The exact nature of matter has puzzled scientists for centuries. We have discovered the building blocks of matter, but what is the nature of these blocks? How do they behave? The ultimate question boils down to whether these ‘blocks’ behave as waves, or as particles.

The quest for the answer to this question first focused on light. We now know that light is composed of the boson named the photon, but what is its nature? Greek scientists from the ancient Pythagorean discipline postulated that every visible object emits a steady stream of particles, while Aristotle determined that light travels in a manner similar to waves in the ocean.

Quantum Entanglement is an interesting concept that basically throws the proverbial monkey-wrench into basic physics.

It occurs when two particles are created from a single source. For example, a photon pair can be created in the laboratory by 'shooting a photon through a specially designed crystal. This results in some of the photons 'splitting' into two photons. However, each photon has a lower energy (or energy frequency). In fact, the total energy of both new photons when summed, equals the total energy of the original.

What's more interesting though is that these two photons will be exact opposites of each other. If we look at their 'polarity' and 'spin' (a non-scientific analogy for their quantum state) they will be perfectly mirror images of each other. But it doesn't end there, once created, they will ALWAYS be the mirror of each other.

There has been a lot of press lately about Quantum Dots, but just what are they? You can think of a Quantum Dot as a tiny box full of electrons. They are created from semiconductor materials using modern crystal growth techniques, and have typical dimensions between a few nanometers (10^-9 meters) to a few microns. (How big is a nanometer? A penny is about 20 million nanometers across.)