I figure that if we can just keep up this rate of progress for the next
week, we'll have full-scale nanotechnology.
Cross your fingers...
Oh, and by the way, from
http://www.aip.org/physnews/preview/1997/alaser/text.htm#9
> An atom wave is a quantum-mechanical wave
> which can never be observed directly, but only when it combines or
> interferes with similar quantum-mechanical waves to produce a pattern of
> light and dark fringes. When two atom waves interfere, an atom making up
> one wave can cancel out an atom from the other wave. "When matter waves
> interfere destructively," explains Ketterle, "it is as if one atom plus one
> atom gives zero atoms. Of course, the matter is not destroyed, and appears
> elsewhere. Nevertheless, the interference of streams of atoms from
> separate sources is a dramatic phenomenon."
Gosh, I always wondered how those transporters on Star Trek worked.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.