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Exploring Superstrings in the Lab

Posted by Zonk on from the knitting-a-scarf dept.

ultracool writes "Physicists at Utrecht University in the Netherlands have come up with a way of observing a superstring by utilizing Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). A one-dimensional BEC in an optical lattice is rapidly rotated, causing a quantized vortex to form. The bosonic part of the superstring consists of this vortex line. Inside the vortex, they would trap an ultracold cloud of fermionic atoms. Hopefully this will allow observation of the supersymmetry between bosons and fermions, thus providing the first experimental evidence to support superstring theory."

27 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. Woah.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I almost understood a word of that.. Almost.

    1. Re:Woah.. by inode_buddha · · Score: 2, Funny
      Let's hope and pray the Marketing Dept. doesn't turn all that into a buzzword.

      "Pro-actively enabling the supersymmetry between bosons and fermions..."

      --
      C|N>K
    2. Re:Woah.. by STrinity · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's really simple. By reversing the fermionic tachyon waves of the Bose-Einstein condensation, they'll create bosonic quarks which will reveal, through quantum entanglement of anti-protons, the supersymetry of n-dimensional strings! Gah, it's so simple a pre-schooler could understand it.

      --
      Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
    3. Re:Woah.. by NtroP · · Score: 2, Funny
      It's really simple. By reversing the fermionic tachyon waves of the Bose-Einstein condensation, they'll create bosonic quarks which will reveal, through quantum entanglement of anti-protons, the supersymetry of n-dimensional strings!
      Oh. Now why couldn't they have said that to begin with?
      --
      "terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
    4. Re:Woah.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Wrong, wrong, wrong. You're wrong in so many ways I don't know where to begin. You obviously fail to grasp even the most intuitive aspects of this idea. I mean, quantum entanglement of anti-protons? Entanglement of anti-*protons*? Is this some sort of joke? You clearly only satsify the supersymmetry conditions if you entangle K+ and K- mesons in a Rydberg resonance state. And that's the least of it.

      I don't even know why I try to help people like you, because if you can't understand something like that in plain English, you'll never be able to understand the subtleties of the situation.

      Seriously, it's like talking to a chimpanzee. It makes me want to scream and go calculate a closed form for pi in terms of Green's functional applied to a K-type harmonic map.

    5. Re:Woah.. by Aeiri · · Score: 4, Funny

      Let's hope and pray the Marketing Dept. doesn't turn all that into a buzzword.

      "Pro-actively enabling the supersymmetry between bosons and fermions..."

      They'd change the words "bosons" to "bosoms", "fermions" to "females", and "superstrings" to "g-strings", then have a bunch of naked chicks dance around the screen with g-strings for the rest of the 30 seconds.

    6. Re:Woah.. by nanojath · · Score: 3, Funny

      yeah, it read to me like this: Physicists at Utrecht University in the Netherlands have come up with a way of observing a superstring by utilizing blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Hopefully this will allow observation of the blah blah blah blah blah, thus providing the first experimental evidence to support superstring theory."

      Of course it would.

      --

      It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries

    7. Re:Woah.. by forgetful_ca · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah. That whole article could have come straight from a Star Trek, insert technobafflegabhere script entry.

    8. Re:Woah.. by Walt+Dismal · · Score: 3, Funny

      It all made perfect sense to me. But I still can't understand women.

    9. Re:Woah.. by roseblood · · Score: 2, Funny

      Dude, preschoolers on Star Trek so totaly have this down cold. Try to recal all that techno babble about this array or that conduit and the alignment of this anti-tachyon stream being routed through a quark(not the ferengi) filter, and delivered in an exotic glass vessle at Quarks bar(yes, the Ferrengi this time.)

      --
      There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
    10. Re:Woah.. by jacksonj04 · · Score: 1, Funny

      Not a chance in hell. Star-Trek technical writers have a very tightly controlled set of technology.

      That summary... well. Trekkies eat your heart out.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
  2. I use super-strings all the time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/lang/ StringBuilder.html .
    They're great. You can modify them and they aren't synchronized so they're fast, too. If these scientists are only just now discovering them they should try reading some newsgroups.

    1. Re:I use super-strings all the time by ModMeFlamebait · · Score: 2, Funny

      best of both worlds?

      --
      Pavlov. Does this name ring a bell?
  3. No Way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Supersymmetry between bosons and fermions is not possible in your universe. We have seen to that.

  4. I saw that episode by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's the one in which Q inverts a universal constant, right?

  5. Summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Bose-Einstein Condensate blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah quantum blah blah blah blah blah blah superstring blah blah blah blah blah blah . Hopefully blah blah blah blah blah blah.

  6. Think of the applications! by dj245 · · Score: 4, Funny
    The bosonic part of the superstring consists of this vortex line. Inside the vortex, they would trap an ultracold cloud of fermionic atoms.

    This has direct implications for the food industry. No longer will superstring cheese have to be refrigerated, the fermionic atoms will maintain an ultracold cloud around the superstring cheese, keeping it tasty and fresh. Yum.

    --
    Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  7. char array by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's still a char array, no matter how sophisticated MSDN tries to make it sound.

  8. Superstring? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't you just puss the button on top of the can and the superstring sprays all over the lab?

  9. Uh huh by Shky · · Score: 2, Funny

    "The bosonic part of the superstring consists of this vortex line. Inside the vortex, they would trap an ultracold cloud of fermionic atoms. Hopefully this will allow observation of the supersymmetry between bosons and fermions, thus providing the first experimental evidence to support superstring theory."

    Pfft. Well, obviously.

    --
    CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
  10. Ahh.. by bigattichouse · · Score: 2, Funny

    And if we channel a reverse impulse through the reflector dish, the superstring will disperse the space-time anomoly. Aren't you waiting for some of this quantum research to accidentally unleash a super-mega-quantum bomb.. "safety tip - avoid trying to look under God's skirts".

    --
    meh
  11. Yes it is. by game+kid · · Score: 2, Funny

    Of course it's possible to see symmetry between bosoms and females--

    (hears enraged Slashdotters worldwide screaming bosons and fermions)

    --what? nah, I've no idea about those.

    --
    You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  12. Forget Norway! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    More like Snoreway.

  13. Re:I want a room temp condensate by BillX · · Score: 3, Funny

    A liquid or solid condensate at room temp exhibiting BEC properties will be nice. I wonder if liquid helium can be made that way.

    If you can flow liquid helium up your arm at room temperature, it's time to talk to your landlord ASAP.

    --
    Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
  14. Re:It might not hurt... by NtroP · · Score: 2, Funny
    It might not hurt to refer people to more information on Bose-Einstein condensates
    Heh. It might not help either.
    --
    "terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
  15. Re:And here's what they'll see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny


  16. Quick! by zeus_tfc · · Score: 2, Funny

    Quick, somebody get me a pre-schooler to explain that to me. I can't make heads or tails of it.

    --
    "...At the end of the day"..."when everyone goes home, you're stuck with yourself." RIP Layne Staley