{"id":226821,"date":"2025-12-10T01:39:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T07:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/electron-phonon-interactions-in-crystals-found-to-be-quantized-by-a-fundamental-constant"},"modified":"2025-12-10T01:39:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T07:39:34","slug":"electron-phonon-interactions-in-crystals-found-to-be-quantized-by-a-fundamental-constant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/electron-phonon-interactions-in-crystals-found-to-be-quantized-by-a-fundamental-constant","title":{"rendered":"Electron-phonon interactions in crystals found to be quantized by a fundamental constant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/electron-phonon-interactions-in-crystals-found-to-be-quantized-by-a-fundamental-constant.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A researcher at the Department of Physics at Tohoku University has uncovered a surprising quantum phenomenon hidden inside ordinary crystals: the strength of interactions between electrons and lattice vibrations\u2014known as phonons\u2014is not continuous, but quantized. Even more remarkably, this strength is universally linked to one of the most iconic numbers in physics: the fine-structure constant.<\/p>\n<p>What makes this dimensionless number (\u03b1 \u2248 1\/137) so iconic is its ability to explain electromagnetic interactions, independent of the units used. Imagine it like a ratio where one pencil is twice as long as another pencil\u2014this ratio won\u2019t change no matter whether you measure the pencil length in cm, inches, or feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A researcher at the Department of Physics at Tohoku University has uncovered a surprising quantum phenomenon hidden inside ordinary crystals: the strength of interactions between electrons and lattice vibrations\u2014known as phonons\u2014is not continuous, but quantized. Even more remarkably, this strength is universally linked to one of the most iconic numbers in physics: the fine-structure constant. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}