Slashdot Mirror
Physicists Control the Spin of a Single Electron
jeeb writes "Researchers of the Delft University of Technology and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter have succeeded for the first time in controlling the spin of a single electron in a nanostructure. They are able to rotate the axis to every possible direction and to record it accordingly. This achievement makes it possible to use the electron's spin as a 'quantum bit,' the basis of a (still theoretical) future quantum computer. The researchers have published this scientific breakthrough in the August 17, 2006 edition of Nature."
That way he can learn how to control the spin when Dubbya makes an "Off the Cuff" comment. Randy
How about, "if it were that easy, we would have already done it"?
It's not as if physicists collectively have large bets out on the inability to communicate or travel faster than light; indeed, for the person who manages it it's probably a guaranteed Nobel prize and quite possibly public acclaim that physics hasn't seen since Einstein.
If you want a more technical explanation, go Google for it. I'm tired of explaining it to people who don't want to believe it and use their mighty high-school-dropout physics skills to "debunk" it. (That's not aimed at you, RedDirt, you just asked a question. But any such answer posted on Slashdot inevitably collects the high-school dropouts who think that the English explanation is the real thing and start quibbling about what are basically grammar points, and not equations and experiments they wouldn't recognize if they bit them on the ass.)