Laser Creates Quantum Whirlpool

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday November 18, 2014 @08:15AM from the don't-fall-in dept.

Quantus347 writes: Physicists at The Australian National Univ. (ANU) have engineered a spiral laser beam and used it to create a whirlpool of hybrid light-matter particles called polaritons. Polaritons are hybrid particles that have properties of both matter and light. The ability to control polariton flows in this way could aid the development of completely novel technology to link conventional electronics with new laser- and fiber-based technologies. Polaritons form in semiconductors when laser light interacts with electrons and holes (positively charged vacancies) so strongly that it is no longer possible to distinguish light from matter.

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Re: I thought the distinction was arbitrary alread by i+kan+reed · 2014-11-18 08:37 · Score: 1, Troll

Let's see here:

I thought the distinctions made already are already mostly ones of convenience and scale:
Independent clause introducing the rest of the post

Matter is slow and heavy enough to mostly be possible to model as point masses
Independent clause describing matter's characteristics

, while
Comma and conjunction to join two independent clauses

light is fast, light, and numerous enough to be more convenient to treat as non-discrete energy than as individual photons.
Independent clause describing the properties of light.
Which part went so far over your head?