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It takes two to tangle - In the quantum world, distant particles can be bound by a ghostly tie. Physicists are now putting this effect to work in quantum computing and communications, reports Ben Stein

Pictures of spreads from New Scientist magazine

IN HUMAN relationships, you may never know what your partner is thinking. But for a pair of quantum particles, even a brief encounter can create a mutual telepathic bond. Before being measured, both particles are in a fuzzy, undefined state, yet they still have a special relationship. When the state of one is measured, the state of the other is instantly definedeven if it is halfway across the Universe.

In the strange lexicon of quantum physics, the two particles are said to be "entangled", a term coined in the 1930s by the German physicist Erwin Schrödinger. But it's not just particlesbe they electrons or photons of lightthat can be entangled. Different properties of the same particle can be hitched in this way. Indeed, in theory, entanglement can create an intimate bond between any quantum systems that have interacted. "Physically it means that if you perform any kind of measurement on ...



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