Shedding Light on the Fascinating World of Quantum Entanglement
The Entanglement of Light: How Do Photons Become Entangled and What Does It Mean for Science? Light is made up of tiny particles called photons. Sometimes, these photons can become "entangled" with each other. This means that they become linked in a special way - so that the properties of one photon affect the properties of the other, no matter how far apart they are. Entangled photons can be created in a laboratory using a special process called "parametric down-conversion". This process involves shining a laser at a special crystal, which splits the laser beam into two entangled beams of light. But why is entanglement so important? Well, it has a lot of potential applications in fields like quantum computing and cryptography. For example, entangled photons can be used to transmit information securely over long distances - because any attempt to intercept the information would break the entanglement and be immediately noticed. Entanglement of light is a fascinatin...