chromosphere

Article today on quantum cryptography being demonstrated in Vienna.

And so stand up Roland Pease for one of the poorer pieces of science writing I’ve seen in a fair while:

(talking about quantum encryption – the quote is from Gilles Brassard of Montreal University, but the text that follows isn’t!):

“Because of that, one can have a communications channel between two users on which it’s impossible to eavesdrop without creating a disturbance. An eavesdropper would create a mark on it. That was the key idea.”

In practice this means using the ultimate quantum objects: photons, the atoms of light.

What?! The “atoms of light”?? Huh???

The photon is a quantum of electromagnetic energy, which is regarded as a particle with no rest mass and no charge. I’m unsure how this is anything like an atom.

Grrrrrrr.