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A New Spin On Physical Phenomena
f00Dave writes "Researchers have discovered "a new physical phenomenon, electrostatic rotation, that, in the absence of friction, leads to spin". I'm a bit skeptical about the implied relationship between physical "spin" (as in rotation) and quantum "spin", however. Still, this is the sort of scientific advance that renews my faith in the system. Go nerds! =]"
science does not always have to be usefull.
I'm more excited about the "absence of friction" part...
At last my dream of building a perpetual motion machine can be realized. Take that thermodynamics!
I don't understand this submission:
I'm a bit skeptical about the implied relationship between physical "spin" (as in rotation) and quantum "spin", however. Still, this is the sort of scientific advance that renews my faith in the system.
What system are we talking about? Why does faith need to be renewed in it? What, have you lost faith in physics because it doesn't discover new laws every day?
Now if they want to measure political spin, we have to wait to see what research grants they apply for next...(sorry, couldn't help it.) Seriously- how do they do this without friction?
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
Is is just me, or does the article not really explain what it is they are talking about.
Also, a drawing of the setup would have been nice.
Third, how do they get from spinning metal thingies to quantum spin? Sounds strange...
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Thats the equivalent of saying, "Magnets can't give us free energy, so they must be useless" Do you yield energy? Are you useful? Wait... forgot who I was talking to.
Your paranoia is about as subtle as the alien probe in your neck.
It is another premise on which to build theories and further our understanding of the nature of the universe. This was made clear in the first paragraph.
In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
Random is the New Order.
Maybe that's the cool thing about scientific curiosity - the things you discover don't have to have commercial value in order to be discovered.
Consider this: when it was determined that a current flowing in a wire produces a magnetic field, or when Faraday discovered that moving a magnet near a wire or coil of wire can produce a voltage, I'm sure a lot of people said, "but seriously, what would this be used for?" And they probably said the same thing about countless other things that were discovered in situations where the effect was so small that they had no apparent use.
Of course now we look back and say, "what a dumb question! How could they now know these things could be useful?" And maybe 200 years from now somebody will look at this archived announcement on Slashdot and say the same.
Then again, maybe this will turn out to be a misinterpretation of the experimental observation. Time will tell...
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
You take a 2-colored, metal-coated ping-pong ball [it can be done], and suspend it in air on a cushion of air jets. [Also can be done.]
Now stabilize it rotationally. Now stick two or three metal brushes lightly against it, and hit it with some charge. Will it spin? Will it spin continuously faster?
If so, how?
Or alternatively, we can have 3 metalized ping pong balls on three jets of air [that is, infinitely thing strings, you might say] and each brushing against three metalic brushes. Will these spin and accelerate continuously faster?
Suppose, instead of balancing them on air jets, we used strong magnetism and magneticized balls. Will it work then?
Why, or why not?
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The article is very confusing, and makes several leaps that even the researchers don't promulgate.
Basically, what seems to be going on here is that one charges up metal spheres to see how they interact. This is a way of testing EM theory. Now, as is commonly known, charging a metal sphere will eventually have the charge distributed uniformly on the surface, and eventually static. However, it takes a non-zero amount of time to reach these static states. What these boys have done is charge 3 spheres (presumably) simultaneously, and then observe physical spin (rotation) in the spheres.
Well, inhomogenities in the surfaces can have slightly non-uniform charge currents during the charging process. All it would take is a slight asymmetry, and the charge on two spheres (let alone three) could and would provide a torque to the other(s) via the usual Coulomb interaction.
is the cry of the un-imaginative.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Nanotech basically. They have basically discovered a way to use a distribution of electric charges on a configuration of three sphere to start one of the spheres rotating. This is different from current electric motors; they use magnetic fields to start things rotating. This kind of engine would use a lot less current to generate motion than conventional electromagnetic motors. This would be good for building little machines; it's really hard to make electromagnets at the subatomic scale, but metallic spheres? Much easier. And static charge? It's hard NOT to get something with static charge on it down at that scale.
Having said that, this is purely a proof-of-concept thingy. What they did was just say, "Look, we can use this simple setup to create rotation". It's like they stuck a magnet near another magnet dangling on a string ang made it rotate. That's a long way from an electromagnetic motor, but it is a first step...