Physicists Watch Individual Electrons Flow

SG writes "Physicists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed the world's most sensitive ammeter yet. The device allows current to be measured at the attoampere level and is expected to be of use in nanoelectronics, calibration devices, quantum computation and biology."

Comments

WHY!?

[jollyroger1210]

Why would you want to? What will this achieve? I mean, what practical application could this have in real life?

Re:WHY!?

[MyLongNickName]

RTFA.

The device could be used for a wide variety of applications, including nanoelectronics, calibration devices, quantum computation and biology (Science 312 1634).

And that was in the first paragraph. It took you longer to type your post than it would have to actually read the first paragraph. And you even forgot to yell 'frist post.

Re:WHY!?

[Ant P.]

For the likes of Intel, this is the hardware equivalent of gdb.

Re:WHY!?

[RsG]

Even faster first posts of course!

Re:WHY!?

[alshithead]

It's a government plot to keep track of stray electrons in order to prevent terrorism. ...tinfoil hat firmly in place (gotta protect myself from stray electrons)

Re:WHY!?

[whm]

With utmost seriousness...

        Why Not?

Re:WHY!?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's alright. I'm sure there is no electrical activity in your brain. You're safe. :-)

Re:WHY!?

[alshithead]

Sure there is! I lick 9 volt batteries all day.

Re:WHY!?

[gone_bush]

I agree.

Just because it _may not_ be of any use today does not mean that it will always be "useless". The parabola was known to the ancient Greeks but it only saw its first "practical" use in the hands of Galileo Galilei who used it to predict the trajectory of cannon balls.

Re:WHY!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Physicists Watch Individual Electrons Flow

-in other news... Physicists discover new uses for the psychotropic http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mescaline/mescalin e.shtml

Re:WHY!?

[Anonymous Coward]

no way is this flamebait. original poster is clearly a first post troll.

Re:WHY!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it is a troll. He didn't have to be so mean. Maybe the original poster couldn't see the article. He could have had a legitimate question.

Re:WHY!?

[Anonymous Coward]

get over it, hippy. the original poster should get modded to negative two and have his right to post on slashdot taken away. so should yours.

Re:WHY!?

[vivian]

What about that Greek fire death-ray thing they used to torch enemy ships? I thought it was speculated to be a parabolic mirror.

Re:WHY!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the fucking article summary, you idiot. Do these physicists need to explain themselves to every random, layman slashloser?

Re:WHY!?

[MrSquirrel]

In case you didn't know, "flow" is physicist slang for "sexual intercourse". They're watching electrons "get busy". Yeah, they're pretty sick and twisted, but I supposse I would be too if I had to hook car batteries up to my nipples all day in the name of science. If you don't believe me, just RTFA and find out.

Re:WHY!?

[Savantissimo]

The big one, I think, will be allowing the SI definition of current to be changed from the present unwieldly method of "an ampere is the steady current that when flowing in straight parallel wires of infinite length and negligible cross section, separated by a distance of one meter in free space, produces a force between the wires of 2 × 10-7 newtons per meter of length", then defining the Coulomb as "the charge delivered by a current of 1 ampere in 1 second".

The new, accurate electron counting capability alows the quantum of electrical charge to become the base unit, as it should be, and then to define current as the number of charges per second.

Re:WHY!?

[x2A]

"what practical application could this have"

Occording to TFS:
"and is expected to be of use in nanoelectronics, calibration devices, quantum computation and biology"

So are you actually asking why any of those would be useful?

Re:WHY!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they're pretty sick and twisted, but I supposse I would be too if I had to hook car batteries up to my nipples all day in the name of science.

You mean your TITs, don't you?

Re:WHY!?

[whm]

You are correct, of course.

There is more than that though - it is a wonderful thing, to be able to seek knowledge for knowledge's sake. Always there is this emphasis on a reason for learning about the world around us. It doesn't have to be that way. There is a joy to be found in discovery, regardless of the implications. This is an important thing.

Re:WHY!?

[ougouferay]

...tinfoil hat firmly in place (gotta protect myself from stray electrons)

It's not the stray ones you have to watch out for - it's the ones that are meant for you.

Re:WHY!?

[Eideewt]

And maybe he couldn't see the summary either. Of course, that raises the question of how he managed to post here.

Re:WHY!?

[vigour]

Because you can study the physics of smaller and smaller systems. There are only a few areas that this device will be useful, but researchers are always fighting against noise while trying to increase the sensitivity of their devices.

Up until now the record for smallest current was about 100 attoamps with a dc squid. The great thing about them is that you can detect currents from 100 attoamps (if you're very, very careful) all the way up to milliamps, all in the same device in the same setup.

This new device with coupled quantum dots will only work on the attoamp scale, so is not as versatile, but the years of work that went into designing, fabricating, and measuring this device is astounding.

Think about it, they are measuring individual electrons, they are fighting against a huge number of electrons surrounding their devices, which experience random thermal noise. The thermal noise in the shielding around their device can generate eddy currents of the order of what they are detecting so they had to account for that too, and design special shielding.

Not only that, they have to think about the coupling of the quantum dots. You only want charge transfer from resonant tunneling, if the dots are too strongly coupled to their surroundings the quantum coherence is swamped, the linewidths of the levels being populated would be broadened too much. And if they are not coupled strong enough, you won't get enough resonant tunneling.

Of course there are a lot more considerations, going from concept, design parameters, actual method of fabrication and preparation, detection methods, and noise and data analysis.

All in all it's a great technical achievement to do what they've done.

Re:WHY!?

[RevWhite]

. . .says the man posting as AC. Get an account, all of you, and stop hiding as AC!

Re:WHY!?

[treeves]

Didn't a physicist (namely Millikan) already see a single electron flow from one place to another when he did his famous oil drop experiment (about 100 years ago?) that measured the mass of the electron?

Re:WHY!?

[ceoyoyo]

It's not likely. Why would you want a parabolic mirror to torch ships? You'd have to wait for them to be exactly the right distance to hit the focus!

Re:WHY!?

[vigour]

Millikan suspended charged droplets of oil between too plates.
When he got the electric field at the correct value the gravitational force (F = m*g) was canceled by the force due to the electric field (f = q*E)
What he actually measured was the charge on each droplet, and found that the lowest common factor was -1.67 e-19 (i.e 19 zeroes infront of 1.67, 0.00....0167)


How he did this was he dropped the oil drops from above, measured their terminal velocity, and from this, their mass. To charge the oil drops he illuminated the chamber with x-rays, ionising both the air, and the oil drops.

He then applied a voltage across the two plates (one above the oil drops, the other below).

So at all times, he was measuring the charge from a large number of electrons. It's not commonly known, but Millikan knew what he was looking for in his dataset, and from what I've heard the quality of his data was poor, and ignored a lot of fractional datapoints (I can't prove this, it's only geek gossip I heard).

Hope this answers your question.

To detect single electron currents, you need to use modern technology (google d.c. squids, or even SQUID detector). For a long time Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices were the only detectors that could detect individual quanta (magnetic fluxons). Sorry I'm not going into the details of this, but I gotta pee :P

Re:WHY!?

[SimplyI]

Well, the whole thing is conjecture. But as to the involvement of parabolic mirrors, some have the idea that an array of flat mirrors arranged in a parabolic shape and that the array was somehow quickly and smoothly able to be changed so its focus changed. At least, that's one story I've heard about parabolic mirrors in relation to the ship burning device.

Of course others have proposed that parabolic mirrors were used to focus onto single flat mirros... and if that doesn't sound like it would work, good because it wouldn't.

The only feasible arrangement of parabolic mirrors whereby a device is created that can quickly change its focus is one which involves two parabolic mirros and a flat mirror that is on a moving mount. The one parabolic mirror focuses light onto the flat mirror(or partiaally focuses it depending on specifics) the flat mirror is mounted in front of the other parabolic mirror such that the focused light from the first is reflected onto the second parabolic mirror. This arrangment is similar to a parabolic transmitting dish. The flat mirror must be mounted so that it can move towards and away from the second parabolic mirror and the first parabolic mirror must be mounted so that it's angle can be altered to track the flat mirror.

In this set up, moving the flat mirror out moves the focus of the light inward and moving the flat mirror inwards moves the focus out.

I don't claim this is efficient, good enough to burn ships, what was used(if it was actually done at all), or that the tech existed at the time to do it. But, it is a method using parabolic mirrors to focus light at an arbitrary distance.

Of course, as I don't claim efficiency and the like, this doesn't apply to your claim that it is unlikely. In fact, I agree. I just thought it was an interesting arrangment...

Re:WHY!?

[SimplyI]

The primary evidence that people use to suggest Millikan knew what he was looking for were vague margin notes about particular data being close or some similar phrase. If I recall, they could simply be quick notes about how well he thought he performed the experiment for a given datum. I think he ended up taking the measurement he liked the most rather than averaging them or something like that. Meh, this is all stuff I gleaned from one of those Discovery shows or the like about him... Though, I really wasn't awake through most of it, anyways... So, have a heapin' helpin' of salt w/ this one...

Also, the contraption he used for his experiment is quite a sight, though a cursory search didn't turn it up...

Re:WHY!?

[vigour]

that sounds pretty accurate.

cool

Re:WHY!?

[ceoyoyo]

It's an interesting topic. I don't remember hearing much about people trying to figure out how it was actually done until the last few years, when everybody seemed to come out of the woodwork with a theory.

I think the various many flat shields theories are probably the most likely. It would be pretty hard to make a monolithic parabolic mirror big enough and it's not something you'd just have lying around. Nicely reflective shields, on the other hand, are handy for blinding, distracting and intimidating in regular battle as well.

Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a picture of the ammeter in action.

Re:Picture

[kjart]

An inspired diagram. Here's a picture of the some of the technologies that this will usher in.

Re:Picture

[Petrushka]

Oh dear GOD that is painful to look at in 1280x1024. Aaaaaggghh /claws eyes out

Re:Picture

[ebief]

Hey, Thanks for the picture, friend!
that was helpfull!

Re:Picture

[Cyno01]

Damn, try it @ 1680x1050...

Shweet

[Joebert]

According to the team, combining the ammeter with a device that converts photons or electron-spins to electronic charges could also lead to the development of sensitive detectors for light or magnetic fields.

Would be nice if this could mean gigapixel cameras & the answer to the age old question of ghosts.

Re:Shweet

[CODiNE]

A ghost detector? Amazing new technology comes around and all you can think of is a ghost detector?? Sheesh...

dowsers already do that just fine. :)

Re:Shweet

[Joebert]

What about the gigapixel cameras ?

Re:Shweet

[kfg]

Can't dowse for shit with one of those.

KFG

Re:Shweet

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be nice if this could mean gigapixel cameras & the answer to the age old question of ghosts.

Knowing for certain that ghosts exist but not yet having the technology to do away with them (a la Ghostbusters ) would be horrific, don't you think?

Re:Shweet

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if they come with explanations of very common goofs. Some basics: sunlight or a camera flash reflecting off a shiny surface onto the wall isn't evidence of ghosts. Neither is an out of focus blob of dust or water. Nor is the camera strap, a finger over the lens, or a long exposure done with shaky hands.

Re:Shweet

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, here is your answer to the age old question of ghosts:

They don't exist. Get real.

So...

[RyanFenton]

Would it have to change the flow by measuring it? How much by pure quantum "observation" effects?

As a non-phyisics grad (Computer science), I'm wondering.

Ryan Fenton

Re:So...

[MindStalker]

If you read this is simply a device that channels electrons into a single file channel then measures the movement through the channel. Akin to putting a dam in water then putting a very small pipe in the dam and putting a meter on that. What you are ultimatly changing is the amount of electrons that get through, so I'm guessing to measure a current of any size you would have to have millions or more of these???

Re:So...

[agentcdog]

Apparantly, it uses quantum effects to do its measurements. There are two very small electron "cages" and the electron must tunnel across from one "quantum dot" (their words) to the other. In answer to your question ALL ammeters affect the systems that they measure. Mostly it isn't a big deal because they have very low resistance. There are some situations where it is very difficult to measure current. One scenario is when the resistance of the circuit is very small. The other is when the current is very small. The reason it is so hard to measure small currents is that there is thermal movements of electrons in the metal. When you amplify the current it amplifies the noise. There are various ways of getting around this. According to TFA this technique introduces very little noise, which allows it to measure very small currents. The whole heisenberg effect is more a matter of indeterminacy for individual particles. The scale of the measurements appear to be big enough that the sum of the individual particles should be an accurate representation of the flow. If anyone reading the article can add clarity, I would welcome it.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too, but thanks for trying . ..

Re:So...

[Meski]

Where does the observant cat fit in?
Must be a slow news day. 'Lets watch some electrons' /yawn

Cool!

[Crazyscottie]

So now ol' Ben Franklin can finally see which direction electrons really flow!

Re:Cool!

[ookabooka]

Electrons do move from negative to positive, but the "current" as defined by Ohm's Law does "flow" from positive to negative. Way back when they didnt know which direction stuff moved, so they defined it as moving from positive to negative for the sake of their mathematical calculations. Right hand rule, left hand rule. . bah semantics.

Re:Cool!

[JohnFluxx]

It's funny that the same mistake was made with the Earth. The North pole is actually near the Earth's magnetic _south_ pole. Except we call the magnetic south pole the magnetic North pole, but it's a south pole.....

Re:Cool!

[ceoyoyo]

Electrons in a normal conductor don't really don't move that fast anyway. Something like a slow walking pace.

Current, tunneling ?

[karvind]

I RTFA and it employs two quantum dots to distinguish the direction of the flow. As the article mentions: scientists already know how count single electrons travelling through an individual quantum dot

My question is if I want to measure current (assume an ideal current source) then I will hook it up to this new invention. The mechanism of current in this new measuring device is quantum tunneling. Is there any reason that the current source in question employs the same mechanism. It may still be conventional drift-diffusion with very very low fields (and probably very low mobility). Now when I interface it with this double-quantum device, does the change in mechanism ensures current quantity ? If answer yes, what is the intutive answer. I can understand current continuity when it is drift and diffusion.

Re:Current, tunneling ?

[yincrash]

what?

Re:Current, tunneling ?

[XchristX]

There would have to be some sort of "effective quantum impedance" (for want of a better phrase) of the contact which can be adjusted such that the device sees a very small input impedance so that the device does not measurably affect the source.

To: MODS -- next time click the link

[whoever57]

The parent might deserve a "funny" rating, but not "informative". Whoever modded this informative did so without actually checking the link.

Re:To: MODS -- next time click the link

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no . They modded it 'informative' as a joke, you understand. Yup. That's Slashdot humor for you. It's subtle. Really subtle.

Re:To: MODS -- next time click the link

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, O helpful user, but I actually felt the guy might deserve a little karma in addition to his I-got-my-comment-modded-up good feeling. Also, I found a rating of Informative to be quite amusing to myself in the course of giving him a karma point. I'm sorry if I offended any of our more sensitive users, such as the parent.

Re:To: MODS -- next time click the link

[Anonymous Coward]

I posted it anonymously, so the karma boost was wasted. I thought the informative rating was quite funny though.

Re:To: MODS -- next time click the link

[karnal]

You must be new here.

Uses:

[stunt_penguin]

Nanoelectronics, calibration devices, quantum computation.... and the world's smallest abaci.

Too Many Jokes...

[Doomedsnowball]

I can think of a lot of smart, witty, even sarcastic jokes about this article... but this is truly a 'Wow' moment if you fully understand the implications of this.

Re:Too Many Jokes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of a lot of smart, witty, even sarcastic jokes about this article... but this is truly a 'Wow' moment if you fully understand the implications of this.
--
7h3$3 4r3n'7 7h3 Ðr01Ð$ ¥0 4r3 £00|{1n9 f0r. M0v3 4£0n9.

I have this theory that goes along the lines of: anyone who uses leet doesn't understand the implications of anything.

Look at that one go!

[vldragon]

Before you read any of the article and just say the headline: "Physicists Watch Individual Electrons Flow" did anyone think of a bunch of guys in white lab coats looking down at a table with money in their fists betting on electron races? Because I did... And boy was it disturbing... Gambling physicists can be very rude. (At least the ones in my head are)

Re:Look at that one go!

[Cheapy]

"Damnit Jones! You altered the race event by observing it!"

Re:Look at that one go!

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

"Who won the race!?"

"I dunno, but there's a dead cat in this box over here."

Re:Look at that one go!

[SillySnake]

"Sorry Tom! I knew how fast my electron was headed for the finish line, I just didn't know where it was!"

Re:Look at that one go!

[Katanasensei]

"how fast is it?"

Re:Look at that one go!

[CCFreak2K]

Obligatory Futurama reference:

No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!

So does this mean...

[Audent]

that we can finally see just what happens with that light box experiment with waves/particles of light?

Someone with a clue help me out here. Does this mean we'll get a definitive answer on how a single particle of light can actually be in two places at once?

Re:So does this mean...

[amRadioHed]

This won't help because light behaves as both a particle and a wave, depending on how you are observing it.
From Wikipedia:

when the particle could be passing through either of the two slits, it will actually pass through both, and so an interference pattern results. But if the particle is detected at one of the two slits, then it can no longer be passing through both - it must exist at one or the other, and so no interference pattern appears.

Re:So does this mean...

[SilentBob0727]

Nope. Because it's only in two places at once if you're not looking at it.

Re:So does this mean...

[Maelwryth]

Try this http://www.vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8. If you don't have the bandwidth you can buy them from the University of Auckland.

Re:So does this mean...

[Savantissimo]

We already know the answer to that. "Wave propagation" and "particle interaction" are redundant expressions; "wave interaction" and "particle propagation" are oxymoronic. "Waves" and "particles" are not entities or properties but rather behaviors - wave propagation is the constant or increasing lack of information about the quantum relative to the observer/instrument/indicator and particle interaction is the creation or transmission of information relative to the observer/instrument/indicator.

Single particle interactions are never in two places at once. The information that originally was one quantum may be distributed across space as it propagates as a wave or distributed across ensembles of different quanta in entangled states, but the interactions (particles) themselves are always strictly local.

Re:So does this mean...

[fulvioc]

You're talking about the double-slit experiment or two-slit experiment consisting of letting light diffract through two slits producing fringes on a screen. These fringes or interference patterns have light and dark regions corresponding to where the light waves have constructively and destructively interfered. The experiment can also be performed with a beam of electrons or atoms, showing similar interference patterns; this is taken as evidence of the "wave-particle duality" predicted by quantum physics. Note, however, that a double-slit experiment can also be performed with water waves in a ripple tank; the explanation of the observed wave phenomena does not require quantum mechanics in any way. The phenomenon is quantum mechanical only when quantum particles - such as atoms, electrons, or photons - manifest as waves. I doubt the machine will be able to distinguish whether one electron goes through one slit and/or vice/versa. Remember, observing the behavior of these particles causes the wave pattern to collapse. They're almost there, but they're very far off at the same time.

Re:So does this mean...

[x2A]

Swap the word 'particle' for 'packet' and it's often easier to understand. It appears as though it's a partical because they are of fixed units (1, 2, but never 1.5). So in effect, it's a 'packet' of energy... the energy travels in packets of set sizes, so it looks like particles, but it's not. The packet of energy may spread out as it travels, but it's still the same packet.

Re:So does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

Realmedia.... *shudder*

Re:So does this mean...

[Memnos]

I think that a plausible explanation (or at least one that deserves more research) is the Pilot Wave theory proposed by de Broglie-Bohm. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/ and other numerous sites for a discusion of this proposition. (Disclaimer: I have never been a big fan of the Copenhagen Interpetation.) Nonetheless, I feel that an explanation which obviates the "observer problem" and explains decoherence merits looking at.

Re:So does this mean...

[Bob Gelumph]

You misunderstand what the double slit experiment involves.
In the double slit experiment, the light or particle source that is used is turned down so low that at any given time, there is no more than 1 particle going through the barrier.
This cannot be replicated in a ripple tank. A ripple tank, or any kind of macro scale wave inherently cannot produce the same result as the double slit experiment because it can not be proven that any individual particle is the wave is interfering with itself.

Re:So does this mean...

[moosesocks]

My education on these matters is sadly limited (for now), but I'm not quite so sure they're "almost there", or if they'll ever be "there" for that matter.

Any observation of a quantum particle requires some sort of interaction with that particle. Once you interact with the particle, the wave function collapses.

Unless I'm horribly mistaken, this breakthrough only allows us to observe particles with less interaction to them. Regardless of this fact, any observation imlies a collapse of the wave function. Einstein proved this IIRC.

From what I understand, until *any* given phenomena is observed, it is occupying all possible states of being. Once it is observed, the probability function collapses, and it settles on one state of being. This manifests itself particularly well in the double slit experiment, because, the particle has a 50% chance of hitting one slit or the other, and as long as you don't make any observations before the particle hits the slit(s), it seems to pass through *both*. Of course, the definition of "observation" is pretty broadly defined as any interaction with just about anything.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge can comment. (It's not like any of this is even relevant anymore anyhow..... Bistromathematics will soon replace quantum physics. )

Re:So does this mean...

[hawkfish]

You link looks broken, but this description (where it is called the "Guide Wave Interpretation") points out that it is incompatible with Bell's inequality.

For a pretty thorough discussion of various interpretations, have a look at the containing article.

Re:So does this mean...

[fulvioc]

If sunlight is replaced with a light source that is capable of producing just one photon at a time, and the screen is sensitive enough to detect a single photon, This experiment can, in theory, be performed one photon at a time -- with identical results. If either slit is covered, the individual photons hitting the screen, over time, create a pattern with a single peak. But if both slits are left open, the pattern of photons hitting the screen, over time, again becomes a series of light and dark fringes. This result seems to both confirm and contradict the wave theory. On the one hand, the interference pattern confirms that light still behaves much like a wave, even though we send it one particle at a time. On the other hand, each time a photon with a certain energy is emitted, the screen detects a photon with the same energy. Under the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory, an individual photon is seen as passing through both slits at once, and interfering with itself, producing the interference pattern. A remarkable refinement of the double-slit experiment consists of putting a detector at each of the two slits, to determine which slit the photon passes through on its way to the screen (If the photon or electron passes through only one slit - which it must do, as, by definition, a photon or an electron is a quanta, or "packet" of energy which cannot be subdivided - then logically it cannot interfere with itself and produce an interference pattern). When the experiment is arranged in this way, the fringes disappear. The Copenhagen interpretation posits the existence of probability waves which describe the likelihood of finding the particle at a given location. Until the particle is detected at any location along this probability wave, it effectively exists at every point. Thus, when the particle could be passing through either of the two slits, it will actually pass through both, and so an interference pattern results. But if the particle is detected at one of the two slits, then it can no longer be passing through both - it must exist at one or the other, and so no interference pattern appears. The many worlds interpretation states that the particle not only goes through both slits but that it is detected at every possible final location as well -- but in different, mutually unobservable worlds. This is similar to the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics provided by Richard Feynman (although Feynman stresses that this is merely a mathematical description, not an attempt to describe some "real" process that we cannot see), in which a particle such as a photon takes every possible path through space-time to get from point A to point B. In the double-slit experiment, point A might be the emitter, and point B the screen upon which the interference pattern appears, and a particle takes every possible path - through both slits at once - to get from A to B. When a detector is placed at one of the slits, the situation changes, and we now have a different point B at the detector, and a new path between the detector and the screen - upon which the interference pattern no longer appears).

Re:So does this mean...

[Deef]

As another non-fan of the Copenhagen Interpretation, I suggest that you try looking at the Many Worlds Interpretation. It has an elegant explanation of the observer problem: Different versions of the observer observe different results. The results seem random to these observers because they all occur, and different observers see different things. This interpretation is beautifully elegant once you really understand it.

Basically, the Many Worlds interpretation simplifies to the Copenhagen interpretation if you decide that you are not interested in which worlds the observer occupies (and thus treat them as if they were a single world), which means that you then have to treat the set of worlds containing the results of the experiment as if they were nondeterministic (because they are really correlated with the worlds containing the observer, but you're treating the observers as if they were one world).

As an analogy, you could consider the Copenhagen Interpretation as sort of like what happens in Special Relativity when you pick a reference frame and measure everything else relative to it. The Many Worlds Interpretation is then more like trying to treat all reference frames as equivalent.

Tokyo Institute of Technology ?!?

[crazyvas]

Am I the only one to notice that that would be full of TITs ?!?!

Sigh...I need to get some soon.

Re:Tokyo Institute of Technology ?!?

[John Nowak]

While TIT is great, soon I hear they'll be forming a nice pair with the TIS (Tokyo Institute of Science) department. I wonder what they'll call it?

Re:Tokyo Institute of Technology ?!?

[Joebert]

Am I the only one to notice that that would be full of TITs ?!?! Sigh...I need to get some soon.

Damn you recent memory of precursor sentences !

Re:Tokyo Institute of Technology ?!?

[bogd]

Sigh...I need to get some soon.

And I'm sure reading (and posting on) slashdot will help you a lot in that endeavour.

You have a long way ahead of you, young padawan...

Re:Tokyo Institute of Technology ?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh...I need to get some soon.

And I'm sure reading (and posting on) slashdot will help you a lot in that endeavour.
You have a long way ahead of you, young padawan...

I disagree, crazyvas will indeed get some tits soon. But, the word to most accurately describe them is "Moobs".

um....photons != electrons so far as I know.

[CFD339]

At least not until you get into wave or string theory stuff and that's based on the very thing you're trying to look at so not exactly going back to basics.

In other news, Painters watch Paint Dry

[CFD339]

and the rest of us are forced to watch GOLF on TV.

but...

[fmoliveira]

Does it run on linux?

more info

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.analogzone.com/tmt_0912.pdf

Great.

[s800]

Except that charge is what's moving, not necessarily electrons.

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that charge is what's moving, not necessarily electrons.

I think you'll find that the majority of charge carriers are in fact electrons.

Re:Great.

[iggymanz]

but let's not forget those minority carriers. they're present, even in your lamp cord.

Impressive

[thatshortkid]

"Physicists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology..."

Wow. Nice, TITs.

Re:Impressive

[JorDan Clock]

No, singular. Just one TIT. Only in Japan...

For an unknow reason

[this great guy]

For an unknow reason, their device automatically falls into sleep mode after having counted too many electrons.

Finally!

[epp_b]

We've harnessed the power of CSI!

Sure they can flow...

[insanarchist]

but can they hustle?

Duality wave/particule for electron too

[aepervius]

Actually all particule exhibit that duality. I worked for the labor which made the first scattering of an electron through a germanium crystal (I think it was germanium at least).

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

god damn!

[x2A]

You changed the results my measuring it!

Re:god damn!

[Anonymous Coward]

gdb does that too!

binary

[dwater]

I always thought it was a waste to have all those electrons flow just to represent a '1' instead of a '0'.

Now they only need one electron - cool :)

Re:binary

[Detritus]

You don't even need the electron. You can have EM waves without electrons.

Re:binary

[dwater]

..but then what would they use this new device for?

Self Discovery

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally!

Something I can measure it with!

Thank you, God!

Muhaha!
It's alive! It's alive!

Some EE, please comment

[Compuser]

What would be the gain-bandwidth for a current amplifier built with this technology?

Atto, Schmatto

[Monkey_Genius]

When you get down to zepto and yocto, that's when things really start happening!

Watch?

[Beetle B.]

How exactly is this "watching"?

still can not validate US electronic elections

[Anonymous Coward]

It's cute. It's great even! but it still can *not validate* every inch of every mile of
digitized data across specically crafted doped chips, specially crafted components, specially crafted disks, and specially cracked networks and software.

Therefore our elections are just like the NBA without instant replay...they're rigged!

And because they are rigged, and because the current administration is destroying the constitution,
the military (who swore an oath to protect the president, and the constitution against all enemies both foreign and *domestic*) should step in and clean up our country.

Re-Deploy the troops to the USA to clean up our country!

Re:still can not validate US electronic elections

[KDR_11k]

No but it can accurately calculate your power bill.

Exciting as watching...

[fahrbot-bot]

Physicists Watch Individual Electrons Flow

...paint dry.

Ahh, the wayward electron...

An Electron's Longings

The electron
at the edge of the valence band
said:

I stand upon the edge
Condemned by fate's cruel hand
To lie in a state of perpetual freeze
With energy lacking to do a trapeze
Across to freedom's higher land

There are many who have risen beyond
Coulombic forces. They blisfully exist
Unshelled. Their orbitals know no bond.
With carefree abandon they diffuse and drift.

Will no photon shine a light ?
Will no dopant lend a hand ?
To conquer Fermi's improbable height
To leap into the conduction band !

They're all just mathematical models anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole business about what is being observed is somewhat academic. We don't really know that any of these things exist as such, but only that the world seems to behave as if they did. We have no way to perceive reality directly, but only to probe how she behaves indirectly.

And that's good, because it means that we can throw out old theories with impunity once better ones are devised. If we were to ever observe the TRUTH, we would no longer have the freedom to do that, and it would be the end of Science as such.

I can do it for cheaper.

[zindorsky]

What a waste of money. The other night I drank one $7 bottle of sake and I was able to see individual quarks moving.

Furthermore...

[cr0sh]

In the double slit experiment, the light or particle source that is used is turned down so low that at any given time, there is no more than 1 particle going through the barrier.

Also, isn't it that the collapse of the wave function depends on what you put after the barrier?

That is, if you put a single particle detector at one of the slits (or a very sensitive screen), you will get "pings" that eventually "build up" to show the interference pattern fringing. However, if you put a particle detector in front of both slits, the "fringing" disappears - implying the wave function has collapsed and no interference pattern results (because the particle can only go through one of the slits at a time). If I understand it it correctly, this is the essence of the Copenhagen Interpretation.

There seem to be other interpretations of this phenomena as well. The Wikipedia article on the Double Slit Experiment goes into great detail, with a lot of links to bring you up to speed on this fascinating subject of QM...

That's It

[Mark_MF-WN]

That's it, game over. Give that man the prize for best post of the day.

its still electrons

[petermgreen]

generally minority carriers means the less common of conduction band electrons or valance band holes, but holes aren't physical items they are just representative of missing electrons (a good analogy for hole current is moving your overdraft from one bank to another, its still money thats moving between banks).

the only things that carry charge in a normal conductor are electrons, ions can also do it but only really in soloutions afaict.

nothing new to see, please move along...

[elFisico]

I can remember from my Lab days (boy, has it been really 20 years?!) a Burr-Brown amm-meter that had an electron-count mode where it would display "electrons per second" (actually unit-charges) instead of femto-amperes. Sure, it only counted in about 100-electron steps, but I think that's fair enough... :-)