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New State of Matter Could Extend Moore's Law
rennerik writes "Scientists at McGill University in Montreal say they've discovered a new state of matter that could help extend Moore's Law and allow for the fabrication of more tightly packed transistors, or a new kind of transistor altogether. The researchers call the new state of matter 'a quasi-three-dimensional electron crystal.' It was discovered using a device cooled to a temperature about 100 times colder than intergalactic space, following the application of the most powerful continuous magnetic field on Earth."
On a nerd side note. We all know Dilithium in reality is a gas. But at the temperatures stated in the article. Would it be able to form a solid? Likely it would NOT be a crystal but it'd be fun to know.
The laws of Thermodynamics state that we can't really achieve absolute zero As far as the far reaches of space goes they may be referring to the boomerang nebula which is the coldest place we know of so far - outside of the laboratory. I wish the article had been more specific and quantitative. FYI a really good program to watch if you get a chance is Absolute Zero
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Since there are already numerous posts invoking the applicability (or not) of Moore's Law, I thought I would start over. Although Gordon Moore certainly formulated his law based on silicon (original is here: http://www.intel.com/technology/mooreslaw/.) it can be applied clear back to 1890 with the Hollerith 'computer' that tabulated the 1890 census. When you graph it out, Moore's Law applies to electro-mechanical switches, then to relays, then to vacuum tubes, then transistors themselves (like in a six transistor radio of the 50's), then on to silicon. It's still the same exponential curve, in five separate states, only the last one of which is silicon. Kurzweil discusses this in depth here: http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1. People who claim Moore's Law doesn't apply because this isn't traditional silicon acreage are missing the point, which is that not only is Moore's Law more encompassing than the originally envisioned, it is not going away any time soon. The imminent death of Moore's Law, as always, has been greatly exaggerated.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Perfect vacuum is theoretically impossible due to quantum mechanics (I can not explain why, but that makes sense).
For any given particle, you can't know its exact position and velocity. Particles can never reach absolute zero because then you would be able to determine their position since you know their velocity would thus be zero given they have no energy by definition of absolute zero. An extension of that then is if you know a particle's velocity you will never be able to determine its position. If you can't determine its position you can't determine whether it is really outside a vacuum. You may be able to say it isn't in the middle of the volume which represents the vaccum but at the boundary you can't say for sure whether the particle is on the inside of the vacuum or outside. This is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. An absolute zero temperature vacuum is definitely impossible due to the uncertainty principle.
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Intergalactic space is not at 2.7 K. Especially in galaxy clusters, the temperature of the intergalactic medium is often millions of degrees Kelvin. Even in more remote places far from galaxy clusters, it's still much warmer than 2.7 K. The 2.7 K figure is the temperature associated with the cosmic microwave background radiation, not the intergalactic medium.