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Create matter from light

Accepted submission by AnonTechie at 2014-05-18 21:00:48
Science
Experiment aims to create matter from light:
In what could be a landmark moment in the history of science, a team of physicists working at the Blackett Physics Laboratory in Imperial College London have designed an experiment to validate one of the most tantalizing hypotheses in quantum electrodynamics: the theory that matter could be created using nothing more than pure light. Premised on a discussion that they had over one day and a few cups of coffee, the three physicists — two from Imperial College and one visiting from the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany — recognized that their work on fusion energy also offered possibilities in the theory of light to matter creation, suggested in a theory 80 years ago by two American physicists, Breit and Wheeler. These two physicists had premised the idea that because annihilating electron-positron pairs produce two or more photons, then colliding photons should, in turn, produce electron-positron (or "Breit-Wheeler") pairs.

http://www.gizmag.com/experiment-to-turn-light-int o-matter/32107/ [gizmag.com]

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/impe rialcollege/newssummary/news_1-5-2014-14-26-39 [imperial.ac.uk]

Original Submission