It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Scientists at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge have used light to help push electrons through a classically impenetrable barrier. While quantum tunnelling is at the heart of the peculiar wave nature of particles, this is the first time that it has been controlled by light. Their research is published today, 05 April, in the journal Science.
Particles cannot normally pass through walls, but if they are small enough quantum mechanics says that it can happen. This occurs during the production of radioactive decay and in many chemical reactions as well as in scanning tunnelling microscopes.
According to team leader, Professor Jeremy Baumberg, “the trick to telling electrons how to pass through walls, is to now marry them with light”.
This marriage is fated because the light is in the form of cavity photons, packets of light trapped to bounce back and forth between mirrors which sandwich the electrons oscillating through their wall.
Research scientist Peter Cristofolini added: “The offspring of this marriage are actually new indivisible particles, made of both light and matter, which disappear through the slab-like walls of semiconductor at will.”
One of the features of these new particles, which the team christened ‘dipolaritons’, is that they are stretched out in a specific direction rather like a bar magnet. And just like magnets, they feel extremely strong forces between each other.
Such strongly interacting particles are behind a whole slew of recent interest from semiconductor physicists who are trying to make condensates, the equivalent of superconductors and superfluids that travel without loss, in semiconductors.
Originally posted by Trublbrwing
You see, if these idiots keep toying with dark matter and searching for the mysterious "god particle" none of us are going to be here in 5 years, let alone 50.
Originally posted by dowot
Hey, a late April Fool?
Especially as the original refers to "The paper, ‘Controlling quantum tunnelling with light’ is scheduled to be published on Thursday, 05 April in the journal Science."
xenophilius.wordpress.com...
So predates the 4th.
Getting closer to April 1?
Hehe.?????
Originally posted by Trublbrwing
This quote from you really struck a cord with me.............
"I believe with with every fiber of my being, science is at LEAST 40 years more advance than what they're letting on. Which means, they're at minimum using technology that we'll have in the year 2050. Just THINK about that!"
You see, if these idiots keep toying with dark matter and searching for the mysterious "god particle" none of us are going to be here in 5 years, let alone 50.
Originally posted by cosmicexplorer
reply to post by Trublbrwing
Its really interesting actually because it is well known that the military's technology is about 50 years ahead of civilian technology. I can't say it is all perfected, but they have the funding. There are stories of the concept of cell phones during WWII (Mid 1940s) and the concept of the internet being used during the Vietnam War (Late 1960s). I should probably make a thread on military tech but im lazy lol......but something like this is no surprise at all...and honestly most military techs have an application that trickles down into the civilian world.
Originally posted by Trublbrwing
You see, if these idiots keep toying with dark matter and searching for the mysterious "god particle" none of us are going to be here in 5 years, let alone 50.
Originally posted by buddhasystem
reply to post by dowot
Not sure if you can read it from your location, but here is the actual link
Now, while quantum mechanics is a fascinating field (and devilishly complex most of the time), we are still talking about microscopic phenomena here. OK, the electrons effectively tunneled across a gap of a few nanometers. Remarkable but not some kind of revolution in physics or technology.
It's a great piece of work at any rate.
Originally posted by Human_Alien
Speaking of which this Italian scientist who works for CERN's counterpart in Italy, is stepping down from 'pressure' due to media interest?
Since when are scientists that sensitive?
I ain't buying that as the reason. Sounds too hokey.
Faster-than-light' neutrinos project coordinator resigns
By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScienceMon,
Apr 02 2012 at 2:19 PM ES
www.mnn.com...
Originally posted by dowot
As for understanding what is going on, I get the word "Wall" and "Light" but not much else. I bow to superior intelligences and return to the stone I was hiding under. Haha.
Its really interesting actually because it is well known that the military's technology is about 50 years ahead of civilian technology.
Originally posted by TrueBrit
reply to post by Trublbrwing
I am so glad that we have rational, clear headed and informed posts like these on the boards, really I am. Thrilled to bits. So refreshing to hear (yet another) unique opinion from someone who appears to believe we should have stayed in the trees hurling our scatalogical output at one another from the leafy fronds of our former homes. Also it is plesant to hear that there are some who would suggest that the greatest inventions, and discoveries made by man are mere meddling and nothing more.
Honestly, how do you get the effort together to put socks on in the morning?
The thing that has kept this species moving, living, advancing and progressing (wether you personally enjoy the progress or not) has been our inquisitive nature, our questing intent, to learn all that we can about the world around us, and the universe in a wider sense. We would not even be communicating now if people in the past had decided that the arcane arts of international telecoms were a heresy best left un-touched. What has happened to mankind in the last hundred years ought to be a testament and a memorial to all the masterful persons who had thier ideas crushed by ignorance. Like Tesla for instance.
Some however see the entire efforts of science as nothing more than risk taken heedlessly. Utterly contemptable attitude if you ask me.edit on 9-4-2012 by TrueBrit because: grammatical failiure
That's the short list Einstein. About the only invention that enriches the average person's life is the toilet, the rest is garbage we can all live pretty well without.
Originally posted by Trublbrwing
About the only invention that enriches the average person's life is the toilet, the rest is garbage we can all live pretty well without.