Scientists will soon rip open the door to real Quantum computing. Will it be a peek into alternate universes? Or will it fizzle with a whimper?

Physicists have succeeded in entangling five photons for the first time. Although four photons have been entangled before, five is the minimum number needed for universal error correction in quantum computation. Moreover, the same team has demonstrated a process called “open-destination teleportation” for the first time (Z Zhao et al. 2004 Nature 430 54). The results represent a major breakthrough in efforts to exploit the laws of quantum mechanics in quantum information processing.

[Via Physics Web]