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Yoctonewton Detector Smashes Force Sensing Record
KentuckyFC writes "A team of physicists has measured the smallest force ever recorded, at 174 yoctonewtons (yocto=10^-24), beating the previous best by three orders of magnitude. Their measurement device consists of a few dozen beryllium ions trapped in magnetic and electric fields using a device called a Penning trap. These ions vibrate at between a few mega and kilohertz, frequencies that can be accurately measured by bouncing laser light off the ions and measuring any Doppler shift they cause. Being charged, the ions are highly susceptible to the tiny forces associated with stray magnetic and electric fields, which change the frequency at which the ions vibrate. Hence the super-sensitive measurements. They team says that straightforward modifications should allow them to measure single yoctonewtons in the near future. This sudden leap in sensitivity could cause a problem for the system of SI prefixes, which don't yet come any smaller than yocto."
This is no big deal.
Your comming up with miniscule amounts of movement, and your worrying about finding the proper prefix? Who hasn't hearsd of Scientific Notation?
I, hereby, propose the diminewtons.
They should've started from the tiniest entity, like we CSs did with the bits.
They won't hear us complain of not having a name for portions of a yotabit.
At that small of values the uncertianty principle probably plays a big role in error. I wonder if they considered that.
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zepto
yocto
Seems like the logical next steps would be prefixes starting with x, then w, etc. So:
xocto
wupto
vecto
etc.
I doubt that the measurement of forces will go that many more orders of magnitude beyond where they're already measuring things.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
The doppler effect to me is a very specific phenomenon whereby there is a shift in perceived wavelength when there is relative motion between a source emitting waves and the observer. The article talks about lattice vibrations being the source of the shift (these vibrations are referred to as "phonons" by physicists), which has nothing to do with relative motion.
Simple. Call them deciyoctos, centiyoctos, miliyoctos, microyoctos, etc. The problem will be solved forever. It's not like we will find anything smaller.
On Slashdot you never can be sure if you are reading a joke from a genius or a line from an idiot.
There is an accepted mathematical (and computer) notation for it. Please use that - there is no need to resort to the equivalent of emoticons.
As an aside, why does every possible potential fraction of a unit need it's own prefix? Unless it is widely used to warrant a prefix, using a numeric power is just fine. Somehow I doubt these units will be common enough for anyone to even remember. SI is really going overboard on this, taking an idea to absurdity.
Haven't had time to read the article but it would amazing if force measurements at these levels could be conducted between well characterized masses to validate general relativity at low mass short distance scales.
On Slashdot you never can be sure if you are reading a joke from a genius or a line from an idiot.
It's Slashdot, it's ALWAYS the latter.
LOL. We could have yoctoyoctos or even yoctoyoctoyoctos.
America, Home of the Brave.
How about using scientific notation like a sane person who has a B.S. Prefixes are for manufacturing and consumers not r and d.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
...And yet still not sensitive enough to measure how fast I jumped when my niece recently asked me if I wanted a Miley Cyrus ticket too.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It only starts getting cumbersome at 1,000th of a yoctonewton, so until we reach that point, use fractions. Oh nooooooooo!
I hate grammar Nazi's.
...to detect the attractive force a Linux nerd radiates out to women.
into a bunch of humorous suggestions for the name of units smaller than yocto
allow me to start the noble proceedings:
mosquito-newtons
eensyteensy-newtowns
feelingsofinadequacy-newtons
napoleoncomplex-newtowns
wheredididropit-newtons
2009GNP-newtons
loco-newtons
gonzo-newtons
artdeco-newtons
your turn
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This sudden leap in sensitivity could cause a problem for the system of SI prefixes which don't yet come any smaller than yocto.
I say that the SI authority open the floor for commercial advertisers to sponsor smaller prefixes.
Future announcements might include: "Physicists break force measurement record with device sensitive to 10 Applenewtons."
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
In laymans terms, what does this actually mean?
From how many hundreds of miles away can we detect a sparrow fart? Or more slashdot related, how many miles away can someone detect my unencrypted wireless AP?
Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
Not one Obi-wan Kenobi quote in the whole thread yet. None of you are geeks. You're just nerds. NERDS!
the emoticonewton
or perhaps the :)newton, 8-(newton, :-Pnewton, ;\newton, etc
this is a great idea you've had! pat yourself on the back
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Logically, 10^-27 would be called xennea
The recurrence is:
zepta (Z + hepta=7)
yocto (Y + okto=8)
xennea(X + ennea=9)
in proper slashdot parlance, you must:
1. translate yoctonewtons into libraries of congress units
2. contemplate a beowulf cluster of them
3. explain their significance with a car analogy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just enough to hold the mandatory 30 second anti-piracy advertisement, followed by the RIAA approved 5 second clip of the song, followed by a 30 second commercial outro.
All DRM protected and only usable with "trusted" hardware (digitally encrypted at receiver and then decrypted by the new mandatory $500 digital speaker, or $200 earbuds) to keep those evil pirates from infringing.
Why are we using non-mathematical language to describe numbers? Just use powers of ten, etc. and be done with it! I like base 2 better, though. Base 10 is a flight-of-fancy. ;)
"zeppo", duh!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Still can't detect individual midi-chlorians, can it?
Yoyoctomomma?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Could something like this be useful for experiments like the CDMS, which are searching for non-baryonic particles?
I propose fig as the new SI prefix for 10^-27.
...Then again, maybe I'm just hungry.
I could help these guys out with the prefix issue. But after the whole kibi/mebi/gibbi nonsense, I'm not feeling inclined to. They'll have to suffer with what they've got.
I have to wonder what exactly they expect to measure with such a device. The premise of the Penning trap device is to use a static magnetic field (magnets) and an electric field (electric circuits) to cap the ends of the device to contain the super cooled, in this case beryllium ions. In order to "measure" external electric fields one has to let in external electromagnetic radiation, which will not come without having some overall effects on the containment vessel and circuitry as well. With external electromagnetic radiation power propagating at r^2 the vessel will get more of a dose than the beryllium ions and the electric field will have some level of modulation which will in turn make the ions vibrate in the axial direction based on the reactance of the containment circuitry, not the primary waveform desired to be measured. Yes, you will measure vibrations at the quantum level, but are you really measuring what you think you are? The device is likely so sensitive that due to the uncertainty principal it may defy us the ability to prove what is actually being measured.
Let me guess how this experiment started...
Scientist 1: "Let's see who can punch the softest. You go first!"
Scientist 2: "I managed to punch with 6 Yoctonewtons! Beat that!"
Scientist 2: "OW!"
Scientist 1: "You win."
E pluribus unum
FaptoNewton?
Well some people could find old Isaac attractive i guess...
We both said a lot of things that you are going to regret.
Both the summary and the article express how much smaller something is, without saying "n times smaller." If you never believed in miracles, here is incontrovertible proof!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Did you know that if you horozontal-mirror that SI chart it looks strangely like an ASCII Goatse?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
At least it will be less of a mess than Linux audio.
fignewtons
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Giggitygiggity!
Except when it's the former :)
The obvious next steps below Zepto would be Grouchto, Harpto, and Chicto. If they'd followed the logical course they'd be set for another two orders of magnitude, instead of having to come up with a new name in the middle of a recession. Do they think SI prefixes grow on trees or something?
As many of us know there is a movement to make "hella-" the SI unit for 10^27.
Following convention, 10^-27 should therefore be "hello-"
Which works perfectly, since that makes 10^-27 kitties...
-- the opinions stated above aren't those of my employer. in fact, they're probably not even my own. you know what, ju
femto (10^-15) = Danish femtem (15),
atto (10^-18) = Danish atten (18),
zepto (1000^-7) = French sept (7) but with a z,
yocto (1000^-8) = the Greek okto (8) with a y I guess to differentiate from 8,
...then it stands to reason the next prefix (1000^-9) will come from some language's 9, preferably one with a t in it. These could be:
French: neuf
Greek: ennea
Latin: novem
Albanian: nente
Russian: devyat
Many Slavic languages: devet
My money's on devto.
Towards the Singularity.
Should surely be itti and bitti.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Hey, you got the ending wrong. That should have been "Klaatu barada yocto!"
Ezekiel 23:20
possibly imagine!! it is the tiniest of fathomable gentle nudges!
Quote at the bottom: "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." Since stupidity has no limits, and genius has, P(idiot) is inf/(not inf).
Fleur de Sel
Just wait til they try to vote on new standardized names.
All laughing at us with the kibi and mebibytes stuff... it ain't over.
BY FAAAAARRRRRR
MUAHAHAAH!!!
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Every scale I’ve ever seen had a “zero”.
You can now proceed to discuss precision, accuracy, and the difference between the two...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
N/t
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
It has been a rule that you cannot combine SI prefixes, but there's already a demonstrated need to be able to combine both metric and binary prefixes in the case of certain magnetic media (the 1.44 "MB" floppy disk has both a 1000 kilo- factor and 1024 kilobinary- factor, and if you could combine prefixes, it would be either a 1.44 KiKB or 1.44 KKiB floppy (kibikilobyte or kilokibibyte).
It could also be used to have a decakilogram (10*10^3 or 10^4 grams). But not a millikilogram as that would just be a gram. If the rules allowed it, it should also disallow combining expanding and shrinking units (decakilogram (DKg) not centimegagram (cMg), and decimilligram (dmg) not hectomicrogram (Hug(*))) to avoid overlap. This would also allow milliyoctonewtons (myN) for octillionths of a newton until such time as an SI term was established.
(*) I can't seem to get /. to accept the mu character for micro.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
G R Double-E N Leaves G R Double-E N Leaves
It's so easy! Happy-go-lucky! We are the world! We did it! Hyuu! Hyuu! Hyuu! Hyuu! Osu! Osu! Osu! Osu! (Ai!) Yocto! Yocto! Daigaku gohgaku Yocto! Yocto! Shachoh shuunin Happa ichimai areba ii. Ikite iru kara lucky da!
Yocto! Yocto! Tohsen kakujitsu Yocto! Yocto! Nihon daihyoh Yannaru kurai kenkoh da. Everybody say yocto!
I changed the minds of a nation and all I got was this stupid song written in my honor.
A B A C A B B
If you look carefully, you'll see they've built in an escape mechanism. zepto, yocto? Sounds like seven and eight to me. Novto, decto would seem sensible continuations. Likewise (novta, decta) on the other end of the prefix spectrum.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
(1) The notation ``bEa'' is shorthand for ``b times 10^a''. Therefore, ``10E-24'' means ``10 times 10^(-24)'' = 10^(-23), which isn't 10^(-24).
(2) Prefixes may or may not have much in common with emoticons, but they are worth creating. They are very handy for communication, both oral and written. Other posters have made this point, so I won't say any more about it.
(By the way, should ``dangnabbit'' have one ``b'' or two? I can't find any trustworthy resources on this.)
Tell me when will you be mine,
Tell me yocto yocto yocto.
The force is stro- no wait.
Once you run out of prefixes, just start using two. Example: milliyoctonewtons.