Sunday 18 June 2017

Faster than light

I have learned yet another astounding thing about light recently.

I knew some time ago that if you shine an equal amount of light from a certain distance toward two side-by-side apertures with identical photon-detectors behind, the photons tend to prefer one hole to the other, and will accumulate much more on that side. This implies that the light makes a 'decision' about which hole to go through, even though it is supposed to travel in perfectly straight, undeviating lines.

Then I heard about 'twinned' photons. Some photons are created as identical twins (don't ask me how or why) which can be separated. If you do something to/with one of them, its twin will respond in a completely identical way, even at some distance apart. The other side of the Universe, for instance.

This opens up the way for real-life teleportation.

There is a lot of work going into this phenomena (as predicted by Einstein, again) in China right now, but they are using twinned photons to create the world's first Quantum Computer.

When the computer is perfected, information will be able to be instantly sent to another computer - possibly on the other side of the Universe - without the need for even fibre-optic cables.

What will they think of next?

17 comments:

  1. I believe the Chinese just launched an x-ray probe, to observe black holes and the like. They have a further series of optical satellites scheduled for launch. I believe I am improving; I cannot believe I just found that fact stuck in my brain.

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    1. All through my life it has been the important trivia which has stuck. Not always important either.

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  2. And yet, no-one has yet found a cure for the simple common cold, or an eradicator of Corbyn sympathisers. Priorities.

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    1. Don't worry. You have breakfast to look forward to next.

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    2. And now I've just heard of the Finsbury Park incident.... Things go from bad to worse.

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    3. Street violence always gets worse on a hot night. London is very tense right now. There is far too much anger waiting to explode.

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  3. I was reading a book on anti gravity. I found it difficult to put down.

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  4. After reading this Tom my brain hurts.

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    1. It's worth looking into. I find it hard to come to terms with, but I do have a very susceptible imagination, which helps.

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  6. You know, I would have been a genius were it not that I scored zero marks in my maths O Level. Anyone who is prepared to accept any counter intuitive theory is capable of this, but ultimately faith in God can only be justified as a serious belief system with a steel grip on advanced mathematics.

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  7. 'Beam me up Scottie'? I had to look up what a photon detector was..............

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  8. That twinned photon concept is fascinating. As an artiste, your duty now is surely to interpret it for us, the loyal readers, in a piece of sculpture?

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    1. I already did. It is the header photo for this post, but it is being blotted out by all the other photons coming from the screen. Maybe I ought to scale it up.

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  9. I have the common cold here is no cure for, and my face hurts and my eyelids are drooping as the alarm goes off in he boudoir and the husband heaves himself forth for a day at work. I've been up since 3.30am as my blocked nose was making lying down really unsleepworthy. I have no science in me, back to bed. zzz

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