Slashdot Mirror
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."
I believe the term you're looking for is Dilithium.
" 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."
That's exactly what I want in my office.
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.
I don't know why, but I think this will take a while to get to my local PC store.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Extend it? I trust you mean CONFIRM IT YET AGAIN!
Thought so.
Read carefully; they're cooling temperature itself! Not just cooler matter, but cooler temperature. This is a major breakthrough. Before you know it, they'll be able to achieve faster speeds, longer lengths, smaller sizes, and deeper depths.
Moore's law is about manufacturing on silicon
If it isn't silicon, then it isn't Moore's law.
remember kids, increasing processor speed is a by product of Moore's law/ Moore's law is about cost of manufacturing.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How cold is that in libraries of congresses?
... "...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."
What does this mean? Give us a temperature. At least that would be concrete.
According to wikipedia, intergalactic space is 2.71 Kelvin. I would assume that they mean "100th the temperature of intergalactic space", not "100 times colder than intergalactic space", as the latter is nonsensical and implies that it exists at 100 times colder than intergalactic space is colder than room temperature, meaning -28834 Kelvin (293 - 100 * (293 - 2.73) where we assume that room temperature is 20 degrees centigrade). This is nonsense.
So, my PC is going to be running at 0.0273 Kelvin. Well, that's convenient! I love my room when it's that cold!
The cosmic microwave background is the electromagnetic energy radiated by the distant reaches of the universe. It corresponds to energy radiated by a roughly 2.7 degrees Kelvin blackbody. That is the temperature of space since under normal conditions nothing can get colder than that temperature.
None, because as we all know Librarians are HOT!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
was discovered using a device cooled to a temperature about 100 times colder than intergalactic space
My ex-girlfriend?
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081021185213.htm
Space isn't a complete vacuum. There is still movement and the occasional molecule, but for all practical purposes, it "is" a vacuum. There is still a temperature though.
Now gimme mah memristors!
The enemies of Democracy are
Wait, so somebody discovered a whole new state of matter, and all we have to say is it could extend Moore's Law? I would hope the implications would be just a tad bit more grand for such a discovery than possibly validating somebody's metric for a little while.
100 times colder than 0 K? So, that's what, 0 K? Why not make it 1000 times colder?
(Yes I know space is slightly warmer than absolute zero, but it's still a really weird claim to make - we are only talking about a couple of degrees here)
Also, am I the only one who, upon hearing "discovered a new state of matter", doesn't immediately think "Sweet, we can extends Moore's Law!", but rather "Holy shit, a new state of matter?" Seems like a pretty big discovering on its own, even without being tied to chip manufacturing...
sic transit gloria mundi
[Scientist 1] A new state of matter! This is AWESOME!
[Scientist 2] Yeah, but it's bloody expensive making the stuff. How can we bring in more funding?
[Scientist 1] Umm ... Something to do with terrorism? Err ...
[Scientist 2] ...energy crisis? Can we do anything with oil? ...
[Scientist 1] ...what about computers? Could you make smaller transistors with this stuff?
[Scientist 2] Yeah, it might fly. Let's run with that.
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
From comments in TFA:
The researcher, Dr. Guillaume Gervais, is director of McGill University's Ultra-Low Temperature Condensed Matter Experiment Lab. There's nothing in the journal letter about "a new state of matter". The McGill Newsroom article quotes him as saying to the interviewer, "It's actually not quite 3-D, it's an in-between state, a totally new phenomenon" as compared with the 2-D electron crystals that transistors and IC chips are made of. The interviewer, or an editor, thought "Physics -- state -- new state of matter". Engadget's Melanson picked up the error and passed it on uncritically.
Obviously you've never been to Montreal.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum
Intersteller space has a density of a million atoms per cubic meter. Intergalactic space has densities closer to one atom per cubic meter. Perfect vacuum is theoretically impossible due to quantum mechanics (I can not explain why, but that makes sense).
We Bokononists prefer to call it Ice-nine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokononism
Say hello to my little sig.
Mr. Peabody, and his boy Sherman, used the Wayback Machine.
The 3DBB was used by Phineas J. Whoopee, when he was educating Tennessee Tuxedo and his walrus pal, Chumley.
Look at my ID. I am old... old as dirt! :)
I used to watch these, as well as "The World of Commander McBragg", and the ever-popular Underdog. "The secret compartment of my ring I fill with an Underdog super-vitamin energy pill." The people involved in the supposed live-action remake of Underdog should all be lowered into wood chippers feet first... and slowly.
wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
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
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily
TFA doesn't state any specific temperature, but I find the analogy to how "cold" space is rather troubling. Space is really "warm", as it contains energy left from the Big Bang (although no one with a common sense would describe it that way in daily talk), and saying that something is so many times colder than space really just doesn't make sense. You can always compare sizes, but as heat is a positive size, because you can't have negative energy, you can just say "this is a hundred times hotter than that" or "my freezer is two times as cold as my refrigerator compared to my living room". The one who thought of this analogy could be talking about degrees on Celsius or Fahrenheit, but then those numbers must be way below absolute zero, or 0 Kelvin, as space is just 2.7 Kelvin, or -270.7 C ( http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sp_ht.html ) and taking for granted he is comparing the temperature of space to 0 ÂC, that means that those crystals are actually -27070 C. And _that_ would be some real frontpage material...
You seem confused. He speaks of "a temperature about 100 times colder than intergalactic space". Intergalactic space has a temperature of about 3K. It does not make sense to talk of degrees C, since C is not an absolute scale. 100 times colder than 3K is 0.03K.
100 times as cold as.
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.
but it still works quite well, since 1C == 1K
and i really cringed when i read the 100 times colder crap. Seriously, if it's at 0.03 K why not just say that?
i find your lack of faith in science disturbing!
You don't need matter to have a temperature. Even in a "perfect" vacuum (i.e. nothing but quantum fluctuation transient particle-antiparticle pairs) there is still radiant energy in the form of photons - and their wavelength distribution corresponds to a temperature.
It's the temperature at which a black-body test object, bathed continuously in photons of that frequency distribution, would neither warm up nor cool down further.
The radiant temperature of the sky far from the influence of nearby galaxies is known as the "cosmic background temperature". It's about 4 degrees absolute - corresponding to the light from the big bang red-shifted down a LOT by cosmic expansion.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Actually I would assume that they mean 1/100 the temperature of space, on an absolute zero based scale.
but it still works quite well, since 1C == 1K
and i really cringed when i read the 100 times colder crap. Seriously, if it's at 0.03 K why not just say that?
It does not work well. 100x colder than 1 C is not 0.01 C, it is -270.27 C. And the reason people don't say 0.03 K is because the average person does not know what K is, but they know space is very cold.
"Approximately 100 times colder than intergalactic space"
Call me a troll if you must, but this is 'news for nerds'. Why not just give us the temperature in Kelvin?
Lucky, outer space certainly seems like the only place to cheaply get that amount of cooling.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
4.73 Kelvin
Pffft barely jacket weather.
Tell me when it's below 3.8 Kelvin. THEN I might be impressed.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
You know, we *can* understand Kelvin ... or can we expect the next comparison as "1000 times colder than a polar bear's left testicle".
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.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Perfect vacuum is theoretically impossible
The relevant law of Nature is: "Nature abhors a vacuum."
And since it is Mother Nature, the relevant reason behind this law is the old Mother's law: "Because I said so".
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
They also know that in space no-one can hear you scream. Which is why I am glad he didn't tell me how much colder it is than a Library of Congress.
I'm also a little worried if the string theorists get hold of this. I mean if they can extend moore's law by adding another dimension; quasi or otherwise, we will definitely run out of IP addresses before they hit the 11th!
there, how's that for some sequiturial journalistic embellishment?
And the reason people don't say 0.03 K is because the average person does not know what K is [...]
Well then let them become curious and not so average.
Joe Sixpack asks, "Would that temperature keep by brewskis cold, or would it freeze them? Because that's a drag when they explode, and I have to call Joe Plumber to fix the freezer (after I clean off the venison steaks left over from last season), and he's crabby about taxes or some such nonsense. Pass me another cold one."
achieve faster speeds, longer lengths, smaller sizes, and deeper depths.
That's what she said.
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.
There are also particles (or rather, particle / anti-particle pairs) popping into and out of existence all the time. In fact, this is often invoked as the source of Hawking radiation.
--Joe
Program Intellivision!
... 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."
Hmmm... this is definitely going to extend Moore's Law in home computing... sure. ;)
The sub prime state... You can pay for it and sell it but when you look at it hard enough it's not really there...
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Moore's law... hell this is going to extend the calculation of the user's home heating/cooling costs past what will fit on a single page.
On the upside, calculating that kind of cost may lead to the finding of a new prime number or two.
Was this moderated Insightful out of irony (I do that all the time when I have the points) or did I miss the joke?
Please do not mod this ironically, because I'm already confused. Thanks.
An absolute zero temperature vacuum is definitely impossible due to the uncertainty principle.
Well yeah, if you had a brain fart and forgot to turn on the Heisenberg compensators.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Space is very cold, but screaming for ice cream is useless.
Not a sentence!
That took me by surprise. I was sure it was going to be because of the vast number of virtual particles constantly appearing and disappearing within the vacuum.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
It does not work well. 100x colder than 1 C is not 0.01 C, it is -270.27 C. And the reason people don't say 0.03 K is because the average person does not know what K is, but they know space is very cold.
Agree, but this is a science article. It is obviously going to be read by quite a few technically minded people. So it doesn't hurt to give a clear value as well as a clarifier for the masses.
Slashdot is powered by your submission.
One of the reasons the average person does not know what K is, is because they're never expected to know it.
If everyone stopped using Celsius or Fahrenheit in situations where Kelvin would better suited, people would have to actually remember the Kelvin-scale from school-physics or take a minute out of their lives to find out what the Kelvin-scale is.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
"Insightful"? What the...? Either you don't know cooling is a HUGE problem in outer space, either the mods didn't get the joke.
Hint: here on earth, we cool stuff by dumping the extra heat onto air molecules, and keeping the air fresh (e.g. with a fan) so that there's a continuous supply of air to dump heat on. In outer space, there is pretty much nothing to dump the extra heat on. Know how thermos bottles work? That's right, with vacuum. Outer space is the best insulation there is ;-)
Q: What is the difference between an orange?
A: A banana.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Here's the problem... when you say things like "x times SMALLER than" and "x times COLDER than" people think "oh, something TIMES something... I have to multiply."
But with diminishing comparisons (smaller, colder, etc) you're actually multiplying by a decimal, which most people regard as DIVISION.
Worse, when you say something like "100 times colder than" people think not just "I have to multiply" but rather "I have to multiply something by 100".
Let's save everyone a headache and if you want to make a comparison, use the most explicit form possible. In this case, "1/100th the temperature of intergalactic space" (or just give us the damn Kelvins).
To paraphrase an AC's earlier post:
Well, the faster speeds and smaller sizes part anyway.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Just to make sure everybody knows: The necessary magnetic field and temperature applications are required only during the creation of the crystals.
--Edward Dassmesser
What implications does this have for the big bang? I assume that before the big bang, space was colder, thusly opening the door for for creation of this type of matter before the universe heated. Does this have implications beyond computing?
Does space even have a temperature? Vacuum insulates rather well and the biggest problem of many space-born devices (think ISS) is getting rid of excess heat. The famous Star Trek line of "It's very cold in space" doesn't really match the reality.
There's the redshifted afterglow of the original Big Bang "fireball", also known as the cosmic microwave background radiation. It's equal to heat radiation of an object at about 3K. If you make something colder than that and throw it into intergalactic space, it'll heat up to that temperature. If something is warmer than that, and there's no heating, then it'll cool down to that temperature. So I'd say space *is* cold.
Closest example of a place that always experiences almost the true temperature of space are the bottoms of the polar craters of the Moon. They are eternally in shade, no sunshine, no earthshine, only distant starts and whatever little heat is conducted through lunar crust.