This is part of a genre of science writing whereby a university’s press release officer struggles to figure out what a professor is talking about, and translate it into hype. So the text oscillates wildly between impenetrable (the material offered by the professor) and eye-rolling (the stuff by the press release guy).
From what I can figure out, the “light-induced matter” here refers to polaritons, a phenomenon whereby the quantum states of light and atom mix, which has been known about for decades. Basically, these guys figured out a slightly nicer way to simulate these things on a computer.
Communications to the public are so important to science. It’s a real shame how often they’re done poorly.
Dammit! I’ve been using a sci-fi version of the idea in my role playing system for decades lol.
