Lifeboat Foundation

Time goes in one direction: forward. Little boys become old men but not vice versa; teacups shatter but never spontaneously reassemble. This cruel and immutable property of the universe, called the “arrow of time,” is fundamentally a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates that systems will always tend to become more disordered over time. But recently, researchers from the U.S. and Russia have bent that arrow just a bit — at least for subatomic particles.

In the new study, published Tuesday (Mar. 12) in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers manipulated the arrow of time using a very tiny quantum computer made of two quantum particles, known as qubits, that performed calculations. [Twisted Physics: 7 Mind-Blowing Findings]

At the subatomic scale, where the odd rules of quantum mechanics hold sway, physicists describe the state of systems through a mathematical construct called a wave function. This function is an expression of all the possible states the system could be in — even, in the case of a particle, all the possible locations it could be in — and the probability of the system being in any of those states at any given time. Generally, as time passes, wave functions spread out; a particle’s possible location can be farther away if you wait an hour than if you wait 5 minutes.

Why I don’t think problems in particle theory should dictate research directions in other subfields.

In an incredible first, scientists have captured the world’s first actual photo of quantum entanglement — a phenomenon so strange, physicist Albert Einstein famously described it as ‘spooky action at a distance’.

The image was captured by physicists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and it’s so breathtaking we can’t stop staring.

It might not look like much, but just stop and think about it for a second: this fuzzy grey image is the first time we’ve seen the particle interaction that underpins the strange science of quantum mechanics and forms the basis of quantum computing.

There’s no doubting that graphene, a single layer of graphite with the atoms arranged in a honeycomb hexagonal pattern, is one of science’s most versatile new materials. Capable of doing everything from filtering the color out of whisky to creating body armor that’s stronger than diamonds, graphene exhibits some truly unique qualities. However, while some mainstream uses of graphene have emerged, its use remains limited due to the challenge of producing it at scale. The most common way to make graphene still involves using sticky tape to strip a layer of atoms off ordinary graphite.

That’s something that researchers from the University of Rochester and the Netherlands’ Delft University of Technology have been working to change. They’ve figured out a way to mass produce graphene by mixing oxidized graphite with bacteria. Their method is cost-efficient, time-efficient, and sustainable — and may just make graphene a whole lot more available in the process.

“In our research, we have used bacteria to produce graphene materials on a bulk scale, and we showed that our material is conductive, and both thinner and able to be stored longer than chemically produced graphene materials,” Anne Meyer, professor of biology at the University of Rochester, told Digital Trends. “These properties demonstrate that our bacterial graphene would be well suited for a variety of applications, such as electrical ink or lightweight biosensors. Our approach is also incredibly simple and environmentally friendly compared to chemical approaches. All we have to do is mix our bacteria with the graphene precursor material, and leave them sitting on the benchtop overnight.”

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fig. 7.

Continue reading “Welcome to Experiments that Time has Forgotten!” »

Atomic interactions in everyday solids and liquids are so complex that some of these materials’ properties continue to elude physicists’ understanding. Solving the problems mathematically is beyond the capabilities of modern computers, so scientists at Princeton University have turned to an unusual branch of geometry instead.

Researchers led by Andrew Houck, a professor of electrical engineering, have built an electronic array on a microchip that simulates particle interactions in a hyperbolic plane, a geometric surface in which space curves away from itself at every point. A hyperbolic plane is difficult to envision—the artist M.C. Escher used hyperbolic geometry in many of his mind-bending pieces—but is perfect for answering questions about particle interactions and other challenging mathematical questions.

The research team used superconducting circuits to create a lattice that functions as a hyperbolic space. When the researchers introduce photons into the lattice, they can answer a wide range of difficult questions by observing the photons’ interactions in simulated hyperbolic space.

The concept of super-asymmetry is related to super-symmetry string theory.

In particle physics, “supersymmetry” is a proposed type of space-time symmetry that relates two basic classes of elementary particles: bosons, which have an integer-valued spin, and fermions, which have a half-integer spin. Each particle from one group is associated with a particle from the other, known as its super-partner, the spin of which differs by a half-integer.

While most of the science discussed in the show has it’s basis with real-world science, the concept of super-asymmetry is fairly unique to the world of “The Big Bang Theory”. Amy and Sheldon are working on a new theory or concept for string theory and appear to be on the road to a Nobel Prize.

Circa 2018

The symmetries that govern the world of elementary particles at the most elementary level could be radically different from what has so far been thought. This surprising conclusion emerges from new work published by theoreticians from Warsaw and Potsdam. The scheme they posit unifies all the forces of nature in a way that is consistent with existing observations and anticipates the existence of new particles with unusual properties, which may even be present in our close environs.

For half a century, physicists have been trying to construct a theory that brings together all four fundamental forces of nature, describes the known elementary particles and predicts the existence of new ones. So far these attempts have not found experimental confirmation and the Standard Model — an old and surely incomplete, but still surprisingly effective theoretical construct — has successfully remained in use for years as our best description of the quantum world. In a recent paper in Physical Review Letters, Prof. Krzysztof Meissner from the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, and Prof. Hermann Nicolai from the Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik in Potsdam have presented a new scheme generalizing the Standard Model that incorporates gravitation into the description. The shortcomings of previous attempts were overcome through the application of a kind of symmetry not previously used in the description of elementary particles.

In physics, symmetries are understood somewhat differently than in the colloquial sense of the word. For instance, note that whether we drop a ball from the same spot now or one minute from now, it will still fall in the same way. That is a manifestation of a certain symmetry: the laws of physics remain unchanged with respect to shifts in time. Similarly, we can drop the ball while standing and facing once in a southward direction, once westward, or we can drop it from the same height in one location, then another. The ball will still fall in the same way in both cases, which means that the laws of physics are symmetrical also with respect to the operations of rotation and spatial displacement, respectively.

A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, have discovered a new method that could be used to build quantum sensors with ultra-high precision.

When individual atoms emit light, they do so in discrete packets called photons.

When this light is measured, this discrete or ‘granular’ nature leads to especially low fluctuations in its brightness, as two or more photons are never emitted at the same time.