Forget the X-Men - photons are the true superheroes. Not only do they travel at the universe's fastest possible speed, now they have been made to both change colour and shape-shift. The feat brings the dream of ultrafast quantum computers a step closer.
Photons are waves of electromagnetic energy that come in different wavelengths, or colours. The wave patterns also vary in shape, depending in part on how they came into being. The wavelength of a photon produced by a laser resembles a bell curve, for example, while a photon emitted spontaneously by an atom when an electron loses energy has a peak that rises quickly and tails off slowly. The shape can affect how a photon interacts in collisions.
I agree about forgetting the X-Men on any number of levels. To read the rest of the article, click here.