Different journals have different standards for the type of paper. For example, the format for Science and Nature articles tends to be less detailed and more focussed on the particular result obtained. Other journals are more suitable for more in-depth discussion of methods and their intricacies. Some of them, such as Physics Letters, promise rapid publication, whereas PRL etc., Science, and Nature can drag on for some time. Notice also that they have chosen to publish the papers open access, which not every journal allows. Impact factor isn't everything. And as another poster noted, there is a Science article in the works. Nothing fishy here.

QED does not have lots of pictures in it. Physics books for the layman tend to not have many pictures. Physics textbooks are much more equation-heavy than picture-heavy.

So this paper is about that very first step of actually making the qubits. One atom = one qubit. In this case, the "state" would likely be the atom's spin orientation. Spin and position are not connected by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Position and momentum are linked, as are energy and time.

I'm not really sure what your question is, but I'll try to answer it! To make a quantum computer, you need a number of qubits. If you want to use atoms as qubits, you need to be able to repeatably trap, hold, and interrogate them over "long" timescales. If you could only trap a single atom 50% of the time, your computer would be very inefficient if you have, say, 30 qubits (ie. an array of 30 single atoms). By pushing this up to 83%, efficiency improves dramatically. Also, they can probably do better than 83% by improving their vacuum, but this would require taking their apparatus apart somewhat, and is not something people tend to do once they have a working setup!

It is the first time single Rb-85 atoms have been trapped.

GGP is correct that you could describe the motion of the planets (and sun) in terms of complicated orbits about the earth. However, as others have pointed out in the thread, there is a preferred (inertial) frame -- that of the fixed stars (cf. the Mach principle). The sun moves with respect to that frame, carrying the solar system with it. So the frame of the sun (or, more correctly, that of the center of mass of the solar system, which happens to pretty much be the sun) is objectively closer to being inertial than that of the earth. So to suggest that the reasons for favoring the sun as the origin of the system are purely technical (as opposed to physical) is perhaps a little disingenuous.

Yes, definitely ebay! Old analog scopes are just as good as digital scopes (in some cases preferable), but it depends on the application, and you can fix them if they break. If you need a really fast scope or want math functions, then you need a newer one. We have a few digital Tektronix scopes in the lab, and they are just fine. Also, what is handy with newer scopes is that they have USB ports so it's easy to save your data (if you need to).

Traditional musicians make money from performing concerts and giving lessons. Recordings are advertisement, not the main product.

"There's only room for one Steve in this here company."

Capitol C? Is it involved in politics somehow?

I thought ID4 was awesome when I saw it. But then I was also 12 at the time...

Actually, its even possible for the group velocity to exceed the speed of light, without violating relativity/causality. See for e.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0101068

This is really wrong. Temperature has a precise mathematical definition (relation between system energy and entropy), which is universal. Applied to most systems, this yields the concept of temperature familiar from everyday life. Indeed, some systems are such that they can be manipulated to a state of `negative temperature', in the formal mathematical sense. However it is definitely not the case that the concept of absolute zero is tied to the motion of atoms in particular, or that it is merely 'a reference point' that has later been surpassed.

(I kinda hope you're just trolling, otherwise please just STFU when you don't know WTF you're talking about. )

Not really... negative temperature can be a 'meaningful' concept in some scenarios, but it's not necessary to invoke it here. Temperature is a property of an object such that two objects in contact (or exchanging radiation, etc) with different temperatures will exchange energy (heat) so as to try and 'meet each other in the middle', i.e., hot one loses energy to the colder one until the the temperatures become equal. Basically the character of laser beams is that they are not-very-thermal-at-all, so you can think of the incident beam as having some temperature very close to absolute zero, much less than the particles they're being shone on. Statistically speaking, the temperature of the particles will lower towards that of the incident laser beam, and the scattered laser photons will be 'heated', and carry away some of the original thermal energy of the cooled particles.

The underlying quantum state *is* observable. Why wouldn't it be?

If you RTFA (and not even the paper is necessary for this), you will see that they are limited by the fidelity of their setup, ie. signal to noise. Hence, when they improve their apparatus, they will get more accurate results.