Big Bang Could Be Recreated Inside a Metamaterial

KentuckyFC writes "Metamaterials are substances with a permittivity and permeability that has been manipulated in a way that allows fine control over the behavior of light. They have famously been used to create an invisibility cloak that hides objects from view. Now Igor Smolyaninov, a physicist in the US, has calculated how metamaterials could be used for a much more profound demonstration: to reproduce the behavior of light in various kinds of spacetimes, in particular a (2+2) spacetime (one having two dimensions of space and two of time). His method is to show that there is formal mathematical analogy between the way metamaterials and spacetimes affect light. He goes on to show how a phase transition in a (2+2) spacetime leads to the creation of a (2+1) spacetime filled with photons, an event analogous to the Big Bang." Here are the abstract and the preprint (PDF).

Comments

Re:metamaterials are just periodic structures

[glitch23]

It so happens that currently all of the structures we've manufactured with a refractive index that is negative somewhere, have that 'somewhere' outside of the visible spectrum. This is due entirely - it is theorised [sic] - due to our aqueous origins when we were evolving eyes and doesn't make the materials any less fascinating!

Okay, now does all that still apply using the premise that we didn't evolve? Quit assuming with every other theory that the evolution theory is always correct. It will cloud your judgment and screw up your research data and hypotheses.