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Scientists Find Long-Sought Majorana Particle
New submitter boner writes "In a follow-up to an earlier Slashdot story, scientists at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands yesterday published their findings that they have indeed found the Majorana particle. The announcement on the university website provides both a summary of the academic paper (PDF) and background of this groundbreaking discovery. Quoting: 'Majorana fermions are very interesting – not only because their discovery opens up a new and uncharted chapter of fundamental physics; they may also play a role in cosmology. A proposed theory assumes that the mysterious ‘dark matter, which forms the greatest part of the universe, is composed of Majorana fermions. Furthermore, scientists view the particles as fundamental building blocks for the quantum computer.'"
Or was it just me?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
That's just the bong talking man.
Sometimes it looks like there's twelve.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Did I read the article correctly that this was funded by Microsoft? That's sort of coolish...
So it's probably already patented.. That, and we'll all be forced to run Windows 9 on our quantum computers. How is that cool?
Particularly into how to make babies with less gristle. Also computing.
(like myself), here is the Wikipedia link
A Majorana fermion is a fermion that is its own anti-particle.
What the heck?! I am starting to think that my knowledge of physics will never reach even a mediocre level just because every time I start to think that I got some stuff covered, some smart-ass physicist comes by and pulls jet another particle out of his, ehem, hat.
Why is that so surprising? Microsoft software has been based on quantum physics for a very long time now. Users are constantly struggling with the uncertainty principle, and can often make systems collapse simply by observing them.