But just as the late nineteenth century gave hints of what was to come, so the late twentieth century also provides some clues to the future. One of the most important is the interest in so-called quantum technology. This is an effort on many fronts to create a new technology that utilizes the fundamental nature of subatomic reality, and it promises to revolutionize our ideas of what is possible.

Quantum technology flatly contradicts our common sense ideas of how the world works. It posits a world where computers operate without being turned on and objects are found without looking for them. An unimaginably powerful computer can be built from a single molecule. Information moves instantly between two points, without wires or networks. Distant objects are examined without any contact. Computers do their calculations in other universes. And teleportation - "Beam me up, Scotty" - is ordinary and used in many different ways.

In the 1990s, research in quantum technology began to show results. In 1995, quantum ultrasecure messages were sent over a distance of eight miles, suggesting that a quantum Internet would be built in the coming century. In Los Alamos, physicists measured the thickness of a human hair using laser light that was never actually shone on the hair, but only might have been. This bizarre, "counterfactual" result initiated a new field of interaction-free detection: what has been called "finding something without looking."

And in 1998, quantum teleportation was demonstrated in three laboratories around the world - in Innsbruck, in Rome and at Cal Tech.* Physicist Jeff Kimble, leader of the Cal Tech team, said that quantum teleportation could be applied to solid objects: "The quantum state of one entity could be transported to another entity… We think we know how to do that."І Kimble stopped well short of suggesting they could teleport a human being, but he imagined that someone might try with a bacterium.