Just as a person who can read and write is said to be literate, a laser that can read and write can also be thought of as literate. Such a feat is possible because of the joining together of the laser and another modern supertool-the computer. Computers are able to process information thousands of times faster than human beings. For instance, hundreds of years ago when a scientist needed to solve a complicated math problem, he or she had to do all the adding and multiplying by hand. A single problem might take as long as three months to solve. Today's supercomputers can give the answer to the very same problem in only three seconds. What is more, computers allow all kinds of marketing and communications tasks-from supermarket scanning to office copying to sending documents and music files across the...