Werner Heisenberg's 'Uncertainty Principle'(1927) is a fundamental concept in quantum physics, basically saying you can be increasingly accurate in position or momentum (mass X velocity), but not both(1).  

This can be an important feature rather than a defect in something like quantum cryptography, where information is transmitted in the form of quantum states such as the polarization of particles of light.

A group of scientists from LMU and the ETH in Zurich say they have shown that position and momentum can be predicted more precisely than Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states - if the recipient makes use of a quantum memory that employs ions or atoms.

Optics normally treats the behaviour of packages of light waves (photons). However, when passing through appropriately shaped fields, particles may behave similar as photons. A beam of electrons that is not too dense will under such conditions behave similar to light beams that pass comparable lenses. In a dense beam the electrons will influence each others path via their own Coulomb field.

The OTF

While everybody is busy discussing the latest Tevatron results on the Higgs boson searches -is that the light-mass excess the internet was abuzz, is it consistent with a signal as we expected it, how long will it take to confirm it is not a fluke, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera- I think I have a different plot with which to enthuse you.

If you do not like the figure below, courtesy CMS Collaboration 2010, you are kindly requested to leave this blog and spend your time reading something else than fundamental physics. I do not know what will ever make you believe particle physics is beautiful, if not what is shown here.

Early last month, Michael White’s Adaptive Complexity on Science 2.0 had a useful critique of the citizen scientist.