'Laser Tweezers' Used to Sort Atoms

luckyguesser writes to tell us that Physicists at the University of Bonn are claiming to have knocked down one more quantum computing hurdle. Utilizing what they term "laser tweezers" they were able to sort and align seven atoms while capturing it on film. The plan is to construct a quantum gate using atoms imprinted with data.

Comments

"Writing on individual atoms"

[Flying pig]

I think my intelligence is possibly being insulted by the original article. The analogies described seem to be a massive exaggeration of the capabilities of the process, intended to attract the attention of people with funding. "Hey, we can move atoms around on little conveyor belts. And we can write on them. Please give us lots and lots of money so we can build everything from a computer that can read the encrypted emails of a million terrorist suspects in one millisecond, down to free hard drives holding petabytes which have to have RFID tags attached so you can find them if you sneeze." Of course, how this is going to do anything which connects to the real world is quite another matter.

Yes, it is interesting (I don't think I am a Luddite) but attempts to make leading edge practical physics understandable by governments and the great unwashed seem doomed to founder in misunderstanding. This is not a conveyor belt, this is not a tweezer, and nobody is writing anything on atoms. It's about as helpful as saying that I've succeeded in using a matter transfer process to increase the potential energy of a car (I've driven up a hill.)

This may be a slightly excessive rant, but I do think that any attempt to popularise or spread understanding of science by proceeding from reality to an extremely high level analogical overview while completely missing all the science in the middle - is doomed to failure and symptomatic of a society with growing scientific illiteracy.