys.org/news/2015-01-entanglement-chip-breakthrough-faster.html
[Abstract]: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/optica/abstract.cfm?uri=optica-2-2-88
[Paper]: http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.4881
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 27 2015, @05:26PM
Am I dead or alive?
(Score: 3, Funny) by davester666 on Tuesday January 27 2015, @07:56PM
We won't know until we seal you in a box with a cyanide capsule.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Tuesday January 27 2015, @05:33PM
It's already been outlawed in the UK.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Tuesday January 27 2015, @06:33PM
Sitting on someone's face has been outlawed in the UK, too. But people will keep doing it anyway.
One can only hope that one day someone will outlaw being stupid while holding office in the UK.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday January 27 2015, @07:21PM
Sitting on someone's face has been outlawed in the UK
Just for clarification, it hasn't. Filming it and selling the result commercially has, though. Which is almost as bizarre.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 27 2015, @09:10PM
Yes that's a common problem around the world. Science flourished because the scientific method was invented and adopted. Software and computing have benefited greatly from open source. Crowd-sourcing and its variants have begun to change other truisms about our world, too. Can we likewise design a political system, and a financial system, that do not reward idiots, sociopaths, and idiotic sociopaths? We really need to. Our legacy quasi-feudal systems have become so tiresome and dangerous.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 27 2015, @05:53PM
Unlike Bilbo's magic ring, which entangles human hearts
Wut?
I thought all it did was make you invisible, and addict you... erm, and if you're Smeagol and it's your birthday... well... personally I take Kamina's position. Why should I take my brother's things?!
Gurren Lagann, spin on!
Wait, we were talking about the one ring... I'm not sure how this relates to galaxy-sized mechs fighting over the fate of the universe. Good thing the ringwraiths aren't anti-spirals!
I guarantee this comment makes more sense than the quoted quotation from TFS.
(Score: 1) by FuzzyTheBear on Tuesday January 27 2015, @06:14PM
Anything that is secure and free from the constant surveillance police and spy states are going to be kept away from the public.
We're all terrorists and criminals after all .. 1984 is already a reality in the USA and the UK who's next to give up all their freedoms ?
Come on .. give them up .. or you're a nasty terrorist and should be dragged to Guantanamo for torture and execution.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by hopp on Wednesday January 28 2015, @06:04AM
Properly harnessed on the right scale entanglement is anti-gravity; it is also (by corollary) anti-friction. That is perpetual motion and limitless power. So, probably no, this is not a thing.
/If it turns out to be I'll eat my hat
//If I had a hat
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:24AM
Huh? I don't know where you got either of those ideas. Entangled photons have been made with laboratory setups for a while. No idea what they have to do with anti-gravity. They certainly don't have anything to do with friction because friction doesn't even exist at the microscopic scale anymore the quantum scale. It's an emergent macro-scale phenomenon. A convenient way to talk about the fact that you can't line up everything perfectly at the micro scale.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @07:56AM
them entangled particles are known to be entangled thus if this one is "heads-up" then the other is "tails-up"?
but ...errr... how do you know which one to send if you don't know which one is which because figuring out which one is "heads" and which one is "tails" "destroys/measures" the entanglement?
in short: i thought it was not possible to use entangled particles for communication?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:10AM
well i think we could do morse code over entangled particles without using the entanglement property and inherent security (measurement destroys).
you could sync two atomic clocks 1 year (technical fictional because we can't physical travel that far: for illustration purpose only!) apart and agree on a "frequency", say 60 hz, that is 60 "steps" or "gaps per second".
We create a entangled stream.
if we create a entangled pair, a "dot" and if not then a "dash" per 60 Hz.
so the morse rate is 60 Hz.
if the clocks are synced then the 1 light year away detector will either see a instantaneous/entangled particle arrive (dot) or not (dash).
it doesn't matter if the entangled particles are "head" or "tails" but rather "did one arrive -OR- not".
there's no security is this setup but it is instantaneous ... faster then light which would take a year : )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:28AM
Quantum key distribution [wikipedia.org] uses entangled particles to ensure both sides receive the same random message without it being intercepted. As you can't chose the message, you use the quantum channel for a key (either a one-time pad or something more complicated if your quantum channel is slower than your desired data rate) and send data encrypted with that key over a conventional data connection.