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Single-atom Laser Built at Caltech
hweimer writes "A research group at Caltech has successfully constructed a laser consisting of only one caesium atom. The emitted light is very weak but highly ordered, so such a device may be used to control a quantum computer. More on this can be found at PhysicsWeb."
How big are the sharks?
for all the ray-gun and light-sabre posts
Hooray
Quantum computers, sure. I bet they'll even run Duke Nuk'Em Forever lan parties over IPv6.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
...the single-atom Mini Me to hump it?
Will this incinerate ants better than my trusty magnifying glass?
Tell you what, I don't want to hear anymore about quantum computers or cold fusion until someone actually ships a quantum computer powered by cold fusion. A laptop form factor would be preferred but, is not required.
Mk?
And now the physicists hand the engineers the huge task: "Ok, we got it to work, you get it to do something usefull"
I want a laser that can burn a 200 metre-wide hole through the moon from Earth.
What's that you say? Why? What do you mean, why?
Get your own free personal location tracker
But, it may prove useful in surgery on ants and may even be used for tatoo removal on ants. This is especially important for those ants who now regret the indiscretions of their teenage years.
with frigin lazers on their heads.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
How do you put an "on" switch on a cesium atom?
But should even one of those Nanobots cross me, ZZAPP!
Cesium in your computer, huh?
Now there's a good reason not to spill coffee at your desk...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
why does every science experiment have to throw in buzzwords such as "may be use in quantum computers" or "may help a cure for cancer"
A 12 gauge shotgun could be used in cancer treatments. Of course making sure you only blast out the cancer cells is the really hard part.
Trolling is a art,
Can you imagine what you could make with a Beowulf cluster of these?
A FLASHLIGHT!
I know, I know, I actually read the article. I can remember when lasers were interesting, before they were just cheap modern replacements for phonograph needles.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Yeah, because we all know how much the army needs to blow up those goddamn hydrogen nucleii.
Well, that's where the nano-rednecks come in.
Cesium atom ---- Internet ---> quantum computing
\--------/
Obviously you've never written a business proposal before.
Does this mean it's not yet bright enough to point at my Keynote slides?
I, for one, can now overthrow our quantum computer masters!
Now that you've told us where QM is, we'll never know how fast it's progressing.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
the 2,979,683,891 IP addesses that each person in the world would have with IPv8 are not enough. Go with IPv10 so I can have 193,753,945,031,922 IP addesses, that way each of my atoms can have its own IP address. :)
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
2 atoms!
No, The usual question asked by /. is "Will it run Linux?"
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
How long until ThinkGeek puts up a banner ad for single atom green lasers?
Yes, I understand your post was quite witty; ya never know when a random [worthless] piece of knowledge might come in handy though.
Karma: NaN
Having an exoskeleton simplifies tattoo removal. You just need an extremely small piece of fine-grained sandpaper...