Well, the last years, science news are becoming more and more science fiction but THIS.........!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829160.300-nothing-to-see-the-man-who-made-a-majorana-particle.html
QuoteWhat is a Majorana fermion?
It is named for the physicist Ettore Majorana, who found that a particle could be its own antiparticle. If a particle has properties with values unequal to zero, then its antiparticle has the opposite values. What that means is that all the properties of a Majorana fermion, the charge, energy, what have you, it's all zero. It is a particle, but it doesn't have properties that we can measure. :eek: :eek: That makes it very mysterious. It also makes it difficult to find.
sometimes it seems that soon there might be nobody left who can understand science anymore...
Ah. I see. It's an unmeasurable particle, because they're using that incredibly specific definition of "particle", which when used this way, is almost like a verb.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 14, 2013, 03:29:42 PM
Ah. I see. It's an unmeasurable particle, because they're using that incredibly specific definition of "particle", which when used this way, is almost like a verb.
well i guess you don't make it to pop science magazines with explaining properly! :)
I'm not so familiar with particle physics - is this another case of terminology getting out of hand?
Quote from: GrannySmith on May 14, 2013, 10:13:01 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 14, 2013, 03:29:42 PM
Ah. I see. It's an unmeasurable particle, because they're using that incredibly specific definition of "particle", which when used this way, is almost like a verb.
well i guess you don't make it to pop science magazines with explaining properly! :)
I'm not so familiar with particle physics - is this another case of terminology getting out of hand?
I think its not so much that but the terminology being misleading to the layman.
All subatomic terminology is misleading, because all words are related to the macro universe (which is inherently intuitive and based upon experience), and the subatomic universe is completely non-intuitive.
The most accurate way to describe these things is through the math involved, which perhaps a dozen people fully understand.
How exactly is this particle any different from a nothing, the absence of a particle?
From the article:
QuoteThe Majorana comes out of the superposition of an electron and a "hole" – the absence of an electron in a metal. By applying a magnetic field to semiconducting nanowires laid across a superconductor, you can move electrons along these wires, creating two points in space that each mimic half an electron. The electrons go back and forth, so the hole jumps from left to right. If it spends an equal amount of time on each side, then, quantum mechanically, it's in a superposition of being on the left and right. If it's stable, then we call it a particle.
So it's more of an event or probability function, but they call it a particle.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2013, 02:47:58 PM
The most accurate way to describe these things is through the math involved, which perhaps a dozen people fully understand.
:) :) now i want to see that math!! :) :)
any suggestions where to start?
http://www.amazon.com/Constructing-Reality-Quantum-Particle-Physics/dp/1107004837
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2013, 04:14:25 PM
http://www.amazon.com/Constructing-Reality-Quantum-Particle-Physics/dp/1107004837
Someday, when I am capable of understanding it, I want to read that.
I literally could only do it by reading one or two pages a day.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2013, 04:44:20 PM
I literally could only do it by reading one or two pages a day.
Wow. :eek:
Yeah, I had to put it aside completely until the finals are over.
It was meant to be sort of a textbook. So it really cuts out the filler.
Even still, cutting out the filler is a good thing. Like you said, macro analogies only make it more confusing. There were a few things in there where when I read his explanation, I was like, "oh. Actually that makes sense." Sense here meaning, the description makes sense.
i just ordered it thanks!! :)
looking forward to hopefully understanding something about reality from the physicists point of view ;) and to see how he does it under the copenhagen interpretation - which barely makes sense to me :eek:
now back to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RwdY7Eqyguo#t=874s
this guy just said:
QuoteSo particles and fields are the two things we physicists talk about, when we talk about the ingredients that make up reality. If you have a tiny bit of physics education, you may have come upon the question "is light, for example, a particle or a wave", a wave is sort of a vibration in a field. So what is more important, is it the particle aspect of reality or is it the field aspect of reality. It's fields. That's the answer. It's not a mystery, they always tell you that question, they never tell you the answer. I went decades of my life, so what's the answer to this? This is the answer, it's fields. Any questions about that? hehe So, I'm going to tell you a little bit more detail, but not too much, but this is the crucial slide, okay? [Slide says "It's fields"] "[/i]] There's no more information, there's nothing more to come. The reason why the Higgs boson as a concept is hard to grasp, is because you need to stop thinking of the world in terms of particles. You need to start thinking about it in terms of fieds. And you say to yourself, but things like this table are made of atoms, and atoms have electrons and so forth in them, and, and, and the electrons are particles, right? There are particles in the world... no there aren't. [ :eek:]
:eek: :aaa: then he goes on to explain so now i must go watch to the end a few times :eek: :aaa: :eek:
Did you guys
know this? I don't know if this is supposed to be well known and plain sensationalism, but I'm so impressed i typed that part of his speech just to quote it! :aaa:
Quote from: GrannySmith on May 15, 2013, 07:14:42 PM
i just ordered it thanks!! :)
looking forward to hopefully understanding something about reality from the physicists point of view ;) and to see how he does it under the copenhagen interpretation - which barely makes sense to me :eek:
now back to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RwdY7Eqyguo#t=874s
this guy just said:
QuoteSo particles and fields are the two things we physicists talk about, when we talk about the ingredients that make up reality. If you have a tiny bit of physics education, you may have come upon the question "is light, for example, a particle or a wave", a wave is sort of a vibration in a field. So what is more important, is it the particle aspect of reality or is it the field aspect of reality. It's fields. That's the answer. It's not a mystery, they always tell you that question, they never tell you the answer. I went decades of my life, so what's the answer to this? This is the answer, it's fields. Any questions about that? hehe So, I'm going to tell you a little bit more detail, but not too much, but this is the crucial slide, okay? [Slide says "It's fields"] "[/i]] There's no more information, there's nothing more to come. The reason why the Higgs boson as a concept is hard to grasp, is because you need to stop thinking of the world in terms of particles. You need to start thinking about it in terms of fieds. And you say to yourself, but things like this table are made of atoms, and atoms have electrons and so forth in them, and, and, and the electrons are particles, right? There are particles in the world... no there aren't. [ :eek:]
:eek: :aaa: then he goes on to explain so now i must go watch to the end a few times :eek: :aaa: :eek:
Did you guys know this? I don't know if this is supposed to be well known and plain sensationalism, but I'm so impressed i typed that part of his speech just to quote it! :aaa:
Somewhat. That's around the spot where I left of in Prof. Marburger's book.
I've heard things like it a lot, but I also go out of my way to expose myself to those things. And I still don't get it. Like, at all. I think it's the kind of thing you can beat your head against your whole life and still never really understand it.
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 16, 2013, 02:53:04 AM
I've heard things like it a lot, but I also go out of my way to expose myself to those things. And I still don't get it. Like, at all. I think it's the kind of thing you can beat your head against your whole life and still never really understand it.
Unless you're LMNO's dad. Pretty sure he understood the shit out of it.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on May 16, 2013, 03:14:37 AM
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 16, 2013, 02:53:04 AM
I've heard things like it a lot, but I also go out of my way to expose myself to those things. And I still don't get it. Like, at all. I think it's the kind of thing you can beat your head against your whole life and still never really understand it.
Unless you're LMNO's dad. Pretty sure he understood the shit out of it.
I imagine he did.
The main problem is that, like LMNO said, you can't really picture it since picturing things puts it in the larger than atoms level of reality where shit like that can't happen. I'm hoping that whatever math classes I take will help me understand it a bit better, but I'm thinking of teaching myself calculus and such anyway even if I don't have to take it.
This is another good introduction, and it's free:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/
Not to get spooky, but when you get really fucking small, it's all clouds of probabilities.
Quote from: El Twid on May 16, 2013, 03:26:51 AM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on May 16, 2013, 03:14:37 AM
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 16, 2013, 02:53:04 AM
I've heard things like it a lot, but I also go out of my way to expose myself to those things. And I still don't get it. Like, at all. I think it's the kind of thing you can beat your head against your whole life and still never really understand it.
Unless you're LMNO's dad. Pretty sure he understood the shit out of it.
I imagine he did.
The main problem is that, like LMNO said, you can't really picture it since picturing things puts it in the larger than atoms level of reality where shit like that can't happen. I'm hoping that whatever math classes I take will help me understand it a bit better, but I'm thinking of teaching myself calculus and such anyway even if I don't have to take it.
You're gonna teach yourself calculus? :aaa: I admire the shit out of people who can teach themselves any kind of math. I am good as fuck at math, but I need someone to talk me through it when I'm learning it.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 16, 2013, 02:27:26 PM
This is another good introduction, and it's free:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/
Not to get spooky, but when you get really fucking small, it's all clouds of probabilities.
I like the parts where they're like, OK listen, it isn't fucking magic, OK?
Not in so many words, but that does seem to be what they're getting at. :lol:
Yeah, he really tries to cut out the bullshit. It's also more traditionally readable than Constructing Reality.
I very well might not succeed at all but i figure its worth a shot. Especially if i dont get something i can spend more time on it.
Quote from: El Twid on May 16, 2013, 05:30:31 PM
I very well might not succeed at all but i figure its worth a shot. Especially if i dont get something i can spend more time on it.
calculus 1 drove me to screaming fits of rage, amd im good at math and like calculus.
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 16, 2013, 02:53:04 AM
I've heard things like it a lot, but I also go out of my way to expose myself to those things. And I still don't get it. Like, at all. I think it's the kind of thing you can beat your head against your whole life and still never really understand it.
Quote from: El Twid on May 16, 2013, 03:26:51 AM
The main problem is that, like LMNO said, you can't really picture it since picturing things puts it in the larger than atoms level of reality where shit like that can't happen. I'm hoping that whatever math classes I take will help me understand it a bit better, but I'm thinking of teaching myself calculus and such anyway even if I don't have to take it.
I still stare of at nothing every now and then, just trying to imagine it... i gotta start reading that math!
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 16, 2013, 02:27:26 PM
This is another good introduction, and it's free:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/
Not to get spooky, but when you get really fucking small, it's all clouds of probabilities.
GREAT link, thanks again!! :D
probabilities - luckily i'm a statistician at the moment! :) the clouds part might take a while to get though... :?
So to anyone with math issues who reads: I offer online math help for free (sombunall undergraduate level maths)
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 16, 2013, 02:27:26 PM
This is another good introduction, and it's free:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/
Not to get spooky, but when you get really fucking small, it's all clouds of probabilities.
This is offensive.
Well, no one said the Universe had to play fair.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 22, 2013, 08:14:11 PM
Well, no one said the Universe had to play fair.
WE have to play fair. It should, too. This is BULLSHIT. It's like letting the house use marked cards.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 22, 2013, 08:16:00 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 22, 2013, 08:14:11 PM
Well, no one said the Universe had to play fair.
WE have to play fair. It should, too. This is BULLSHIT. It's like letting the house use marked cards.
No, we ran the experiment proving the cards aren't marked. If they were marked then all the identity axioms explode.
There's only one card, but it's kind of in all the different suits and numbers all the space-times but not all combinations of all numbers, suits, and space-times.
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on May 22, 2013, 10:02:12 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 22, 2013, 08:16:00 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 22, 2013, 08:14:11 PM
Well, no one said the Universe had to play fair.
WE have to play fair. It should, too. This is BULLSHIT. It's like letting the house use marked cards.
No, we ran the experiment proving the cards aren't marked. If they were marked then all the identity axioms explode.
There's only one card, but it's kind of in all the different suits and numbers all the space-times but not all combinations of all numbers, suits, and space-times.
:rogpipe:
This book helped me wrap my head around it a bit.
(http://scienceblogs.com/principles/wp-content/blogs.dir/467/files/2012/04/i-5ca1c92b250393278ee8324d8832b4ab-UK_cover.jpg)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8243716-how-to-teach-quantum-physics-to-your-dog
It's been a while since i read it though, so I can't remember the details except that it was fun and interesting.
Did it show you how to teach QM to your dog?
Or, for no apparent reason, teach him to say "Chad Orzel"?
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 16, 2013, 02:27:26 PM
This is another good introduction, and it's free:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/
Not to get spooky, but when you get really fucking small, it's all clouds of probabilities.
This is a really GREAT link - i'm still enjoying it every now and then. The first time i clicked on it it led me to http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes - one of the best and funniest maths explanations i've ever read. Thanks for that LMNO!
But I'm more into Marburg's book at the moment and I can't let go (
even the fonts look great to me in this book - it's quickly rising in my favourite books list). I'm at page 67 now where he finally starts explaining these "clouds of probabilities" mentioned above. He says
Quote from: Marburg's "constructing reality"
The probability aspect of the wave function is more general than the "wave-like" aspect. I wish we could replace the word "wave" with something else, like "information" or even "Born", as in "Born function," but this is not the worst etymological misfortune in quantum theory, and I simply warn you here once and for all that the word "wave" is misleading.
I assume that the worst etymological misfortune in quantum theory is "particle" then :lulz:
So it's definitely not a particle, and not a wave. Until now, such unvisualisable objects existed for me only in hardcore set theory's extra large infinities. And they were the reason i felt that such abstract maths have nothing to do with reality - but behold! Wonderful abstract objects may exist in reality too! :D
Uh, that last paragraph of mine barely makes sense... :eek:
what i wanted to say is that I'm falling for quantum theory. But this attitude that physicists have that (quantum) nature is impossible to visualise is bothering me somewhat, especially since i thought that if i can't visualise it, or even draw something, anything that is supposed to represent it, then i don't understand it. They also say that nature is thus not intuitive - but intuitions come from knowing and understanding something really well. For example, the extra large infinities of set theory are unintuitive, surprising, and confusing in the beginning, but after a certain amount of working on them, one gets intuitions about them, as in sombunall fields of science. Of course theoretical maths are easier - we make up what's true, we make up the rules, and we play. Physics has to explain the experimental results - and that's the fun in it. But if we assume that these experiments measure things in the real world, then we and our brains are also parts of this real world. I can't see any reason why not, after a certain amount of work, we cannot "visualise" the quantum realm and have intuitions about it.
Any attempts in describing the quantum reality will be much appreciated!!
(What about these three dimensional standing waves thing? Can't seem to find enough information on that... or maybe i should just go back to reading marburger...)
Quote from: Cain on May 31, 2013, 07:01:58 PM
Did it show you how to teach QM to your dog?
Or, for no apparent reason, teach him to say "Chad Orzel"?
It alternates serious chapters each about one aspect of quantum physics with silly chapters where the dog tries to cheat reality by trying to apply that aspect. Mostly to catch squirrels.
It first gives your brain information in a high density, and then relaxation while still staying on topic. It is a great way to learn things.
Ooooh linky!
Quote from: http://dogphysics.com/book_info.htmlEach chapter is built around a conversation between Chad Orzel, a physics professor at Union College, and his dog Emmy, the Queen of Niskayuna, in which Emmy seizes upon some aspect of quantum mechanics as a way to obtain doggy goals-- using her wave nature to surround bunnies, using quantum tunneling to pass through the fence to the neighbor's yard, using quantum teleportation to surprise squirrels in the back yard. Each conversation is followed by a more detailed explanation of the real phenomena at the heart of quantum physics (with occasional interjections from Emmy).
Quote from: GrannySmith on May 14, 2013, 07:03:15 AM
Well, the last years, science news are becoming more and more science fiction but THIS.........!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829160.300-nothing-to-see-the-man-who-made-a-majorana-particle.html
QuoteWhat is a Majorana fermion?
It is named for the physicist Ettore Majorana, who found that a particle could be its own antiparticle. If a particle has properties with values unequal to zero, then its antiparticle has the opposite values. What that means is that all the properties of a Majorana fermion, the charge, energy, what have you, it's all zero. It is a particle, but it doesn't have properties that we can measure. :eek: :eek: That makes it very mysterious. It also makes it difficult to find.
sometimes it seems that soon there might be nobody left who can understand science anymore...
I think a lot of the incomprehensibility of this comes down to that particular article being rather poorly written. In the quoted passage for example, either there are one or more sentences missing between the second and third sentences, or else the author does not understand how antimatter works.
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on November 21, 2014, 02:53:04 AM
Quote from: GrannySmith on May 14, 2013, 07:03:15 AM
Well, the last years, science news are becoming more and more science fiction but THIS.........!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829160.300-nothing-to-see-the-man-who-made-a-majorana-particle.html
QuoteWhat is a Majorana fermion?
It is named for the physicist Ettore Majorana, who found that a particle could be its own antiparticle. If a particle has properties with values unequal to zero, then its antiparticle has the opposite values. What that means is that all the properties of a Majorana fermion, the charge, energy, what have you, it's all zero. It is a particle, but it doesn't have properties that we can measure. :eek: :eek: That makes it very mysterious. It also makes it difficult to find.
sometimes it seems that soon there might be nobody left who can understand science anymore...
I think a lot of the incomprehensibility of this comes down to that particular article being rather poorly written. In the quoted passage for example, either there are one or more sentences missing between the second and third sentences, or else the author does not understand how antimatter works.
New Scientist.
So, the latter.
What's the story with New Scientist? Jive?
Quote from: GrannySmith on May 20, 2013, 03:01:28 PM
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 16, 2013, 02:53:04 AM
I've heard things like it a lot, but I also go out of my way to expose myself to those things. And I still don't get it. Like, at all. I think it's the kind of thing you can beat your head against your whole life and still never really understand it.
Quote from: El Twid on May 16, 2013, 03:26:51 AM
The main problem is that, like LMNO said, you can't really picture it since picturing things puts it in the larger than atoms level of reality where shit like that can't happen. I'm hoping that whatever math classes I take will help me understand it a bit better, but I'm thinking of teaching myself calculus and such anyway even if I don't have to take it.
I still stare of at nothing every now and then, just trying to imagine it... i gotta start reading that math!
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 16, 2013, 02:27:26 PM
This is another good introduction, and it's free:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/
Not to get spooky, but when you get really fucking small, it's all clouds of probabilities.
GREAT link, thanks again!! :D
probabilities - luckily i'm a statistician at the moment! :) the clouds part might take a while to get though... :?
So to anyone with math issues who reads: I offer online math help for free (sombunall undergraduate level maths)
Well, can you imagine a cloud with differing densities of water drops depending on where you are in the cloud?
If you can, the density is the probability of the potential interaction (usually called particle) in that place in the cloud. The sum of the densities a.k.a. probabilities must of course be 1. The cloud is the probability distribution. (at least, I think that is how it works. I might very well be wrong.)
I see no reason to limit the cloud to only three dimensions, but that is a question for the physicists. I haven't a clue how to start figuring that one out.
Quote from: Hoopla on November 21, 2014, 05:33:40 PM
What's the story with New Scientist? Jive?
It's like a science tabloid, basically. The writers often don't understand the science they're reporting on, frequently seem to have no idea how to gauge scientific import or credibility, and habitually overstate the implications of the research, or simply veer off into wild speculation presented as fact. And then there's the not-science that they publish as science. It's kind of like if P3nt was writing his own science magazine, with Holist as a guest columnist.