..
1426.06\06\2005.mon.am.

..00SAUCER here..


does anyone have any recent or developing news of: photonics or quantuum optics in science..in particula; super enhanced computational power in beam laser..anyhing to do with x-ray-laser..

This forum is aimed at assisting people at layman level, you are not on the correct type of website for this type of information. We are FunTrivia.com - the name speaks for itself.

Dude, I agree with you, Quantum Leap was a great show. Are you trying to build a time machine? If you are, I know where a slightly used flux capacitor can be found.

I don't mean to go into too much gory physics detail on a trivia forum, but I do like to talk about physics, so here I am ...

00Saucer, I'm not sure what you mean by "computational power in beam laser"; a laser is not a computational tool, although you can arrange things so that it carries information. Photonics and quantum optics are big news these days and some quantum cryptography (which uses both fields) devices are currently on the market; you can find a good layman-level introduction in last January's issue of Scientific American. (Please forgive me, I don't know your educational background so I don't know if you would appreciate more technical journals ... if you would, then there are always articles in Physical Review A or the various optical-society journals.)

To my knowledge (admittedly incomplete) useful X-ray lasers have not yet been achieved, although advances in synchrotrons and linear accelerators are viewed with high hopes (Cornell University has its sights on constructing an X-ray laser beginning around 2008, I think.) There are many synchrotron sources around the world that produce intense X-ray beams, but I don't think any of them meet the technical requirements of a laser source (which has very special properties). The main problem is that regular optics (mirrors, lenses, etc) don't work well with X-ray light, as glass is largely opaque in the X-ray range.

If you don't have access to Scientific American, Nature, or any of the technical journals, you can probably find some information on the websites of major university physics departments. You can find the homepages of professors and groups who work in quantum optics, and they'll generally have descriptions of their research (sometimes on a very accessible level). They'll also often post copies of recently published research papers.

Reading the technical-ness of the post and your userID reminds me of some random spam mail I got once in my spam mail account... Well, I did the thing they tell you never to do and replied to it. Started corresponding with this person who I can only describe as completely messed up in the head. The original email was asking if someone had a quantum flux capacitor.

He was trying to build a time machine so he could go back in time and tell his mom not to vaccinate him for some childhood disease. Claimed the vaccination had been poisoned by the government with some tracking device or whatnot and that led to the life of being tracked by the government and aliens and now he was being tracked by microwaves.

But if you ever come across someone lilke this, don't do what I did and start emailing with them, just in case! I was using a hotmail account registered using a fake name on a school computer, but you never know how 'weird' and desperate these people can get and I wouldn't do that today. Just wanted to share my story of the 'crazy' I knew! (I think I pasted some of the email text into my online diary - if you want the URL, send me a PM and I'll get it to you.)