Category Archives: Quantum Physics

Most people hear this term tossed around sometime or the other. This post will cover the basic properties and essential things that one should know if they want to comprehend Quantum Mechanics.

The history of quantum mechanics is an important part of the history of modern physics. The term Quantum Mechanics was coined by a group of physicists including Max Born, Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg in the early 1920s at the University of Gttingen. Both matter and radiation have characteristics of waves and particles at the fundamental level. The gradual acknowledgment by scientists that matter has wave-like properties and radiation has particle-like properties provided the momentum for the development of quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that deals with the behavior of matter and light on a subatomic and atomic level. It attempts to explain the properties of atoms and molecules and their fundamental particles like protons, neutrons, electrons, gluons, and quarks. The properties of particles include their interactions with each other and with electromagnetic radiation. So below mentioned are those two pointers one should know necessarily before tackling quantum mechanics.

Following are the list of few formulas that are used in quantum mechanics:

Its extremely difficult to notice the quantum effects when large bodies come into play. All things obey the quantum mechanics laws. This was the reason why quantum physics was explored later in theoretical chemistry. Until the physicist had to find an explanation for the shells in which the electron sits around the nucleus they had no use for quantum mechanics.

Dismissing quantum mechanics as a thing of the past will be a mistake. Agreed that the theory was coined a century before but due to the lack of modern instruments research into it was at a primitive state. Quantum mechanics has been applied and accepted into many fields such as optics, computers, thermodynamics, cryptography, and also meteorology. Research in these fields is still active.

Things appear and disappear at random, but they dont just travel over stretches of space without going through all the things in between. In the hay-days of quantum mechanics, this confusion was a great one but now it has been proved that this theory fits in perfect compatibility with the theory of special relativity. This tells us that entanglement although a non-local phenomenon does not have any action.

Quantum mechanics was not denied as a theory by Einstein, although many people have the misconception. He could not have denied the theory as it was successful on such a large scale. What Einstein said was that the theory was incomplete and it was his belief that the random processes of quantum mechanics may have an explanation to them.

Macroscopic bodies lose their quantum behavior very fast. This was never well understood by the scientists of that time. This happens because of the regular interactions the body would have to endure. Quantum mechanics has been exceptionally successful in explaining microscopic phenomena in all branches of physics.

Stay tuned with BYJUS to learn more about quantum physics, and much more.

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What Is Quantum Mechanics, Formula, And Applications - BYJUS

It may be strange to have a cover revolving abyssfrom an Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli, View sentence courtesy of British writer Neil Gaiman. Perhaps what unites the works of the scientist and author of fiction is, in short, the attitude that calls into question our certainty about reality. Rovelli has already published other scholarly works in Brazil that question our notions of time, space, and existence, such as Seven short physics lessons, reality is not what it seems NS time order. In his new book, released by Objetiva, he delves into one of the most fascinating and misunderstood topics in modern science, quantum physics.

The lay public has ended up not knowing, for the past few decades, a blanket of mysticism, pseudoscience, and sorcery. There are therapists who claim to take advantage of quantum effects to treat other peoples problems, but it is rare that they know what quantum physics is and what its effects actually are. In times of obscurantism, scientific denial, and ignorance, books like Rovelli come at an opportune time.

Quantum physics studies puzzling little phenomena, such as the behavior of electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom. The motion of everyday objects such as a train has been satisfactorily described by classical mechanics that we inherited from Newton, but at the beginning of the 20th century physicists realized that their formulas did not apply to extreme scales such as fundamental particles. At this stage revolving abyss lies. More specifically on the German island of Helgoland, in the North Sea, mentioned by James Joyce in Ulysses His name means holy island. There Werner Heisenberg turned to start what we now call quantum physics.

Since science has been able to unravel this subatomic environment, some notions about reality that seemed so obvious have been called into question. For example, the electron did not move along a path, like a very small ball, but manifested itself in certain orbits of the atom and appeared to jump from one to the other without actually moving between points, obeying the rules of probabilistic, indeterminate paths. The challenge for quantum physics, in the past 100 years, has been to understand these phenomena. While the theory is incredibly accurate, and capable of making verifiable predictions more accurately than any other theory, Rovelli warns that it forces us to set aside some of our intuitive notions about the world we live in.

Even the word how much comes from a peculiar characteristic of reality. German physicist Max Planck noted that energy (as, for example, the heat of a furnace) does not increase assuming all possible values between them. Rovelli states that it behaves as if the energy were only transferred in bundles, assuming values multiples of the lower bound. There are no very tiny amounts of energy. Reality has a certain degree of accuracy, that is, energy takes on definite, definite, quantitative values that do not constantly evolve. Hence quantum, not some mystical characteristic that involves the power of the mind.

first part of revolving abyss He recounts the development of the study of these small phenomena, reviewing a star-studded crew of Nobel Prize winners such as Dane Niels Bohr, German Werner Heisenberg, and Austrian Erwin Schrdinger, among many others. The second part introduces the most disturbing concepts in quantum physics, such as superposition and entanglement, which have led to it being considered this mystic. In the third and final part, Rovelli offers some interpretations that are still under discussion and explains the basis for his hypothesis, formulated in the 1990s, relational quantum physics.

It attempts to remove some apparent contradictions in quantum theory through an interpretive approach that takes into account the relationship between the observer and the system it describes. For him, the properties of the object are relatively expressive. For example, it makes no sense to measure the speed of an aircraft without specifying what (on the ground, in the air in motion?) Likewise, quantum effects such as superposition and particle entanglement will depend on this relationship with a reference point (or observer) to be measured.

In the second century, the Indian sage Nagarjuna developed a philosophy of emptiness whose central thesis is, very briefly, that nothing exists in itself independently of other things, but that everything that exists does so in relation to something. Rovelli offers this and many other scientific references, from cubism to Shakespeares Storm, to explain how he sees the dilemmas posed by quantum physics, such as the idea that an observer changes the results of an experiment, or that a hypothetical cat can take on two simultaneous states and be alive and dead at the same time .

Quantum theory explained the foundations of chemistry, the workings of atoms, solid matter, plasma, the color of the sky, the neurons in our brain, the dynamics of stars, the origin of galaxies many aspects of the world. The basis of the latest technology: from computers to nuclear power plants, it is part From the daily lives of engineers, astrophysicists, cosmologists, chemists, and biologists. Theoretical principles are in high school curricula. They are the beating heart of todays science. It remains an enigma. A bit disturbing, writes Rovelo, who elegantly leads the reader through the intricacies of the most intricate theory I have envisioned mankind at all, which still haunts us with its incomprehensible secrets.

Read below the interview by Carlo Rovelli condition By email:

The beginning of the twentieth century gave us Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schudinger, who revolutionized our understanding of reality. Today, there appear not to be individual names as notable groups, but rather anonymous groups of researchers in universities and laboratories. as mr. look at this?

The difference is just a matter of perspective. In the early twentieth century, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg and Schrdinger were still not recognized. They looked like anonymous researchers in universities and laboratories. It is possible today that some of these anonymous researchers will be celebrated in the future.

What is the state of the art theoretical physics and what are the latest discoveries as influential as those you recorded in your book, created a century ago?

There are tentative ideas and theories, such as quantum theory and general relativity that were tentative in the beginning. We still dont know which one will prove correct. For my part, I hope the in-loop quantum gravity is correct. It has not yet been confirmed, but there is a mob to find evidence to support it. Loop Quantum Gravitation predicts that space is granular. You expect the geometry of spacetime to be in quantum interference. This changes our view of the world profoundly.

His book Relational Quantum Physics offers explanations for such exuberant phenomena as particle entanglement, Schrdingers cat, Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle, the idea of an observers interference in experiment, and surprisingly simple and elegant explanations when Mr. He describes it in the book. It seems to eliminate most quantum paradoxes and ambiguities.

fact. But that doesnt make quantum theory any less exotic. The conceptual change it requires is still significant.

How successful is relational quantum physics today and what are the biggest criticisms of it?

Scientists and philosophers remain divided over how to think about quantum phenomena. Relational quantum physics arose in the 1990s, and for a long time remained a minority view. In the past decade, and especially in recent years, it has received more attention. Many people find it attractive. But I certainly wouldnt say its the dominant view. There is still no prevailing view.

How close are we to unifying quantum theories and relativity?

Its an excellent question, but no one knows the answer. We may have already done so: toroidal quantum gravity could be this unification. But it may also be wrong. We have to wait, meditate, experiment, and find out.

the master. Do you think we will reach a point in our scientific knowledge where there are no more new questions to solve or where our ability to discover new things is stagnant?

No, I think the number of open questions is still huge. Theres a lot we dont know about reality It seems humanity is more likely to destroy itself than to reach the limits of its knowledge.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the importance of scientific dissemination and communication to explain science to the general public. But we still have a lot of work to do in this area. as mr. Do you think it is possible to improve the dissemination of science to the public?

I had hoped that the extraordinary efficacy we see with vaccines would increase peoples confidence in scientific thinking. Unfortunately, this does not happen: many naive people are deceived by the nonsense that floods the Internet. But I dont think this has anything to do with science. Its about politics, peoples unhappiness, mistrust of society, and feelings that this society doesnt represent us. Science ends up getting caught in this crossfire.

There is a growing gap between the exact sciences and the humanities, but his book provides a thought-provoking example of Ernst Mach, who linked physics with philosophy, politics, and literature. How can we bring these worlds together today?

to be smarter We see that there are no real contradictions if we listen more carefully to each other.

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Carlo Rovelli: "I was hoping that vaccines would increase people's confidence in science" - by the way - Lodi Valley News.com

Mysterious forces may be a reliable trope in science fiction, but in reality, physicists have long agreed that all interactions between objects evidently arise from just four fundamental forces. Yet that has not stopped them from ardently searching for an additional, as-yet-unknown fifth fundamental force. The discovery of such a force could potentially resolve some of the biggest open questions in physics today, from the nature of dark energy to the seemingly irreconcilable differences between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Now, a recent experiment carried out at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is offering fresh hints about a fifth forces possible character. An international collaboration of researchers used neutrons and a silicon crystal to set new limits on the strength of a potential fifth fundamental force at atomic scales. Published in Science in September, the study also includes measurements of the precise structure of both silicon crystals and neutrons themselves.

This work of fifth force searches actually goes on over the entire length scale of human observation, says NIST physicist Benjamin Heacock, the studys lead author. Because different theories predict different fifth force properties, he says, physicists have looked for its subtle effects in everything from surveys of astronomical objects like galaxies to the miniscule motions of custom-built microscopic instruments. So far, however, all searches have come up empty.

Theres a reason to think we're missing something, notes Eric Adelberger, a physicist at the University of Washington who was not involved with the study. His own team has previously looked for some of the proposed new forces and, with great experimental certainty, found nothing at all. In work recognized in 2021 with a Breakthrough Prize, they concluded that the fifth force must be much weaker than some theories predicted, or that it simply does not exist. The NIST experiment follows a similar idea but uses a novel experimental technique. The goal from the experimentalist perspective is to make strides forward in limiting [the strength of] new forces, wherever the experiment can do it, and for us that happens to be on the atomic scale, Heacock says.

Gauging relevant interactions at such scales is uniquely challenging, according to Adelberger, in part because in the atomic realm a typical object is about a million times smaller than the width of an average human hair. You have to ask, how much matter can you get within a little volume associated with that length scale? It's absolutely tiny, he says. And even the barest influence from other, known forces such as electromagnetism can easily scuttle the delicate measurements. To solve that problem, the NIST team relied on neutrons, the neutrally charged subatomic particles usually found in atomic nuclei, as neutrons are barely swayed by electromagnetic effects.

Further, the even smaller particles that make up neutrons, called quarks, are glued together so intensely by the strong interaction (one of the four known fundamental forces) that it is exceedingly difficult to physically disturb them. The strong interaction that holds quarks together in a neutron is insanely strong, so the neutron gets almost no distortion when it gets close to [other] matter, explains W. Michael Snow, a physicist at Indiana University who was also uninvolved with the new experiment. Studying the behavior of neutrons is consequently well-suited for seeking out new forces because there are not many easily measurable effects influencing these subatomic particles to begin with. One of the new studys co-authors, Albert Young, a physicist at North Carolina State University, puts it simply: At present, at our [atomic] length scale, neutrons kind of rule.

In their experiment, researchers observed neutrons that had traveled through a specially machined, nearly perfect silicon crystal made by collaborators at the RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics in Japan. Silicon is a common material, but precision machining of silicon is a super difficult thing, underlines Michael Huber, a NIST physicist and another of the studys co-authors. Inside this perfect crystalshielded from light, heat, vibrations and other sources of external noise thanks to special NIST facilitiessilicon atoms are arranged in predictable grid-like patterns.

Neutrons traveling through that grid collided with some silicon atoms and evaded others. However, as the neutrons journey took place at the atomic scale where laws of quantum mechanics dictate that all particles behave like waves, their collisions with silicon atoms were similar to breakers crashing into a shore dotted with large, evenly spaced rocks. When a neutron bumped into a silicon atom then, this interaction created something like a neutron wave ripple. This ripple overlapped with other neutron wave ripples originating near adjacent silicon atoms, resulting in a wave interference pattern not unlike rough, choppy water along a rocky coast.

Most crucially, through clever experimental design, the researchers ensured that some of the neutron waves lapping on the silicon atom shores overlapped in a very specific way that resulted in so-called Pendellsung oscillations. These oscillations are roughly analogous to beats, and are best thought of as pulsing, alternating low-then-loud auditory effects that happen when two nearly identical sound waves are played simultaneously. In the case of this new experiment, they are akin to a distinctive but difficult to detect ripple pattern within the neutron waves breaking along the silicon seashore. Although Pendellsung interference was discovered and demonstrated a long time ago, in the 1960s at MIT, it's rarely used and most experiments are not sensitive to it, Huber explains.

His team carefully analyzed these special ripples, looking for key details about the silicon rocks and the neutron waves that crashed into them. It was as if they could tell how much water each wave carried, whether any rocks moved in the collision and more. Importantly, had an atomic-scale fifth-force interaction been at play, the details of the neutron wave interference pattern would have revealed its presence, much like how ripples in surf can follow the outline of a submerged sea wall. Although the researchers found no signs of a fifth force, they did determine a new limit, 10 times stricter than before, on how strong such a force could be.

The NIST team believes that their innovative experimental setup will allow them to make even more precise measurements in the future. They already managed, for instance, to infer details of the arrangement of quarks inside a neutron, as well as some precise motions of silicon atoms, which could prove useful for the manufacture of fine-tuned electronics. However, their quest to constrain the strength of the fifth force, a task they accomplish by combining multiple separate neutron-property measurements under certain assumptions, remains the most promising and the most difficult part of their work. We can keep and should keep searching [for the fifth force], says Yoshio Kamiya, a physicist at Tokyo University who was uninvolved with the new study. This is just one step.

Adelberger agrees, and he is eager see new results from the next phase of experimentation. There's a lot of stuff that has to go into getting this kind of a result, he says. Its a tiny effect, and researchers have to keep accounting for all other tiny effects. Both Kamiya and Adelberger think that there is room for debate on how strongly the new work should make physicists reconsider their theories about the strength of a possible fifth force. Based on the current study, Adelberger says, too many potential sources of error remain; even if the NIST team had found positive evidence of a new force, he says, it could not be considered truly definitive.

Heacock notes that his team already has ideas for advancing their work, for instance by using germanium crystals instead of silicon, in which atoms are arranged in different structures that could be even more advantageous for precise observations of neutron interference. Another goal is to seriously expand the available catalog of precise atomic scale measurements for any and all fifth forcehunting physicists to consult in their own independent work. Ideally, Heacock notes, the measurements in the new study are just a first few opening the door for the dozens more to come. I think any experiment will eventually hit a wall, but I also think we're pretty far from it, he says.

Read more:

New Universal Force Tested by Blasting Neutrons through Crystal - Scientific American

Scientists just broke the record for the coldest temperature ever measured in a lab: They achieved the bone-chilling temperature of 38 trillionths of a degree above -273.15 Celsius by dropping magnetized gas 393 feet (120 meters) down a tower.

The team of German researchers was investigating the quantum properties of a so-called fifth state of matter: Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a derivative of gas that exists only under ultra-cold conditions. While in the BEC phase, matter itself begins to behave like one large atom, making it an especially appealing subject for quantum physicists who are interested in the mechanics of subatomic particles.

Related: 10 science records broken in 2020

Temperature is a measure of molecular vibration the more a collection of molecules moves, the higher the collective temperature. Absolute zero, then, is the point at which all molecular motion stops minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 degrees C. Scientists have even developed a special scale for extremely cold temperatures, called the Kelvin scale, where zero Kelvin corresponds to absolute zero.

Near absolute zero, some weird things start to happen. For example, light becomes a liquid that can literally be poured into a container, according to research published in 2017 in the journal Nature Physics. Supercooled helium stops experiencing friction at very low temperatures, according to a study published in 2017 in the journal Nature Communications. And in NASA's Cold Atom Lab, researchers have even witnessed atoms existing in two places at once.

In this record-breaking experiment, scientists trapped a cloud of around 100,000 gaseous rubidium atoms in a magnetic field inside a vacuum chamber. Then, they cooled the chamber way down, to around 2 billionths of a degree Celsius above absolute zero, which would have been a world record in itself, according to NewAtlas.

But this wasn't quite frigid enough for the researchers, who wanted to push the limits of physics; to get even colder, they needed to mimic deep-space conditions. So the team took their setup to the European Space Agency's Bremen drop tower, a microgravity research center at the University of Bremen in Germany. By dropping the vacuum chamber into a free fall while switching the magnetic field on and off rapidly, allowing the BEC to float uninhibited by gravity, they slowed the rubidium atoms' molecular motion to almost nothing. The resulting BEC stayed at 38 picokelvins - 38 trillionths of a Kelvin - for about 2 seconds, setting "an absolute minus record", the team reported Aug. 30 in the journal Physical Review Letters. The previous record of 36 millionths of a Kelvin, was achieved by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado with specialized lasers.

The coldest known natural place in the universe is the Boomerang Nebula, which lies in the Centaurus constellation, about 5,000 light years from Earth. Its average temperature is -272 C (about 1 Kelvin) according to the European Space Agency. ]

The researchers of the new study said in a statement that, theoretically, they could sustain this temperature for as long as 17 seconds under truly weightless conditions, like in space. Ultra cold temperatures may one day help scientists build better quantum computers, according to researchers at MIT.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Scientists just broke the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in a lab - Livescience.com

American physicists Richard Feynman and Yang Chen Ning, circa 1950s.

Quantum particles exist and don't exist. Space is likely a moldable fabric. Dark matter is invisible, yet it binds the entire universe. And our universe, created from an explosion 13.8 billion years ago, is infinitely expanding into something. Or, maybe nothing.

Unless you're a trained physicist, at least one of those statements probably hurts your brain.

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We experience a sort of cognitive dissonance when attempting to comprehend the vastness of such unimaginable, complex concepts. But theoretical physicists think about, and even conjure, these ideas all day, every day.

How do they do it?

According to new research, published Monday in the journal npj Science of Learning, physicists' brains grapple with counterintuitive theories by automatically categorizing things as either "measurable" or "immeasurable."

"Most of the things we encounter every day, like a rock, a lake, a flower, you can say, 'Well it's about the size of my fist... but the concepts that physicists think about don't have that property," said Marcel Just, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University and first author of the study.

To study exactly how physicists' brains work, Just and fellow researchers gave 10 Carnegie Mellon physics faculty members -- with differing specialties and language backgrounds -- a ledger of physics concepts. Then, they used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans to examine the subjects' brain activity as the individuals went down the list.

In contrast to normal MRIs, which help with anatomical studies, functional MRIs can detect brain activity based on fluctuations in blood flow, glucose and oxygen.

Turns out, each physicist's brain organizes concepts within the field into two groups. The researchers were just left to figure out how to label each group.

"I looked at the list, and said well, 'What do concepts like potential energy, torque, acceleration, wavelength, frequency ... have in common? At the other end of the same scale, there are things like dark matter; duality; cosmology; multiverse," explained co-author Reinhard A. Schumacher, a particle physicist at Carnegie Mellon University.

The average person might lump Schumacher's descriptions on the latter end of the spectrum as mind-bending and inexplicable, but the most important connecting factor, he realized, is that they're immeasurable.

In the brain scans, these concepts didn't indicate activity of what he calls "extent," loosely referring to placing tangible restrictions on something.

Physicists' brains, the team concluded, automatically discern between abstract items, like quantum physics, and comprehensible, measurable items like velocity and frequency.

Basically, the stuff that provokes a sense of perplexity in us non-physicists doesn't elicit thoughts of "extent" for them. That's probably why they can think about those things with relative ease, whereas we begin worrying about scale.

Speaking from experience, Schumacher says considering abstract physics ideas as a student can be very different from conceiving them as a longtime physicist.

"I think there's a sense that as physicists grow older, the concepts kind of crystallize in the mind, and you end up using them in a more efficient way," Schumacher said.

"The more you use these ideas, the more they become like old friends."

The brain scans also support that assertion. Not only did the team test faculty brain activity, they also looked at physics students' brains.

"In the old physicists who have been doing it for years," Schumacher said, "it's like the brain is more efficient. It doesn't have to light up as much, because you're going right for the thing right away."

Additionally, Just noted the professors "had more right hemisphere activation, suggesting that they had a greater number of sort of distantly associated concepts."

While a physics student might relate velocity to acceleration, it seems the professors were relating velocity to much more niche subjects activated by remote locations of the brain. Velocity of the universe's expansion, perhaps?

Just emphasizes how evolution of the brain to accommodate new, abstract ideas happens to all of us. Perhaps only theoretical physicists can easily comprehend duality or a multiverse, but people working in other fields, of course, ponder complex ideas of their own.

Chemists, for instance, have to visualize unseen orbital structures of atoms and bond configurations only drawn in textbooks. And the general public, over time, has adapted to inventions like iPhones and the cloud. Think about it. We can comprehend the cloud, which is pretty bizarre.

Imagine traveling back in time to the 1700s and explaining to someone the workings of an invisible data storage mine. They'd probably feel the way we do when we picture the quantum domain -- we'd be the "physicists" to them.

"We have this understanding now," explained Schumacher. "Even if you develop some new scientific concept, we can more or less predict what the brain is going to do with it."

For instance, during the exercise, when asked to think about oscillations, Just said some subject's brains activated sections relating to rhythmic activity. The organ had basically repurposed areas used in ancient times for general rhythms, like maybe music, to allow for modern physics concepts.

"The idea of sine waves is just a couple hundred years old," Just said. "But people have been looking at ripples on a pond forever."

Just also suggests it could become possible to actively help the brain repurpose itself, harnessing its ability to adapt. If we allow children to expand their minds through education by introducing abstract concepts sooner and more rigorously, he says, maybe one day they can readily imagine things the way scientists do.

Even further down the road, he says the findings could inform studies of mental health -- how does the brain's organizational and adaptation capabilities operate while in distress?

"I think it's the most fascinating question in the world," Just remarked. "'What is the essence of human brains? How can we make them healthier; think better?"

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Dark matter and the multiverse help scientists decode mysteries of the brain - CNET

This spring, at a meeting of Syracuse Universitys quark physics group, Ivan Polyakov announced that he had uncovered the fingerprints of a semi-mythical particle.

We said, This is impossible. What mistake are you making? recalled Sheldon Stone, the groups leader.

Polyakov went away and double-checked his analysis of data from the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment the Syracuse group is part of. The evidence held. It showed that a particular set of four fundamental particles called quarks can form a tight clique, contrary to the belief of most theorists. The LHCb collaboration reported the discovery of the composite particle, dubbed the double-charm tetraquark, at a conference in July and in two papers posted earlier this month that are now undergoing peer review.

The unexpected discovery of the double-charm tetraquark highlights an uncomfortable truth. While physicists know the exact equation that defines the strong forcethe fundamental force that binds quarks together to make the protons and neutrons in the hearts of atoms, as well as other composite particles like tetraquarksthey can rarely solve this strange, endlessly iterative equation, so they struggle to predict the strong forces effects.

The tetraquark now presents theorists with a solid target against which to test their mathematical machinery for approximating the strong force. Honing their approximations represents physicists main hope for understanding how quarks behave inside and outside atomsand for teasing apart the effects of quarks from subtle signs of new fundamental particles that physicists are pursuing.

Quark Cartoon

The bizarre thing about quarks is that physicists can approach them at two levels of complexity. In the 1960s, grappling with a zoo of newly discovered composite particles, they developed the cartoonish quark model, which simply says that quarks glom together in complementary sets of three to make the proton, the neutron, and other baryons, while pairs of quarks make up various types of meson particles.

Gradually, a deeper theory known as quantum chromodynamics (QCD) emerged. It painted the proton as a seething mass of quarks roped together by tangled strings of gluon particles, the carriers of the strong force. Experiments have confirmed many aspects of QCD, but no known mathematical techniques can systematically unravel the theorys central equation.

Somehow, the quark model can stand in for the far more complicated truth, at least when it comes to the menagerie of baryons and mesons discovered in the 20th century. But the model failed to anticipate the fleeting tetraquarks and five-quark pentaquarks that started showing up in the 2000s. These exotic particles surely stem from QCD, but for nearly 20 years, theorists have been stumped as to how.

We just dont know the pattern yet, which is embarrassing, said Eric Braaten, a particle theorist at Ohio State University.

The newest tetraquark sharpens the mystery.

It showed up in the debris of roughly 200 collisions at the LHCb experiment, where protons smash into each other 40 million times each second, giving quarks uncountable opportunities to cavort in all the ways nature permits. Quarks come in six flavors of masses, with heavier quarks appearing more rarely. Each of those 200-odd collisions generated enough energy to make two charm-flavored quarks, which weigh more than the lightweight quarks that comprise protons but less than the gigantic beauty quarks that are LHCbs main quarry. The middleweight charm quarks also got close enough to attract each other and rope in two lightweight antiquarks. Polyakovs analysis suggested that the four quarks banded together for a glorious 12 sextillionths of a second before an energy fluctuation conjured up two extra quarks and the group disintegrated into three mesons.

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'Impossible' Particle Adds a Piece to the Strong Force Puzzle - WIRED

Her 'quantum immortality' theory is that we never really die and that we just wake up in a parallel universe whenever you pass on in another - her theories left TikTok followers uneasy

It remains the biggest mystery of life - and when people start sharing their theories on what happens after death, things can get creepy.

TikTok user @joli.artist has left her followers spooked after a recent video she uploaded titled apocalypse...again.

Often known to discuss macabre stuff, Jolis content focuses on things like conspiracy theories and quantum physics.

In her video, she talks about the quantum immortality theory which is American physicist Hugh Everetts many-worlds interpretation.

She goes on to explain the theory that states nobody ever actually dies and that consciousness never experiences death.

Instead, whenever you die in one universe your consciousness just gets transferred into another universe where you survive.

So, for those who may be excited or intrigued about the concept of an apocalypse, sadly, if Everett is correct, youre just going to wake up somewhere else.

She continued: "So after the inevitable apocalypse occurs, you're going to wake up the next day in a new reality, and the next thing you know, you're going to find yourself on Reddit talking about 'since when did Pizza Hut have two Ts?!'

Arguing with people who are native of this new reality, talking about 'it's always had two Ts?'"

This is in reference to the many discussions on internet forums surrounding the Mandela Effect.

For those unaware of the phenomenon, it's when an individual (or, in many cases, a group of people) believe a distorted memory. Common examples are that the Monopoly man wore a monocle or that Curious George had a tail.

It is actually called the Mandela Effect because so many people believe Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 80s when he actually died in 2013.

Joli is implying that in our reality, apocalypses happen every day, which left many users feeling uneasy to say the least.

She continued: You dont believe me? Okay, its been about 65 million years since the asteroids allegedly took out the dinosaurs.

So you mean to tell me that in the last 65 million years, no other asteroids have come through the neighbourhood and taken us out?

"What I'm saying is that Earth is probably always being taken out, and our consciousness just keeps transferred to another parallel universe - and then another one, and another one.

"For all you know the apocalypse probably already happened last night..."

The video so far has got 972 thousand likes, with plenty of uncomfortable comments.

One TikTok user said: The thought of never being able to actually die is extremely depressing and giving me a headache.

Another user said: Youre over here talking about extinction level events and Im having to check on the two Ts in Pizza Hut.

Many users were quick to point out a glitch in the video, and when they watched it a second time, the glitch disappeared. Spooky stuff.

Read more from the original source:

Woman's 'quantum immortality' theory that 'we never really die' freaks out TikTok users - The Mirror

iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-

The Breakthrough Prize Foundation has awarded two eminent Indian American professors with the prestigious New Horizons in Physics Prize.

The New Horizons in Physics Prize is awarded to promising junior researchers who have already produced important work, the prize money for the award is of $100,000. Each year, up to three New Horizons in Physics Prizes are awarded.

The prize is nicknamed the Oscars of Science.

Vedika Khemani, assistant professor of physics at Stanford University, and California Institute of Technology Astronomy Professor, Mansi Kasliwal have each been named recipients of the New Horizons in Physics Prize for the year 2022.

Along with these two, another Indian researcher (and two others) from the University of Cambridge in England was also a recipient of this years prize.

Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, along with David Klenerman and Pascal Mayer in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, was honored with the Life Sciences prize for developing next-generation sequencing technologies.

His research allowed for immediate identification and characterization of the Covid-19 virus, rapid development of vaccines, and real-time monitoring of new genetic variants.

Though the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna relied on decades of work by Katalin Karik and Drew Weissman, the almost immediate identification and characterization of the virus, rapid development of vaccines, and real-time monitoring of new genetic variants would have been impossible without the next-generation sequencing technologies invented by Shankar Balasubramanian, David Klenerman and Pascal Mayer, the press release said.

Before their inventions, re-sequencing a full human genome could take many months and cost millions of dollars; today, it can be done within a day at the cost of around $600, states the press release.

Khemanis work offered a theoretical formulation for the first-time crystals, as well as a blueprint for their experimental creation. But she emphasized that time crystals are only one of the exciting potential outcomes of out-of-equilibrium quantum physics, which is still a nascent field, noted Stanford. The researcher described her work as creating a checklist of what actually makes a time crystal a time crystal, and the measurements needed to experimentally establish its existence, both under ideal and realistic conditions.

In the category 2022 New Horizons in Physics Prize, the scientists of Indian origin include Suchitra Sebastian, University of Cambridge, For high precision electronic and magnetic measurements that have profoundly changed our understanding of high-temperature superconductors and unconventional insulators.

Beyond the main prizes, six New Horizons Prizes, each of $100,000, were distributed between 13 early-career scientists and mathematicians who have already made a substantial impact on their fields. In addition, three Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prizes were awarded to early-career women mathematicians.

Some of the top sponsors for this prize are Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google; Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan; Russian-Israeli entrepreneurs and venture capitalists Yuri and Julia Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, CEO of the personal genomics company 23andMe.

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Oscars of Science Prize in Physics awarded to 4 Indian-origin researchers - indica News

Scientists in TU Wien in Vienna used a special manufacturing process to bond pure germanium with aluminum that created atomically sharp interfaces, making it suitable for complex applications in quantum technology.

Phys.orgreported that it resulted in a novel nanostructure called monolithic metal-semiconductor-metal heterostructure. It demonstrates that aluminum becomes superconducting and transfers that property to the adjacent semiconductor to control electric fields, processing quantum bits. Researchers noted that one of the advantages of using this approach is enabling germanium-based quantum electronics.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)The large series array of Josephson junctions is arranged in a meander. Generation of ultrapure arbitrary waveforms with quantum precision.

Quantum technology is an emerging field of physics and engineering. Quantum technology expert Paul Martin definesquantum technology as a class of technology that uses the principles of quantum mechanics or the physics of sub-atomic particles, such as quantum entanglement and quantum superposition.

Humans use quantum technology in nuclear power and smartphones, using semiconductors that employ quantum physics to function. It also promises more reliable navigation and timing systems, secure communications, more accurate healthcare imaging, and more powerful computing.

In a paperpublished in 2020 in the journal Nature Reviews Materials, researchers said that geranium is an emerging versatile material to develop quantum technologies capable of encoding, processing, and transmitting quantum information. They argue that germanium-based systems could be the key building blocks for quantum technology because of their strong spin-orbit coupling and ability to host superconducting correlations.

But Dr. Masiar Sistani from the Institute for Solid State Electronics at TU Wien said it is extremely difficult to produce high-quality electrical contacts when germanium is turned into a nanoscale. So, they looked for a way to manufacture them that would result in a faster and more energy-efficient nanostructure.

ALSO READ: First Simulation of Quantum Devices in Classical Computer Hardware a Success; New Algorithm Could Setup Defining Benchmarks

In the study, titled "Al-Ge-Al Nanowire Heterostructure: From Single-Hole Quantum Dot to Josephson Effect," published in Advanced Materials, researchers found that temperature plays a key role in achieving their goal.

When the nanometer-size germanium and aluminum are brought into contact and heated, their atoms begin to diffuse into neighboring materials in which atoms of germanium move to aluminum and vice versa, Phys.org reported. When they raised the temperature to 350 degrees Celsius, germanium atoms diffused off the edge of the nanowire, creating empty spaces where aluminum could penetrate.

This special manufacturing process forms a perfect single crystal wherein aluminum atoms are arranged in a uniform pattern, as seen under the transmission electron microscope. Not a single atom is disordered in contrast to conventional methods where electrical contacts are applied to a semiconductor.

Researchers were able to show that this monolithic metal-semiconductor heterostructure of germanium and aluminum demonstrates superconductivity in pure germanium for the first time.

More so, Dr. Masiar Sistani said that it shows that this nanostructure can be switched into different operating states using electrical fields, which means the germanium quantum dot can be superconducting and insulating such as the Josephson transistor.

This novel nanostructure combines various advantages for quantum technology, such as high carrier mobility, excellent manipulability, and it fits well with established microelectronics technologies.

RELATED ARTICLE: Direct Communication Network Developed, Secure and Fast Data Transmission in 15 Users Possible with Quantum Technology

Check out more news and information on Quantum Physics in Science Times.

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Novel Electronic Component Made of Germanium Bonded With Aluminum Could Be the Key to Quantum Technology - Science Times

Developer Philipp Stollenmayer has created numerous games that sit on my personal all-time favorites list. From Sometimes You Die, to See/Saw, to Song of Bloom, and yes, even Pancake The Game. So when we learned last month that wed be getting a new Philipp Stollenmayer game called Kitty Q, and that it was going to be entirely free, well I couldnt wait to get my hands on it. That moment came when Kitty Q released this week and, just as I suspected, this is another winner from Philipp Stollenmayer.

Kitty Q is a cute escape room style game based on the Schrdingers cat thought experiment from Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrdinger. Basically, if a cat is enclosed in a box with a deadly device that relies on randomness to trigger and kill the kitty, then there comes a point where the cat can both be alive and dead simultaneously under certain interpretations of quantum mechanics. Schrdingers point was that once you open the box and look inside, the cat is either alive or dead, but not both, and so at some point quantum superposition is overwritten by the reality you observe. Or something? Im not smart.

Anyway, all this means for Kitty Q is that youll be solving a number of puzzles from within that very box where Schrdingers cat is living. A very spacious multi-room box, I should add. These puzzles are not only fun to try and figure out, but they will also teach you a number of real-life principles of quantum physics. Yes, you will learn actual science stuff while playing Kitty Q. Youll also find tons of hidden accessories to customize your kitty with, and then you can take a selfie with kitty using your devices camera. So dont worry, its not all learning!

Like I mentioned though, despite its edu-tainment factor, Kitty Q is an enjoyable puzzler on its own, and because its technically a learning tool thats why its completely free with no ads or IAP in sight. This is due to funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and a collaboration between Stollenmayer and the ct.qmat Cluster of Excellence who are a team of outstanding scientists who explore new challenges and unsolved puzzles" in a particular field. In ct.qmats case that means quantum physics. So stop reading me just talking about it and go play with this half-dead kitty for yourself, its free people!

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Game of the Week: 'Kitty Q' TouchArcade - Touch Arcade