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BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Celtaddict Date: 28 Jul 04 - 11:37 PM Back to brucie, 17 June, 4:54. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Wolfgang Date: 29 Jul 04 - 06:25 AM Now what has Brucie said in this thread at 4:54, 17 June? It doesn't show on my screen. But maybe he had something to say and had meant to post and that only shows on screens of people with an open mind? Can the mere intention to post something of deep value leave a trace in the system that is observable for just some of us tuned to similar thoughts? Celtaddict, you have opened a Pandora box of metaphysical questions for me. One of the deepest metaphysical questions on Mudcat for me is when I have posted and find no trace of that post. Have I merely dreamt I have posted? Can I only refind my post when I am in the same state of mind? Can others read my post of which I find no trace? What do you say? I may only have mixed up the 'submit' button and the 'back' button for the umpteenth time? Shame on you. I'm speaking about metaphysics and you dare to hint I just made a minor slip. That's not fair. Wolfgang (whose number of slips of this type per day cannot be counted by the fingers of both hands) |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 29 Jul 04 - 08:56 AM 17 June 4:51, not 4, brucie said, succinctly, "Sex". But I think that is obvious. Or perhaps it is brucie's answer to "If a physicist, what would you think about?" A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 18 Aug 04 - 10:00 PM From the current edition of Nature, something really worth thinking about--the uses of quantum entanglement!! Communications: Quantum teleportation across the Danube |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Cluin Date: 19 Aug 04 - 05:04 PM "Be afraid... Be very afraid." |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Rapparee Date: 19 Aug 04 - 05:57 PM Photons across the Danube! Hands across the sea! Da da, Photons across the Danube! Hands across the the sea! de de de.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Bill D Date: 19 Aug 04 - 07:22 PM "... the high-fidelity teleportation of photons..." "Praise the Lord, I saw the light" -------------------------------------------------- " Our result is a step towards the implementation of a quantum repeater,..." how dey do dat? Any details? |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 19 Aug 04 - 08:11 PM Bill: I don't have any because I don't subscribe to Nature, so all I get is the summaries. If you find any let me know -- it has to do with entanglement of quanta in remote locations such that the direction of one will determine instanter the direction of the other regardless of distance. Kind of like love or prayer or something....wooo-woooo! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Bill D Date: 19 Aug 04 - 09:49 PM I ask because it is the closest thing I have seen to Whitehead's concept of the "actual entity" as the smallest unit of reality possible, and how certain 'conditions' can influence it to go this way or that... Whitehead was trying to explain how 'free will' might be explained, but if a particle smaller than a quark can be influenced, maybe it can be ......ummmmm..... moved? if, if, if....my ol' brain always sees the chain of 'ifs'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Bill D Date: 19 Aug 04 - 09:52 PM well, here is a bit more " By separating the entangled pair, the scientists successfully transported information about the state of one photon to the other" now, I am not sure how one goes about 'separating a pair of photons'...*grin*... |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 19 Aug 04 - 10:19 PM Photons go where you send them, just like a beam of lased light. The "entangled pair" are not physically linked to each other, but their fate is bound up so they must somehow always reflect each others' states. This kind of "instant information" looks like FTL transportation of actual objects but it is not. However it does imply an information system that could be instant or nerar-instant. Unlike the slow ones of today which take nanoseconds or milliseconds to transfer information. I am groping in ignorance here. How'm I doin'?? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Cluin Date: 19 Aug 04 - 11:15 PM Fiberoptic superconductors? |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Cluin Date: 19 Aug 04 - 11:19 PM Thoughts of sex for physicists involve vectors bumping up against each other, discharging their Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle all over the place. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: mack/misophist Date: 20 Aug 04 - 02:17 AM Back in the 70's (I think) Alain Aspect of the University of Paris, South did much the same thing by shooting electrons at a blob of mercury hanging magneticaly in mid vacuum. That was only 3-6 mm, though. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Rapparee Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:44 AM I thought mercury was non-magnetic???? Given the stuff that passes for information these days, I'm not at all sure I either need or want to get it any faster. All I'd do is ignore it faster. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Rapparee Date: 20 Aug 04 - 04:37 PM The more I think about it, the angrier I get. It's both morally and ethically repugnant to thinking, caring people. This experiment is disgusting. How DARE anyone even CONSIDER it! Two photons, their union branded as "entaglement" and then torn asunder by an unfeeling, inhuman physicist who feels a need to vindicate his or her manhood. At a time when divorce rates are at a record high, too! PETP will hear of this outrage, this vile abuse! In the meantime, cherish your photons. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: GUEST,Amos Date: 21 Aug 04 - 12:04 PM Rapaire, I am afraid you misunderstand the nature of entanglement. As I understand it it is not physical linkage in the sense you mean and it does not preclude photons moving great distances from each other without any diminution to the entanglement. Entanglement is not inversely proportional to the square of distance. This is important because it says something about the nature of space. Entanglement is permanent and instantaneous -- that is when one of the pair is determined to have turned left the other one will predictably have turned left also (or perhaps it is right), over 90% of the time. This is more like love than it is like gravity -- the link is ineluctable regardless of distance, response is instantaneous, confidence is high, and life is glorious. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: GUEST,Amos Date: 21 Aug 04 - 02:32 PM n the meantime, cherish your photons. Ye sir, certainly sir...would that be one by one? At ordinary rates, payable in advance? Or all at once? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: GUEST,A Cookieless Rapaire Date: 21 Aug 04 - 11:58 PM Even worse! Entangled, they hope, forever and then brutally ripped apart to satisfy the warped and morbid curiousity of some physicist who probably wears a coat made from the skins of baby harp seals and eats veal. Cherish all your photons, individually and collectively. And pray that these amoral "scientists" soon see the light. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 22 Aug 04 - 12:30 AM Rapaire, I don't know how to tell you this, but there is NO BRUTALITY in these experiments. NO PHOTONS HAVE BEEN HARMED IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE. If you persist in this obstreperous Grundyism I will be forced to bitchslap you. Please come to your senses! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 22 Aug 04 - 06:53 PM Cryptography system goes underground (Aug 19) http://physicsweb.org/article/news/8/8/13 A group of scientists in Austria and Germany has installed an optical fibre quantum cryptography system under the streets of Vienna and used it to perform the first quantum secure bank wire transfer (A Poppe et al. 2004 Optics Express 12 3865). The quantum cryptography system consisted of a transmitter (Alice) at Vienna's City Hall and a receiver (Bob) at the headquarters of an Austrian bank. The sites were linked by 1.45 kilometres of single-mode optical fibre. So! leaps undt bounds are higher and faster than ever!! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Rapparee Date: 22 Aug 04 - 09:17 PM My brother had a fiber problem. Metamucil fixed him right up. I probably could have watched, but I'm not that into fiber optics. I don't think he watched, either. He's just not that kind of guy. The idea of watching the results of fiber for some sort of code is rather disquieting, to say the least. Certainly supplies a new middle word for the abbreviation "NSA" though. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 22 Aug 04 - 09:42 PM I have sent der information aboudt your obsessive facetiousness and intentional refusal to underschtand about der fiber in a shecret Memo to Alice andt Bob, Rapaire. You should be receiving a brown paper wrapped parschel in der mail schoon, mebbe ticking. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Rapparee Date: 23 Aug 04 - 09:29 AM Dang it! If copper wire was good enough fer folks like Tom Jefferson and Sam Colt to use fer THEIR computers, it's by God good enough fer me! |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Rapparee Date: 23 Aug 04 - 10:14 AM Which, to bring this back to music, reminds me of the Monk's Aria from Bach's Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice: Et expecto resurrecreation; Et in unum Dominos and checkers; Qui tollis peccata mundi morning. Mea culpa kyrie elei- Sonny Tufts et Allah in Pompeii; Donna nobis pacem cum what mei; Agnus and her sister Doris Dei; Lord, have mercy on my solo. Et in terra chicken pox romana; Sic sic transit gloria mañana; Sanctus estes Kefauviridiana In flagrante delicto Svetlana; Lord, have mercy on my solo. Credo in, at most, unum deum; Caveat nabisco mausoleum; Coitus interruptus bonus meum; Kimo sabe watchum what you sayum; Lord, have mercy on my soul so low. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 23 Aug 04 - 10:17 AM Maybe you should look in to having your memory circuits rewired with optic fiber ! A |
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Subject: Holy-Moly! A Light Antennae From: Amos Date: 20 Sep 04 - 04:47 PM It seems we may be closer than ever to a roof that can eneergize a house. See this picture. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 23 Oct 04 - 01:48 AM A Nobel Prizewinner discusses at length the outstanding Important Topics for scientists in this New York Times article. Very interesting stuff. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Rapparee Date: 23 Oct 04 - 09:08 AM And I can't wait. I think it would be great. But the IgNobel prizewinner for this just is: PHYSICS Ramesh Balasubramaniam of the University of Ottawa, and Michael Turvey of the University of Connecticut and Haskins Laboratory, for exploring and explaining the dynamics of hula-hooping." Check out their award-winning, internationally recognized work here. (You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader, so if you don't have it go get it. It's free.) Physicists gots lots on their minds these days. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 02 Feb 05 - 12:15 AM This is important, I believe, for reasons which may not be visible for some time: How noise protects entire marine ecosystems Monday 31 January 2005 http://www.iop.org/news/887 Noise is usually nothing more than a disturbance, but sometimes it can be useful. Researchers have discovered that noise could bring order to chaotic systems, protect and maintain entire marine ecosystems, and even make the chemical industry greener. This research is reported today in a special Einstein Year issue of the New Journal of Physics (www.njp.org) published jointly by the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft). Changsong Zhou and a group of physicists at the University of Potsdam, Germany, are studying chaotic systems, known as excitable media. The firing of neurons in the brain is an example of such a system, as is the growth and receding of blooms of plankton in the sea. Such systems do not become excited by small signals but if they are stimulated above a threshold amount, then they give it their all: neurons fire and plankton blooms. "Similarly, excitable non-linear behaviour is also found in chemical reactions", explains Zhou, "where an external pressure or light can push a reaction down one route instead of another." Zhou and his colleagues have found that the key to this sort of excitation is chaotic mixing and noise. The researchers demonstrated how a non-linear system can be controlled to become synchronized even when its stimulus is below the threshold by the addition of noise to the system. The results based on their model study imply that oscillatory behaviour in many natural systems, rather than being disturbed by noise, is thus sustained by it. For instance, the "noise" in a marine ecosystem due to temperature changes, ocean currents, wind-driven waves, fluctuations in nutrient levels, the movement of schools of fish, and wind-driven waves affect how plankton blooms grow and recede. If the conditions are below an optimum the plankton do not grow, but they can be forced into action by noise, and once they are stimulated the whole system is activated and a marine landscape is quickly blanketed by the bloom. Zhou's results suggest that without noise such blooms might be physically unable to flourish in some areas or might not follow the usual seasonal cycles. "Noise might be essential to maintaining the stability and the persistence of marine ecosystems," Zhou says. This research might therefore help environmental scientists predict or even prevent toxic plankton blooms by observing the natural noise that affects them. Zhou and his colleagues also suggest that noise might usefully be used to control chemical reactions. They explain that random disturbances in industrial mixing tanks could be promoted to make a reaction proceed more efficiently and so reduce chemical waste, making the chemical industry a little more environmentally friendly. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: GUEST,Rapaire Date: 02 Feb 05 - 09:02 AM ...studying chaotic systems, known as excitable media.... Shucks, 'round here ALL the media is both chaotic and excitable. Mostly we ignore it, though, 'cest durin' an election year, an' then we cuss at it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: GUEST,Amos Date: 02 Feb 05 - 09:17 AM Laugh while you can, sir; the day will come when the importance of this observation is elevated to its proper place in applied technology. Then we'll see which side of your mouth you are laughing out of. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: GUEST,Rapaire Date: 02 Feb 05 - 03:23 PM I know a use for Rap and Rock and loud car stereos! |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: GUEST,Joe_F Date: 02 Feb 05 - 09:17 PM The following quotation from Isaac Newton (who, it should be remembered was an experimenter as well as a theorist) clearly belongs her: Only those bodies which are absolutely hard are exactly reflected according to these rules. Now the bodies here amongst us (being an aggregate of smaller bodies) have a relenting softnesse and springynesse, which makes their contact be for some time and in more points than one. And the touching surfaces during the time of contact doe slide one upon another more or lesse or not at all according to their roughnesse. And few or none of these bodyes have a springyness soe strong as to force them one from another with the same vigor that they came together. I wish the same to this company in this winter. --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: If you never do anything stupid, you're not as smart as you :|| ||: think. :|| |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 02 Feb 05 - 10:52 PM New precision has been obtaine din measurement scritical to physics:G (the gravitational constant) and the mass of the Earth and of the Sun: BEST MEASUREMENT OF THE GRAVITATIONAL CONSTANT. At this week's American Physical Society Meeting in Long Beach, Jens H. Gundlach of the University of Washington (paper P11.3) reported a long-awaited higher precision measurement of the gravitational constant, usually denoted by the letter G. Although G has been of fundamental importance to physics and astronomy ever since it was introduced by Isaac Newton in the seventeenth century (the gravitational force between two objects equals G times the masses of the two objects and divided by their distance apart squared), it has been relatively hard to measure, owing to the weakness of gravity. Now a group at the University of Washington has reduced the uncertainty in the value of G by almost a factor of ten. Their preliminary value is G=6.67390 x 10-11 m3/kg/s2 with an uncertainty of 0.0014%. Combining this new value of G with measurements made with the Lageos satellite (which uses laser ranging to keep track of its orbital position to within a millimeter) permits the calculation of a brand new, highest precision mass for the earth: 5.97223 (+/- .00008) x 1024 kg. Similarly the new mass of the sun becomes 1.98843 (+/- .00003) x 1030 kg. Gundlach's (206-543-4080, jens@phys.washington.edu) The setup is not unlike Cavendish's venerable torsion balance of two hundred years ago: a hanging pendulum is obliged to twist under the influence of some nearby test weights. But in the Washington experiment measurement uncertainties are greatly reduced by using a feedback mechanism to move the test weights, keeping pendulum twisting to a minimum. (See Gundlach's written summary; figures at Physics News Graphics.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 25 Feb 05 - 01:57 PM From the Physics News Update: THE BIGGEST SPLASH OF LIGHT FROM OUTSIDE THE SOLAR SYSTEM to be recorded here at Earth occurred on December 27, 2004. The light came from an object called SGR 1806-20, about 50,000 light years away in our own galaxy. SGR stands for "soft gamma repeater," a class of neutron star possessing a gigantic magnetic field. Such "magnetars" can erupt violently, sending out immense bolts of energy in the form of light at gamma rays and other wavelength regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The eruption was first seen with orbiting telescopes at the upper end of the spectrum over a period of minutes and then by more and more telescopes; at radio wavelengths emissions were monitored for months. For an instant the flare was brighter than the full moon. (NASA press conference, 18 February; www.nrao.edu/pr/2005/sgrburst/; www.ras.org.uk/html/press/pn0505ras.html; many telescopes participated in the observations and results will appear in a forthcoming issue of Nature.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Rapparee Date: 25 Feb 05 - 04:22 PM And I missed it? December 27 -- wait, it was snowing here that night. Darn, I never get to see the really cool stuff! |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 02 Mar 05 - 09:36 AM Most distant galaxy cluster yet is revealed 08:00 02 March 2005 NewScientist.com news service Maggie McKee (Excerpt) The most distant cluster of galaxies ever found has been revealed by astronomers - and it bears an uncanny resemblance to those nearby. The technique used to discover the cluster promises further discoveries at similar distances, which would help constrain cosmological models. The cluster of galaxies spotted by astronomers lies 9 billion light-years away. That beats the 8.5 billion light-years' distance of the previous record holder - a jump that represents a "significant fraction of a galaxy's lifespan", says Christopher Mullis, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, US, who led the team. The universe's first galaxies probably formed a few hundred million years after the big bang. They then began assembling into "proto-clusters", or groups of several hundred, within a billion years. The new-found cluster, which may harbour thousands of galaxies, appears to have started growing when the universe was roughly 2.5 billion years old and stopped about 2 billion years later. At that time, it had already grown very massive. Only colossal objects can contain the searing, 70-million-degree gas detected by astronomers - the gas is heated as the galaxies fall toward each other. Images from Europe's XMM-Newton spacecraft, launched to study X-rays in 1999, also reveal the gas has taken on a spherical shape - suggesting it has settled into portly middle age. "We would have thought characters [from so early in the Universe] would have been a bit more youthful," Mullis told New Scientist. "But this guy looks quite old." ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Wolfgang Date: 02 Mar 05 - 12:45 PM 'Methusalem of galaxies found' was the headline in Germany. 'Youngster' I'd said. But age is relative depending upon from where you look: Here's a very old picture showing me as a very young man. Wolfgang (sometimes wondering if we one day can see a very old picture of our own galaxy in statu nascendi coming to us from far away across the curved space) |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: John Hardly Date: 02 Mar 05 - 02:24 PM originally posted by brucie: sex I think what Amos is, as a physicist, contemplating here, is a new means to.....er.......deliver.........er......something. That would, in my estimation, take some of the fun out of it, but that's a physicist for you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 02 Mar 05 - 02:35 PM Don't be easily fooled -- I am one of those characters from so early in the universe that you would expect me to be more youthful than I am. Go figger. Cf Dawkins on memetics in The Selfdish Gene A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Rapparee Date: 02 Mar 05 - 03:22 PM I think that we're now peering so far into the Universe that we're looking clean around the curve and peeking at ourselves. Don't be shocked by a drive-by mooning. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 03 Mar 05 - 07:59 AM This is a big wow revisit to a classic physics conundrum, the double-slit experiment: New look for classic experiment 2 March 2005 Physicists in Europe and the US have performed a novel version of the double-slit quantum-interference experiment with single electrons. In the classic version of the experiment, electrons pass through a mask containing two parallel slits and produce a pattern of bright and dark interference fringes on a screen. Now, Gerhard Paulus of Texas A&M University and co-workers in Berlin, Munich, Sarajevo and Vienna have observed an interference pattern with electrons that pass through a double slit in time, not space, as a result of being ejected from an atom at one of two possible times by a laser pulse. The double-slit experiment was first performed with light by Thomas Young over 200 years ago.The formation of the fringes can be explained by the interference of waves travelling from the two slits. When the peaks of the two waves coincide on the screen, the interference is constructive and the result is a bright fringe. However, if the peak of one wave coincides with the trough of the other, destructive interference results in a region of darkness. Double-slit experiments The spacing between the fringes depends on the wavelength of the light and the separation of the slits. Similar interference fringes have also been observed with electrons, atoms and molecules, with the fringe spacing depending on the de Broglie wavelength of the particles. Experiments have also shown that an interference pattern builds up even if there is only one particle in the apparatus at any time, and that the pattern disappears if we try to determine which slit it passes through. This process is now understood in terms of interference between the two possible paths through the apparatus, rather than between two waves or particles: if we know "which way" the electron passes through the slits, we do not see interference, and vice versa. The latest experiment is radically different because the slits exist in time not space, and because the interference pattern appears when the number of electrons at the detector is plotted as a function of their energy rather than their position on a screen. The work was performed at the Technical University of Vienna in collaboration with physicists from the Max Born Institute in Berlin, the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Munich and the University of Sarajevo. Paulus and co-workers focused a train of pulses from a Ti:sapphire laser into a chamber containing a gas of argon atoms. The pulses were so short – just 5 femtoseconds – that each one contained just a few cycles of the electric field. The team was able to control the output of the laser so that all the pulses were identical. The researchers could, for example, ensure that each pulse contained two maxima of the electric field (thatis, two peaks with large positive values) and one minimum (a peak with a large negative value). There was a small probability that an atom would be ionized by one or other of the maxima, which therefore played the role of the slits, with the resulting electron being accelerated towards a detector. If the atom was ionized by the minimum, the electron travelled in the opposite direction towards a second detector. The team registered the arrival times of the electrons at both detectors and then plotted the number of electrons as a function of energy. The researchers observed interference fringes at the first detector because it was impossible to know if an electron counted by the detector was produced during the first or second maximum. There was no interference pattern at the second detector because all the electrons were produced at the same time at the minimum. However,when the phase of the laser was changed so that there was one maximum and two minima, interference fringes were seen at the second detector but not at the first. "We have complete which-way information and no which-way information at the same time for the same electron," says Paulus. "It just depends on the direction from which we look at it." Other physicists are impressed by the work. "This experiment should be included in every textbook on quantum mechanics," says Wolfgang Schleich, a quantum physicist at the University of Ulm in Germany. "It certainly will be in mine." |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 03 Mar 05 - 08:30 AM A lovely summary by the Times of Science's Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, a pleasant read for us smug and complacent heirs to all the good of Western civ. :>) A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: GUEST,Joe_F Date: 03 Mar 05 - 09:54 AM Is it possible to entangle two radioactive nuclei so that the times of their decay will be correlated? --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: It's much more fun to imagine how I might have behaved worse than how I might have behaved better. :|| |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 03 Mar 05 - 11:51 AM I doubt it. I don't think nuclei get entangled. Entanglement occurs at a much smaller scale -- it is a quantum physics phenomenon that correlates the axis of spin of two photons no matter how separate they become. A good explanation of entanglement can be found in this article. But I am not qualified to answer the question, really. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Amos Date: 16 Mar 05 - 12:06 AM DEGENERATE GAS STUCK IN OPTICAL LATTICE. The forces that govern the motions of macroscopic objects like planets and tennis balls are complicated enough. Forces among atoms at ultracold temperatures are even more complicated. In this regime atoms (pictured as being waves) spread out so much that they overlap with neighboring atoms. If the atoms are bosons (that is, if the total spin of each atom is an integer) then they all fall into a single quantum state, namely a Bose Einstein condensate (BEC). If, however, the atoms are fermions (the total spin is half-integral-valued), then quantum reality, in the form of the Pauli exclusion principle, also decrees a special status: not a single ensemble BEC state (all atoms having the same energy), but a state in which none of the atoms has the same energy. In this "Fermi degenerate" state the atoms fill up all possible quantum energy levels, one by one (or two by two, providing that the two atoms sharing a level have opposite spins), until the last atom is accounted for. (For the first demonstration of a Fermi degenerate state in atoms, see www.aip.org/pnu/1999/split/pnu447-1.htm.) Now, physicists at the ETH lab in Zurich have, for the first time, not only made a quantum degenerate Fermi gas but have been able to load the atoms into the criss-cross interstices of an optical lattice, an artificial 3D crystal in which atoms are held in place by the electric fields of well-aimed laser beams. Then, by adjusting an external magnetic field, the pairs of atoms lodged in their specified sites can be made to interact (courtesy of the "Feshbach resonance") with a varying strength. According to Tilman Esslinger (41-1-633-2340, esslinger@phys.ethz.ch), it is this ability to put atoms where you want them in a crystal-like scaffolding, and then to make them interact with a strength that you can control, that makes this setup so useful. It might be possible to test various condensed matter theories, such as those that strive to explain high-temperature superconductivity, on a real physical system. (Kohl et al., Physical Review Letters, March 4; lab site, www.quantumoptics.ethz.ch ) |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: GUEST,Joe_F Date: 16 Mar 05 - 11:58 AM A doctor, a lawyer, and a physicist (all male) are having a drink, and the topic of conversation is: Is it better to have a wife, or a mistress? A wife, says the doctor: there are various diseases you are more likely to get from a mistress. A mistress, says the lawyer: then, if it doesn't work out, you are spared the agony of a divorce. A wife *and* a mistress, says the physicist: then, when your wife thinks you're with your mistress, and your mistress thinks you're with your wife, you can do *physics*. --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: An ill-defined boundary invites tactile exploration. :|| |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: JohnInKansas Date: 16 Mar 05 - 03:04 PM Amos said it, back at 21 Aug 04 - 12:04 PM "This is more like love than it is like gravity" Recognizing the gravity of the situation, the following has been proposed: Quoting: The following proposition to amend the constitution of the state of Kansas shall be submitted to the qualified electors of the state for their approval or rejection: Article 15 of the constitution of the state of Kansas is amended by adding a new section thereto to read as follows: ''§ 16. Entanglement. (a) The entanglement contract is to be considered in law as a civil contract. Entanglement shall be constituted by one male particle and one female particle only. All other entanglements are declared to be contrary to the public policy of this state and are void. ''(b) No relationship, other than an entanglement, shall be recognized by the state as entitling the particles to the rights or incidents of entanglement.'' Sec. 2. The following statement shall be printed on the ballot with the amendment as a whole: ''Explanatory statement. There is currently no constitutional provision regarding entanglement. There is a statute, enacted by the legislature, that defines entanglement as a civil contract between two particles who are of opposite sex and declares all other entanglements to be contrary to public policy and void. ''A vote for this proposition would amend the Kansas constitution to incorporate into it the definition of entanglement as a civil contract between one male particle and one female particle only and the declaration that any other entanglement is contrary to public policy and void. The proposed constitutional amendment also would prohibit the state from recognizing any other legal relationship that would entitle the particles in the relationship to the rights or incidents of entanglement. ''A vote against this proposition would not amend the constitution, in which case the current statute that defines entanglement would remain unchanged but could be amended by future acts of the legislature or modified by judicial interpretation.'' Endquote. Noted scientist Rev. Phelps has commented "We've got to stop these queer particles from entangling. I'd kill any queer particle that tried to entangle with me." The more moderate Rev. Wright asserts that this amendment will not infringe the rights of any particle, since "those queer particles can get a court order, or legislative relief, for any one of the 2,187 individual "implied rights of entanglement" enumerated in official US Census studies. All they've got to do is get a lawyer. But they'll all go to hell anyway." State Senator Phil Journey disagrees with Rev. Wright, and states "Entanglement must be protected." He objects that without the second (b) part, added by a late change, the amendment "doesn't stop gay and lesbian particles from drawing up legal agreements, such as wills and deeds." It appears to be his interpretation that queer particles should have, and with this amendment would have, no rights at all. A spot poll by one Kansas newspaper indicates that 74% of the people sureyed agree with the statement that "all of the letters in e n t a n g l e m e n t appear in the BIBLE, and so does the word ABOMINATION so it is our SACRED DUTY to shit on all these queer particles." Watch for further progress on this bill. Thanks Amos. You tipped them off. (At least one Kansas Representative is known to have "grave suspicions" about anything with double slits, and will be investigating soon.) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: What Do Physicists Think About?? IV From: Leadfingers Date: 16 Mar 05 - 04:41 PM Hey Ted !!I think I've just got a 100 !! |
