Jul 12th 2011, by The Economist online
FROM banknotes to bottles of Bordeaux and Vans shoes to Viagra, good forgeries can be hard to detect—even for experts. The difficulty is finding a quick and reliable way to tell the difference between what is real and what is faked. Yet if you look closely enough with a microscope, the surface of almost any material shows a naturally occurring randomness: the wood fibres in a piece of paper look like a layer of noodles; smooth plastic resembles a mountain range. The details of these patterns are unique to each item and thus could be used like a fingerprint, to provide an almost foolproof means of identification.Continue reading....
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