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Blueprint For a Quantum Electric Motor
TechReviewAl writes "Alexey Ponomarev from the University of Augsburg in Germany and colleagues have revealed the blueprints for an electric motor built with just two atoms. The motor would have one neutral atom and one charged atom trapped in a ring-shaped optical lattice. The atoms jump from one site in the lattice to the next as they travel around the ring and placing this ring in an alternating magnetic field creates the conditions necessary to keep the charged atom moving round the the ring. A team from the University of Glasgow in the UK in fact built one of these quantum motors back in 2007, which they called an optical ferris wheel for ultracold atoms. 'The next step, say Ponomarev and co, is to attach the motor to a nanoscopic resonator, such as a spring board or nanomushroom, and make it vibrate. If you can do that, they say, you'd be powering a classical object using a quantum motor.'"
How exactly is this quantum? Does it spin in both ways at once?
"In physics, a quantum (plural: quanta) is an indivisible entity of a quantity that has the same units as the Planck constant and is related to both energy and momentum of elementary particles of matter (called fermions) and of photons and other bosons." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum
What makes you think something has to spin both ways at once to be quantum?
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
So what exactly is an optical lattice, and why is it not considered part of the motor itself? Other than the fact that "motor made out of only two atoms!" is clearly a better-sounding story, that is.
I suspect a few more atoms were used for the lasers that generate the optical containment and the device that applies the magnetic field and whatever was used to cool those two atoms to near zero Kelvins. Sounds a bit like a quantum physicists' retelling of stone soup.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
Not really, it would be both running and not running at any given point in time, until you look at it...that can't be good for the calculations.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
I hope this one day scales up to car size. The cops would be able to tell I was speeding on the freeway, but have no idea where I was. Or they would know exactly where I was, but have no idea if I was speeding. HUP FTW!
I'll show myself out....
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
only in Boston.