Oman firm replaces sanctioned Alrosa in Angolan diamond miner
Alrosa, which held a 41% interest in the Catoca operation, has been sanctioned by the US, EU and their allies.
Nature reports that quantum entanglement, odd behaviour at the subatomic level coined ‘spooky action at a distance’ by Albert Einstein, has been scaled up to the level of two macroscopic diamonds.
Potential applications include quantum computing and communication.
Quantum entanglement — interdependence of quantum states between particles not in physical contact — has been well established between quantum particles such as atoms at ultra-cold temperatures. But like most quantum effects, it doesn’t tend to survive either at room temperature or in objects large enough to see with the naked eye.
A team led by Ian Walmsley, a physicist at the University of Oxford, UK, found a way to overcome both those limitations . . .
Diamonds were recently found to be useful for cryptography, also utilizing another phenomenon based on quantum mechanics.
2 Comments
Spongebob Squarepants
That’s it? The title’s almost as long as the write-up.
Mike_elid
For a more comprehensive article: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/12/quantum-entanglement-links-two-diamonds.html