Scientists Create Never-Before-Seen Form of Matter

This article is very misleading imo. First of all lets look at what they actually did in the experiment:

Researchers began by pumped rubidium atoms into a vacuum chamber, then used lasers to cool the cloud of atoms to just a few degrees above absolute zero. Using extremely weak laser pulses, they then fired single photons into the cloud of atoms.

As the photons enter the cloud of cold atoms, Lukin said, its energy excites atoms along its path, causing the photon to slow dramatically. As the photon moves through the cloud, that energy is handed off from atom to atom, and eventually exits the cloud with the photon.

When Lukin and colleagues fired two photons into the cloud, they were surprised to see them exit together, as a single molecule.

So it's important to note that they didn't directly force the photons to combine into some other type of molecule. They fired the photons into a chilled cloud of atoms and the photons were passed off between the atoms. I assume that means that the photon was being absorbed and emitted by the electrons around the atoms... so my question would be: how the hell can an electron create a type of molecule which has mass?

And what the hell makes it a new form of matter exactly? Is it some weird type of isotope we've never seen before? Is it some type of high element on the periodic table which we haven't produced before? The most likely answer is that it isn't a type of new molecule. In fact it's extremely probable that the particle emitted was simply a photon which held the energy of both original photons and they are spinning it up to sound amazing.

If that is in fact what the article is talking about, they haven't discovered anything new, they've merely shown that an electron can absorb multiple photons and then emit a single photon with the energy of both the original photons, and any damn physicist could tell you that is allowed to happen. Some one please prove me wrong, but I doubt that is going to happen, I have a feeling that I'm completely correct about my suspicions.

Biigs
This could mean all kinda of crazy possibilitys.

Do the molecules ACTUALLY have no mass? Because last time i checked the photon carries some sort of kinetic property for solar sails to work (which NASA tested and they do)

Could this be something that could be collected, fabricated and then ejected for thrust in space!?

EDIT: even more than thta, can these be bind to another other atoms to make 'light' molecules?

edit on 25-9-2013 by Biigs because: (no reason given)

O.k. the science of photonic mass...

Depending on your view point on the standard model... one thing that 99% of physicist agree upon is the difference between rest mass and relativistic mass.

Let me explain...

Rest Mass is the total mass that an object has when motionless and is the value used in calculating gravitation and energy requirements for movement.

Relativistic Mass is the mass equivalent of the energy in a moving object. So in the example of a photon, it has no rest mass as it is a form of energy and although a quanta of Light (photon) can be thought of as a particle it is in fact a frequency of the electro-magnetic spectrum.

If you imagine a giant mirror in space, and shone a torch onto the mirror, the light bouncing off this mirror, lowers the light's energy state (frequency) and this energy is converted into kinetic momentum in the opposite direction to the lights bounced trajectory. The mirror would begin to move away from the torch...

The rate at which this happens does not effect the actual relativistic mass of light... The higher the frequency of the light the more relativistic mass it has, Ultra Violet has more relativistic mass than say infra-red.

So.... in answer to the question would some weird construct made out of quanta of light contain any mass... absolutely it would... but only in the interaction with matter could this mass be exploited in some way.

The most useful this would be to us at the moment is in taking advantage of the possible computational advances that could come form vastly increasing say the qbit count in a quantum computer, or speeding up data networking by a factor of 1000's depending on how complex and stable these proto energy molecules are.

I hope this isn't just another wasted gobledy goop post and someone out there or in here actually can understand what I am saying this time......

Peace,

Korg.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


Am I the only one who can't see the advantage of a light sabre over a gun? In a fight against a guy with a light sabre I would like a gun, I mean I could hit him from 5 yards away before he could even get near me.... am I missing something?

Hope this answers your question Korg.

Actually thanks for the explanation

reply to post by canucks555


I'll hazard the guess that such beams of light that the scientists themselves have compared to "light sabers" are a step in the direction of the various "impossible" beams of light that are at times reported in UFO sightings. Such reports claim that these beams, are able to bend at angles, etc. Perhaps these beams in a more robust form also can be associated with sci-fi tractor beams a la Star Trek? Dare I then mention also that perhaps such are used to convey material and living bodies up and down from UFO craft?

You--or at least I do--have to wonder where the got the concept for doing such experimentation?

Sportbominable
I really shouldn't read ATS threads when I'm half falling asleep from being sick. I read photons as "fontons". I kept thinking, "What the heck is a fonton" lol. Interesting information.

Futons!

Cinrad
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

Am I the only one who can't see the advantage of a light sabre over a gun? In a fight against a guy with a light sabre I would like a gun, I mean I could hit him from 5 yards away before he could even get near me.... am I missing something?

Hope this answers your question Korg.

Actually thanks for the explanation

edit on 26/9/13 by Cinrad because: (no reason given)

This technology could for example greatly increase the power of lasers relational to their size... I.E handheld molecular Laser blaster (phaser).

Though I was more thinking in terms of current applications, but future applications are almost endless. A Phaser is by far more an effective weapon than a light sabre imho, but it depends on the situation.

Peace,

Korg.

Stupid browser won't let me subscribe so I'm commenting for the automatic subscribe feature. Take that, dumb Torch.

weirdguy
Could this tech lead to true teleportation?
Convert matter into photons, beam photons via laser to destination,
then convert photons back into matter again.

In that case beam me the heck of this planet.

reply to post by Biigs


Photon's are required to have no rest mass because quantum mechanics and special relativity mathematics are based on that. While it can't be proven they have no rest mass, there is an upper limit to what their mass can be, and it is virtually zero. If photons were found to have a rest mass, as this experiment may very well have shown, that would throw quantum mechanics and special relativity into re-write mode for quite a few things. Ultimately we need to wait and see what the outcome is with further testing as this could be similar to the whole "we went faster than the speed of light" when we really didn't.

And so there is no confusion, the above is rest mass, not inertial or passive gravitational mass which a photon has both of.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


Heh, beat me to it

Also, the first thing I thought of when I read the OP was pair production.

Cinrad
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

Am I the only one who can't see the advantage of a light sabre over a gun? In a fight against a guy with a light sabre I would like a gun, I mean I could hit him from 5 yards away before he could even get near me.... am I missing something?

Hope this answers your question Korg.

Actually thanks for the explanation

edit on 26/9/13 by Cinrad because: (no reason given)

You can combine the light saber with your force powers and block bullets bro! Obvi'

canucks555

Working with colleagues at the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, a group led by Harvard Professor of Physics Mikhail Lukin and MIT Professor of Physics Vladan Vuletic have managed to coax photons into binding together to form molecules -- a state of matter that, until recently, had been purely theoretical. The work is described in a September 25 paper in Nature. The discovery, Lukin said, runs contrary to decades of accepted wisdom about the nature of light. Photons have long been described as massless particles which don't interact with each other -- shine two laser beams at each other, he said, and they simply pass through one another.

www.sciencedaily.com...

Well that changes things a bit. I wonder what astounding things they can come up with in the next while using this kind of technology..

edit on 25-9-2013 by canucks555 because: (no reason given)

In the beginning all was darkness and Void. And the Lord looked over the face of the abyss and said "Let there be light" and there was light. He then proceeded to create the earth and all life found thereon.

simple..

Consciousness/Darkness spoke and thus created sound, it then used sound to create light, and light was used to create all matter.

as we know all matter is energy, empty space containing condensed energy and molded into form by an invisible force.(magnetism, gravitation)

what i gather here is that scientists have created a blank substrate of matter from naturally occuring photons. in effect i can see the possibility of light walls being built.. extremely thin, but solid nonetheless

also, to create or forge various types of matter, the scientists will have to control how the photon is formed out of dark matter by controlling it's sub-atomic layout as it is being formed. frequencies will play a major part in that layout design.

Woohooo!!!!

I may be a Grandpa someday with my very own LIGHTSABER!!!!!!

ChaoticOrder

So it's important to note that they didn't directly force the photons to combine into some other type of molecule. They fired the photons into a chilled cloud of atoms and the photons were passed off between the atoms. I assume that means that the photon was being absorbed and emitted by the electrons around the atoms... so my question would be: how the hell can an electron create a type of molecule which has mass?

DAMN YOU AND YOUR CRITICAL THINKING!!!

PRETEND THIS IS THE BIBLE AND "believe"!!!!!!!!!!!!

I CURSE YOU WITH MY SOON TO BE NEW AND BRIGHT AN SHINY LIGHTSABER!!!!!!



-SN

DAMN YOU AND YOUR CRITICAL THINKING!!! PRETEND THIS IS THE BIBLE AND "believe"!!!!!!!!!!!! I CURSE YOU WITH MY SOON TO BE NEW AND BRIGHT AN SHINY LIGHTSABER!!!!!!


VOOOooPH!

-frick'n arm flies off..

canucks555


DAMN YOU AND YOUR CRITICAL THINKING!!! PRETEND THIS IS THE BIBLE AND "believe"!!!!!!!!!!!! I CURSE YOU WITH MY SOON TO BE NEW AND BRIGHT AN SHINY LIGHTSABER!!!!!!

VOOOooPH!

-frick'n arm flies off..

Join me!!! WE WILL BE LEGION WITH LIGHTSABERS!!!!!


- SN

reply to post by new_here


Yep

bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by benrl

 

if photons don't have mass, then how do they make a cymbal ring?

You can shine a lazer at a cymbal, and it will physically react to it.

Honestly did not know that, learn something new everyday.

new_here
reply to post by canucks555

 

Something tells me they ought not do this. I can't explain why I feel this way, because I don't understand it myself. But something made my blood run cold reading that clip you posted.

I don't know enough about it to even formulate a decent argument it. Does anybody out there understand how I feel?

Yes, I think I do. From the POV of a single photon, the whole universe is touching in an acausal, timeless, spaceless domain, and as such it's entirely conceivable that the whole universe is comprised of one very very tricky photon. Thus to lock them in place and freeze or actualize their potential is placing a constraint or a limitation on something that might be "Godstuff". The material universe is itself a form of crystallized light interacting like a pressure wave against the ZeroPointField or the Akashic Field, but that's entirely natural.

Quantum computing also scares the hell out of me, especially when we consider that the NSA has already purchased the first quantum computer in the hope of breaking any encryption.

The day one forms a true scaled up neural net and becomes self aware, and speaks, may be a day long prophesied.

sparrowstail
"Computer, locate Lieutenant Barclay?"
"Lieutenant Barclay is on Holodeck #1"

May be this is the early stages of holography. At least the kind in th public domain.

Good old Broccoli. LOL

Wouldn't it be awesome if they could make a real Star Trek holodeck with that type of tech?