Quantum Research on Laser Swords

Source: express.co.uk

Quantum researchers have made a break through on how light particles act or react on the quantum level. Light is comprised of photons. Photons do not naturally interact with other protons. Due to this, light swords or light sabers (as seen in Star Wars) are not viable. They would be like taking flashlights and acting like the light beams will be solid but because the beams don't interact, it doesn't work.

Scientist at MIT and Harvard University have discovered a way so that protons will interact with each other. Their research involves directing a weak laser through a dense cloud of ultra cold rubidium atoms. The photon beam is a ray of randomly spaced photons before entering the cloud, after going through the cloud, the photon have joined together.

Photons have no mass and they move at the speed of light because they are light. The beam after exposed to the rubidium cloud, the photons have bonded together (now having the mass of a fraction of that of an electron) and they are moving about 100,000 times slower than the speed of light.

The protons retain the effect of the cloud after it left the cloud, it kept it's entangled state. This is a definite quality that is useful in quantum computing but since it changes it's physical properties, it may have uses in addition to computers.

Source: express.co.uk