Thinking inside the box: Trapped light spurs quantum computing

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — In 1927, Albert Einstein conceived of a box in which light was trapped and a single light particle, or photon, was released in a theoretical experiment to measure the relationship between mass and energy.

Eighty years on, French physicists say they have created Einstein's box: a device just 2.7 centimetres (1.1 inches) big that snares a photon, enabling it to be monitored from birth to death.

Photons are arguably the ultimate existential particle in physics. By switching on a light bulb, you release a million billion photons every second.

But as soon as you see a photon, it dies, for its contact with the retina expends the energy that made it exist.

"Photons are easy to detect. You do it yourself, every second for instance when you are...