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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/23/Marcus_Chown_in_Conversation_with_Fred_Watson Marcus Chown, author of Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You: A Guide to the Universe, discusses the mechanics behind quantum computers, explaining that they function by having atoms exist in multiple places at once. He predicts that quantum computers will be produced within 20 years. ----- The two towering achievements of modern physics are quantum theory and Einsteins general theory of relativity. Together, they explain virtually everything about the world in which we live. But almost a century after their advent, most people havent the slightest clue what either is about. Radio astronomer, award-winning writer and broadcaster Marcus Chown talks to fellow stargazer Fred Watson about his book Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You. - Australian Broadcasting Corporation Marcus Chown is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. Formerly a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, he is now cosmology consultant of the weekly science magazine New Scientist. The Magic Furnace, Marcus' second book, was chosen in Japan as one of the Books of the Year by Asahi Shimbun. In the UK, the Daily Mail called it "a dizzy page-turner with all the narrative devices you'd expect to find in Harry Potter". His latest book is called Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You.

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Engineers at Stevens Institute of Technology have developed a technique to optically modulate the frequency of a laser beam and create a signal that is disrupted significantly less by environmental factors, says Dr. Rainer Martini. The research provides for enhanced optical communications, allowing mobile units not tied to fiber optic cable to communicate in the range of 100 GHz and beyond, the equivalent of 100 gigabytes of data per second. Eventually, the team hopes to extend the reach into the terahertz spectrum. The frequency or amplitude modulation of middle infrared quantum cascade lasers has been limited by electronics, which are barely capable of accepting frequencies of up to 10 GHz by switching a signal on and off.  Marini and his team have developed a method to optically induce fast amplitude modulation in a quantum cascade laser to control the laser's intensity. Their amplitude modulation system employed a second laser to modulate the amplitude of the middle infrared laser, using light to control light. The current detector is only capable of detecting frequencies up to 10 GHz, but Dr. Martini is confident that a new detector will make the system capable of much higher frequencies. With an optical system that is stable enough, satellites may one day convert to laser technology, resulting in a more mobile military and super-sensitive scanners, as well as faster Internet for the masses, says Martini. Ref.: "Optically induced fast wavelength modulation in a quantum cascade laser," Applied Physics Letters, July 7, 2010.

LEDsThe strange quantum state of entanglement isn't just challenging to think about, it's hard to create. This "spooky" phenomenon-in which two particles are linked, even if they're separated by distance-can be created by scientists in the lab using bulky lasers. But scientists published a study in Nature today in which they created a light-emitting diode (LED) that produces entangled photons.

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team has removed a major obstacle to engineer quantum systems that will play a key role in the computers, communication networks, and even biomedical devices of the future.

In a step toward a generation of ultrafast computers, physicists have used bursts of radio waves to briefly create 10 billion quantum-entangled pairs of subatomic particles in silicon. The research offers a glimpse of a future computing world in which individual atomic nuclei store and retrieve data and single electrons shuttle it back and forth.

Video courtesy of Association of Science - Technology Centers (ASTC), representing the science centre and museum field worldwide. To learn more, visit http://www.astc.org/. Follow us on Twitter: @ScienceCenters. Tel-Aviv University demos quantum superconductors locked in a magnetic field (www.quantumlevitation.com).

ScienceDaily (June 18, 2010) - Conventional solar cell efficiency could be increased from the current limit of 30 percent to more than 60 percent, suggests new research on semiconductor nanocrystals, or quantum dots, led by chemist Xiaoyang Zhu at The University of Texas at Austin.

It could be the ultimate snooping tool: a single photon that can identify objects without interacting with them. So say a group of physicists who have developed a way to detect the presence of a known object without seeing it.

In a paper published in Nature Photonics, University of Toronto researchers report the first efficient two-layer solar cell based on colloidal quantum dots (CQD) to capture both visible and near-infrared rays. CQDs are nanoscale materials that can be tuned to respond to specific wavelengths of the visible and invisible spectrum. By capturing such a broad range of light waves - wider than normal solar cells - tandem CQD solar cells can in principle reach up to 42 per cent efficiencies. The best single-junction solar cells are constrained to a maximum of 31 per cent efficiency. (In reality, solar cells that are on the roofs of houses and in consumer products have 14 to 18 per cent efficiency.) The researchers expect that in five years, solar cells using the graded recombination layer paper will be integrated into building materials and mobile devices.