Exactly how and when the Saturn’s rings formed is an issue that has fascinated astronomers and planetary scientists for centuries.
The rings are made mostly of particles of water ice that range in size from smaller than a grain of sand to as large as mountains.
Continue reading “Origins of Saturn’s rings are uncovered thanks to NASA’s Cassini probe” »
As mysterious as the Italian scientist for which it is named, the Majorana particle is one of the most compelling quests in physics.
Its fame stems from its strange properties—it is the only particle that is its own antiparticle—and from its potential to be harnessed for future quantum computing.
In recent years, a handful of groups including a team at Princeton have reported finding the Majorana in various materials, but the challenge is how to manipulate it for quantum computation.
From the synapses that connect billions of neurons in the brain to the filaments of dark matter that link galactic superclusters, there’s a fractal reiteration across the magnitude of scales akin to the Mandelbrot fractal set. The mathematics behind the Mandelbrot set, which is derived from a very simple underlying formula, makes me think that its intricate fractal chaos and stunningly beautiful design can’t help but leave a feeling that there’s something larger than life going on here, that you are staring right at some ineffable cosmic mystery. https://www.ecstadelic.net/top-stories/ubiquity-of-patterns-in-nature #patterns #fractals #fractality #SyntellectHypothesis #FiveParadigms #MindsEvolution #FractalPatterns #EmergentPatterns #AsAboveSoBelow #UbiquitousPatterns #FractalGeometry #SacredGeometry #MandelbrotSet #MTheory #MultiFractality
In Nature, we find patterns, designs and structures from the most minuscule particles, to expressions of life discernible by human eyes, to the greater cosmos. These inevitably follow geometrical archetypes, platonic solids, some call it sacred geometry, which reveal to us the essence of each form and its vibrational resonances. They are also symbolic of the underlying holistic principle of inseparability of the part and the whole.
It is this principle of oneness underlying all geometry that permeates the architecture of all form in its myriad diversity. This principle of interconnectedness, inseparability and unity provides us with a continuous reminder of our relationship to the whole, a blueprint for the mind to contemplate the sacred foundation of all things created.
Continue reading “Ubiquitous Patterns: As Above, So Below | Video” »
A non-compact real form of the E8 Lie algebra has G2 and F4 subalgebras which break down to strong su, electroweak su x u, gravitational so(3,1), the frame-Higgs, and three generations of fermions related by triality. The interactions and dynamics of these 1-form and Grassmann valued parts of an E8 superconnection are described by the curvature and action over a four dimensional base manifold.
https://www.researchgate.net/…/2217412_An_Exceptionally_Sim…
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At the chemical level, diamonds are no more than carbon atoms aligned in a precise, three-dimensional (3D) crystal lattice. However, even a seemingly flawless diamond contains defects: spots in that lattice where a carbon atom is missing or has been replaced by something else. Some of these defects are highly desirable; they trap individual electrons that can absorb or emit light, causing the various colors found in diamond gemstones and, more importantly, creating a platform for diverse quantum technologies for advanced computing, secure communication and precision sensing.
Quantum technologies are based on units of quantum information known as “qubits.” The spin of electrons are prime candidates to serve as qubits; unlike binary computing systems where data takes the form of only 0s or 1s, electron spin can represent information as 0, 1, or both simultaneously in a quantum superposition. Qubits from diamonds are of particular interest to quantum scientists because their quantum-mechanical properties, including superposition, exist at room temperature, unlike many other potential quantum resources.
The practical challenge of collecting information from a single atom deep inside a crystal is a daunting one, however. Penn Engineers addressed this problem in a recent study in which they devised a way to pattern the surface of a diamond that makes it easier to collect light from the defects inside. Called a metalens, this surface structure contains nanoscale features that bend and focus the light emitted by the defects, despite being effectively flat.
Any day now, quantum computers will solve a problem too hard for a classical computer to take on. Or at least, that’s what we’ve been hoping. Scientists and companies are racing toward this computing milestone, dubbed quantum supremacy and seemingly just beyond our reach, and if you’ve been following the quantum computing story, you might wonder why we’re not there yet, given all the hype.
The short answer is that controlling the quantum properties of particles is hard. And even if we could use them to compute, “quantum supremacy” is a misleading term. The first quantum supremacy demonstration will almost certainly be a contrived problem that won’t have a practical or consumer use. Nonetheless, it’s a crucial milestone when it comes to benchmarking these devices and establishing what they can actually do. So what’s holding us back from the future?
A key obstacle to controlling on Earth the fusion that powers the sun and stars is leakage of energy and particles from plasma, the hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei that fuels fusion reactions. At the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), physicists have been focusing on validating computer simulations that forecast energy losses caused by turbulent transport during fusion experiments.
Researchers used codes developed at General Atomics (GA) in San Diego to compare theoretical predictions of electron and ion turbulent transport with findings of the first campaign of the laboratory’s compact—or “low-aspect ratio”—National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U). GA, which operates the DIII-D National Fusion Facility for the DOE, has developed codes well-suited for this purpose.
Low-aspect ratio tokamaks are shaped like cored apples, unlike the more widely used conventional tokamaks that are shaped like doughnuts.
Continue reading “Tracking major sources of energy loss in compact fusion facilities” »
The IceCube Laboratory at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, in Antarctica, hosts the computers that collect raw data from the sensors buried in the ice below.
Website of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, featuring news, galleries, and information about the mission of IceCube, the IceCube Collaboration, and IceCube’s scientific outcomes.
On March 14, 2012, MINERνA submitted a preprint demonstrating communication using neutrinos. Though not a part of the experiment’s physics program, this is the first reported instance of a message being transmitted by neutrinos. Scientists used ASCII code to represent the word “neutrino” as a series of 1s and 0s. Over a period of 6 minutes, this sequence was delivered by either the presence or absence of a neutrino pulse, over a distance of about a kilometer.
Underside of the front of the MINERνA neutrino detector in 2011. The names of experiment contributors are handwritten on the front of the detector. Main Injector Experiment for ƒË-A, or MINERνA, is a neutrino scattering experiment which uses the NuMI beamline at Fermilab. MINERνA seeks to measure low energy neutrino interactions both in support of neutrino oscillation experiments and also to study the strong dynamics of the nucleon and nucleus that affect these interactions.
Atomtronics manipulates atoms much in the way that electronics manipulates electrons. It carries the promise of highly compact quantum devices which can measure incredibly small forces or tiny rotations. Such devices might one day be used to monitor Earth’s status by sensing water levels in the desert or in the search for minerals and oil. They will also be used in navigation, when GPS fails on planes or ships due to malicious attacks or simply because it is not available, e.g. in the deep seas. They might also one day act as portable quantum simulators solving complex computational tasks.
Coherent atomtronics manipulates atoms in the form of matterwaves originating from Bose-Einstein condensates (a state of matter in which all the atoms lose their individual identity and become one single quantum state with all the atoms being everywhere in the condensate at the same time). The atoms in these matterwaves behave much more like waves rather than individual particles. These matterwaves can be brought to interfere and thus made to respond to the tiniest changes in their environment such as the difference in gravitational pull between light organic material and heavy iron ore. When compared to light, atoms can be 10 billion times more sensitive, e.g. to rotation or acceleration, when compared to the photons that make up light. This sensitivity depends on the measurement time and—just like Newton’s apple—atoms fall due to Earth’s gravity. This forces the most sensitive interferometers to be very tall, reaching 10 meters and in some cases even 100 meters.
