Physicists Say Graphene Could Create Mass

eldavojohn writes "Graphene has gotten a lot of press lately. The Nobel prize-winning, fastest-spinning, nanobubble-enhanced silicon replacement is theorized to have a new, more outlandish property. As reported by Technology Review's Physics Blog, graphene should be able to create mass inside properly formed nanotubes. According to Abdulaziz Alhaidari's calculations, if one were to roll up graphene into a nanotube, this could compactifiy dimensions (from the sheet's two down to the tube's one), and thus 'the massless equations that describe the behavior of electrons and holes will change to include a term for mass. In effect, compactifying dimensions creates mass.' What once would require a massive high-energy particle accelerator can now be tested with carbon, electricity, and wires, according to the recent paper."

Comments

A new particle

[somersault]

Scientists have now isolated the particle that causes this strange mass inducing effect, and have dubbed it the "YoMamma".

We call it

[Anonymous Coward]

the Mass Effect.

Re:Can anybody summarize TFA?

[hcg50a]

The /. title of this article is wrong, stupid and misleading.

The title of TFA is "Dynamical mass generation via space compactification in graphene", which is mostly incomprehensible.

The abstract sez "Fermions in a graphene sheet behave like massless particles. We show that by folding the sheet into a tube they acquire non-zero effective mass as they move along the tube axis. That is, changing the space topology of graphene from 2D to 1D (space compactification) changes the 2D massless problem into an effective massive 1D problem."

A plain english annotated translation is "Electrons in a graphene sheet behave like massless particles. We show that by folding the sheet into a tube they behave like massive particles as they move along the tube axis. That is, changing the shape of graphene from 2D to 1D changes the 2D massless problem into an effective 1D massive problem, which may be easier to solve or model or understand in certain respects.

Note electrons have the same real mass in both cases. Mass is not being created or destroyed.

Re:Can anybody summarize TFA?

[Lobachevsky]

All science predictions are math tricks. If the prediction holds up, our existing models are correct, otherwise, our existing models are broken. Creating mass from graphene is not a new theory, it is the _consequence_ of our existing theories that someone cleverly derived.

Point is, either way, Abdulaziz Alhaidari is now famous and has done the incredible. He's either famous for making a marvelous derivation of our existing theories, or he's famous for disproving our current models by explaining what our current models predict that would later be experimentally contradicted. Just as the Manhattan project was a test of atomic theory; if it worked, an amazing weapon was created; if it didn't work, it had profound ramifications on invalidating the the atomic theory of the day. Either it's a win for engineering, building something amazing, or a win for science, changing the models to more closely match reality.

It is pseudo mass, like pseudo force.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Let us say you are hanging outside by holding on the window bars a long train (make it infinitely long train, who cares? it is theoretical physics, Also make it a train in India because most trains in Europe and USA have glass windows with no grab holds) and the train is moving with some speed. The outer walls of the train would not grab you and hold you against gravity. You have to hang on with your dear life. But if you curve the train track to make it circular, you will experience a centrifugal force that pins you to the outer wall of the train, and you can even let go of the window bars and shout, "Look! Ma! No hands".

Of course you know that centrifugal force is not a real force, but a pseudo force you conjure up if you are working on a reference frame attached to the train. From an inertial frame of reference, your velocity is being changed constantly. Change in velocity is acceleration. The change in direction would be towards the center of the circular track. That acceleration is centripetal acceleration. The train is exerting a force centripetal force on you. The reaction from your body on to the train for that force times friction coefficient gives you the force that is holding you still stuck like a fly on the wall of a train moving in a circular track.

As one who has spent years hanging on to the window bars of trains and buses in Chennai, India, let me tell you, no matter how many Einsteins tell you that is a pseudo force, it felt real and that I am still living, not having been run over decades ago by the next bus or train proves that centrifugal force is real. Not pseudo.

Similarly the fermions seem to be having a mass to satisfy some equation in some frame of reference after some coordinate transformation. But really it is not creating any mass.

Re:It's called our circle of science!

[idontgno]

If there's a physicist out there, I get the impression that somehow leptons are being converted to fermions?

When life hands you leptons, make leptonaide.

Indeed, I'm not a physicist. How'd you guess?