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Scientists Using Lasers To Cool Molecules

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the my-fridge-is-powered-by-fire dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ever since audiences heard Goldfinger utter the famous line, 'No, Mr. Bond; I expect you to die,' as a laser beam inched its way toward James Bond and threatened to cut him in half, lasers have been thought of as white-hot beams of intensely focused energy capable of burning through anything in their path. Now a team of Yale physicists has used lasers for a completely different purpose, employing them to cool molecules down to temperatures near absolute zero, about -460 degrees Fahrenheit. Their new method for laser cooling, described in the online edition of the journal Nature, is a significant step toward the ultimate goal of using individual molecules as information bits in quantum computing."

15 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Laser cooling? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Laser cooling has been used for quite some time. What's the story here? The temperature?

    1. Re:Laser cooling? by SleazyRidr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is why I read /. I saw the headline, remembered trying to explain laser cooling to my Dad 10 years ago, and cam here to post that it was old news. The first thing I see however is your post telling me exactly what's going on. Thank you ClickOnThis for saving me time and frustration.

      --
      Is 1563649 a prime number?
  2. Farenheit? by muyla · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What about human readable units for once? maybe 1 Kelvin or -272C would be OK

    1. Re:Farenheit? by Lifyre · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or if you're going to use worthless units at least use Rankine...

      --
      I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
    2. Re:Farenheit? by rossdee · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree - I can understand Fahrenheit for weather and human body temps, but for cryogenics you should be using kelvin.

    3. Re:Farenheit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      95% of the planet understands Celsius and not Fahrenheit.

    4. Re:Farenheit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If 95% of the planet jumped off a bridge, would you?

  3. Who the hell... by ameline · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who the hell uses Fahrenheit for anything remotely connected to science? I can understand translating 0K to -273.15C, then 1K is -272.15C -- but how meaningful to anyone is -459.67F?

    --
    Ian Ameline
    1. Re:Who the hell... by rubycodez · · Score: 2, Insightful

      yes, and moreover, the fact that Bond was going to get cut in half and die was not the greatest source of anxiety in that scene, it was that the laser was headed for Bond's *junk* first

    2. Re:Who the hell... by demonbug · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Who the hell uses Fahrenheit for anything remotely connected to science? I can understand translating 0K to -273.15C, then 1K is -272.15C -- but how meaningful to anyone is -459.67F?

      Yes, because -273.15C provides so much more information than -459.67F.
      It really, really doesn't matter. Why do people even complain about things like this? Is it so hard to plug the number into a calculator to get it in units you are capable of comprehending?

      If you are going to complain that Fahrenheit was used, then at least have the decency to request Kelvin (the proper SI unit) rather than Celsius.

  4. Re:"...lasers have been thought of as white-hot... by nacturation · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wrong. Laser beams are very cold. The photons are highly ordered and there is very little random motion among them.

    Wrong? It's not true that the general Bond-watching audience thinks of lasers as being white hot?

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    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  5. Re:Well, that's clueless for you by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If there is anything that lasers are not, it's white.

    Yes, Lasers are white - in the QCD sense (photons don't carry color charge) :-)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  6. Duh by space_jake · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I always thought lasers were cool.

  7. Re:Energy, not heat. by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You have no idea what a laser actually is, do you?

  8. Come on throw me a bone here people by sudden.zero · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!