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unmeasurable particle created???

Started by GrannySmith, May 14, 2013, 07:03:15 AM

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GrannySmith

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... 
  X  

LMNO

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. 

GrannySmith

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?
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Nephew Twiddleton

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.
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS

LMNO

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.

Faust

How exactly is this particle any different from a nothing, the absence of a particle?
Sleepless nights at the chateau

LMNO

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.

GrannySmith

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?
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LMNO


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO

I literally could only do it by reading one or two pages a day.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Nephew Twiddleton

Yeah, I had to put it aside completely until the finals are over.
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS

LMNO

It was meant to be sort of a textbook.  So it really cuts out the filler.

Nephew Twiddleton

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.
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS