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Physicists Detect Elusive Orbiton By "Splitting" Electron

Posted by samzenpus on from the break-it-down dept.

ananyo writes "Condensed-matter physicists have managed to detect the third constituent of an electron — its 'orbiton'. Isolated electrons cannot be split into smaller components, earning them the designation of a fundamental particle. But in the 1980s, physicists predicted that electrons in a one-dimensional chain of atoms could be split into three quasiparticles: a 'holon' carrying the electron's charge, a 'spinon' carrying its spin and an 'orbiton' carrying its orbital location. In 1996, physicists split an electron into a holon and spinon. Now, van den Brink and his colleagues have broken an electron into an orbiton and a spinon (abstract). Orbitons could also aid the quest to build a quantum computer — one stumbling block has been that quantum effects are typically destroyed before calculations can be performed. But as orbital transitions are extremely fast, encoding information in orbitons could be one way to overcome that hurdle."

86 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Fantasy by countach · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's face it... the particle physicists make all this stuff up. Somehow they figured out how to use particle colliders to synthesise crack cocaine, and ever since then the stuff they've been coming out with has been ever more fantastical.

    1. Re:Fantasy by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Funny

      How about bring up something interesting like how Mott insulators [...] are themselves interesting materials

      What? You think crack cocaine isn't interesting material?

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    2. Re:Fantasy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Play snarxiv versus arxiv: http://snarxiv.org/ , where computer generated article titles compete with real ones.

    3. Re:Fantasy by sosume · · Score: 2

      You must be new here..

    4. Re:Fantasy by crutchy · · Score: 1

      magic mushroom particles

    5. Re:Fantasy by crutchy · · Score: 1

      How about bring up something interesting like how

      much of a knobhead you are. Now that would be fucking hilarious.

    6. Re:Fantasy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      These type of comments are annoying. Inevitably made by some clueless techie (IT, CS, even EE). You're not witty. You're not funny.

      And there's where your argument failed. That comment is funny.

      Why didn't you just stop at "These type of comments annoy me"?

      (Notice that the "me" part is the really important one.)

    7. Re:Fantasy by professionalfurryele · · Score: 2

      Thanks for pointing this out, I'm a particle physicist and this was good for a laugh. That said I will admit to feeling a certain amount of relief when I played snarXiv vs. arXiv and was 10 for 10. There are days when you wonder if some random paper you are reading is just a string of meaningless words.

    8. Re:Fantasy by Ihmhi · · Score: 1

      Man how am I even supposed to take chemistry or physics classes you guys. I cannot draw dots this tiny! PLEASE STOP DISCOVERING SHIT!

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
    9. Re:Fantasy by miscGeek · · Score: 1

      Let's face it... the particle physicists make all this stuff up. Somehow they figured out how to use particle colliders to synthesise crack cocaine, and ever since then the stuff they've been coming out with has been ever more fantastical.

      Cocaine? Nah, it has to be lsd that they synthesised.

      --
      May the source be with you!
    10. Re:Fantasy by ZeroSumHappiness · · Score: 1

      Problem is that he agrees that the "me" in that statement /would/ be the most important part.

    11. Re:Fantasy by kungfugleek · · Score: 1

      Magnets.

    12. Re:Fantasy by LeadSongDog · · Score: 1

      Cocaine? Nah, it has to be lsd that they synthesised.

      Nah, I can't be synthesised, nor even synthesized.

      --
      Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
  2. Sigh by Dyinobal · · Score: 1

    Reading stuff like this makes me wish I'd taken more a lot more science in college, maybe went for an entirely different degree. Because honestly I've no idea what they are talking about. If anyone could possibly explain this a bit more I'd be really very happy.

    1. Re:Sigh by guspasho · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nevermind, mod me down for being dumb. They shot x-rays at the electron and it did something which they measured. No clue what "split" is supposed to mean.

    2. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The article is talking about quasiparticles, that is, collective excitations in some medium that behave as though they were individual particles. Think about a Newton's cradle (that thingy with the balls that click back and forth). When a ball hits one end of the device, a ball emerges from the other end of the device. It's as though there were some kind of particle (there's a mandatory rule that we have to give it a stupid name, so let's call it a ballon) that is transmitted through the device. Now, even though we know that there's no actual particle traveling through the device, we can make calculations as though there were, and this makes things simpler to work with.

      Condensed matter physicists work with much more complicated media and their particles are quantum rather than classical, but otherwise the idea is the same. In this case, they have a medium consisting of a strontium cuprate wire, which, of course has lots of electrons in its atoms. They fire a beam at it (like the ball hitting the Newton's cradle) and this excites stuff in the wire, which they find acts like quasiparticles of a particular kind.

      The exact kind of quasiparticle is one that acts like an electron, but has no charge or spin, just orbital properties. The spin and charge kinds of quasiparticle were previously discovered, and this completes the set, which is why it's news.

    3. Re:Sigh by kava_kicks · · Score: 1

      Thanks - the analogy is actually pretty helpful.

    4. Re:Sigh by Grayhand · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Glad some one else brought this up. Naming the states and calling them particles is a little like saying three dimensions are three particles. Shouldn't there be a particle for height, width, depth? At a certain stage it's pointless naming to rationalize publishing a paper. Is dividing an electron proving multiple particles or is it in fact like splitting a glass of water and claiming that it's two new atoms? And yes I know there are two atoms making up a glass of water so in this case it would mean four atoms since you can divide a glass of water in half. Unless unique properties can be established for the resulting two electrons then you haven't found two new particles you have simply split a single particle in to two pieces.

    5. Re:Sigh by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      Shouldn't there be a particle for height, width, depth?

      Well, we already have up & down quarks.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    6. Re:Sigh by mathfeel · · Score: 5, Informative

      The article is talking about quasiparticles, that is, collective excitations in some medium that behave as though they were individual particles. Think about a Newton's cradle (that thingy with the balls that click back and forth). When a ball hits one end of the device, a ball emerges from the other end of the device. It's as though there were some kind of particle (there's a mandatory rule that we have to give it a stupid name, so let's call it a ballon) that is transmitted through the device. Now, even though we know that there's no actual particle traveling through the device, we can make calculations as though there were, and this makes things simpler to work with.

      Condensed matter physicists work with much more complicated media and their particles are quantum rather than classical, but otherwise the idea is the same. In this case, they have a medium consisting of a strontium cuprate wire, which, of course has lots of electrons in its atoms. They fire a beam at it (like the ball hitting the Newton's cradle) and this excites stuff in the wire, which they find acts like quasiparticles of a particular kind.

      The exact kind of quasiparticle is one that acts like an electron, but has no charge or spin, just orbital properties. The spin and charge kinds of quasiparticle were previously discovered, and this completes the set, which is why it's news.

      More specifically, "separation" refers to the prediction (and now observation) that in the collection of electrons in the 1D wire, orbital, spin, and charge information travel at different speed. This is in particular a low dimensional effect. Hence this is observed in a quantum wire.

      --
      The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
    7. Re:Sigh by crutchy · · Score: 2

      it's a marketing term

    8. Re:Sigh by crutchy · · Score: 1

      dammit... now i want a ball clicky thing

    9. Re:Sigh by AlecC · · Score: 2

      Thank you. I think you just stopped my brain melting. I now have a smidgeon of a fragment of a trace of a clue what the article is about.

      --
      Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
    10. Re:Sigh by negativeduck · · Score: 1

      I think to a degree you are right. But there is a great deal to physics which as much imagination and wimsey as there is evidence to support it. But when you start to take the macro view and say it's the study of everything then naming becomes important. Considering the orbiting characteristics of an electron are suspected to be unknown. As mentioned in later comments the idea that you can't know where it is until you measure it and thereby change it's path making it impossible to know where it's going to be.

      I don't know that I would have used "split" in this context but in an article that's also to be understood by a more broad public I would love to get access to this article outside of the paywall. But Oh well..

      But being able to understand and know the orbiting characteristics of the electrons in the cloud would be fantastic. Understanding how that possible orbit affects the interaction with other particles.

      (BTW please correct me if I've miss-represented something)

    11. Re:Sigh by Vahokif · · Score: 1

      Philosophically, what makes these particles any more quasi- than electrons? Surely all we have to work with is the sum of their effects in either case.

    12. Re:Sigh by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 1

      But if they didn't actually split a particle the article is misleading.

      Why can't scientists review their press coverage?

    13. Re:Sigh by bughunter · · Score: 2

      Think about a Newton's cradle (that thingy with the balls that click back and forth). When a ball hits one end of the device, a ball emerges from the other end of the device. It's as though there were some kind of particle (there's a mandatory rule that we have to give it a stupid name, so let's call it a ballon) that is transmitted through the device.

      If I understand the physics of this phenomenon properly (not guaranteed), the "particles" transmitted thru the system of balls already have a name: phonons.

      --
      I can see the fnords!
    14. Re:Sigh by slew · · Score: 4, Informative

      Unfortunatly, they didn't select my submission, but the idea is basically unbound electrons have some quantum numbers related to spin and charge, but electrons bound to a nucleus have another quantum property related to the orbital they exist in (as a result of all those pesky electron orbital exclusion properties we get a taste of in chemistry 101). This gives the electron a sort of angular momentum quantum property (that is angular momentum isn't a continuous property, but is quantized to certain discrete values).

      You might imagine that in the classical sense, if you bumped an electron out of orbiting one nucleus and it be bound to the next nucleus in a lattice, the idea of what angular momentum all the electrons had would be somehow be conserved as a whole in the system on average. Now you toss in the fact that in a lattice, these otherwize local effects of virtually exchanging angular momentum might become delocalized from their actual particles and still maintain the required system average and also (in certain circumstance) still reveal their orignal quantum nature (instead of continuous approximation), that's the effect you have. It isn't a real particle exhibiting quantum effects, but a quasi-particle, but in some sense we've split-off the angular momentum effect from the actual electron that is bound (w/o unbinding the electron).

      If you are familiar with semiconductors, you can often hear of people talking about "holes" conducting electric charge like they are electrons, but they aren't electrons: it's a "hole" in a sea of delocalized electrons doing that charge transport. Usually the effects we are interested in are quite classical (say like average current), but in smaller dimensions and lower energy levels we start exhibiting quantum effects of these quasi-particles (say like in supercondutors).

      I don't know how this orbiton angular momentum thing will be useable. The effect that was observed was that excitation to higher orbits (higher angular momentums), can propagate in the lattice which seems less useful (eventually you are in such a high excitation energy, you are beyond most interesting quantum effects or effectively unbound). One speculation that I have is that certain insulator properties will be quantized (if certain orbits are unavailable, and the incoming quantum angular momentum is incompatible with the available orbits), and maybe that can be used for some storage capabiltiy or maybe somehow helping spintronics (which is sort of what these folks were thinking).

      Hope that helps a bit...

    15. Re:Sigh by pscottdv · · Score: 1

      Using the word "particle" indicates a particular set of characteristics familiar to physicists. Frankly, most of the short-lived particles that high-energy Physicists work with are really just states with certain characteristics. Guess what? In quantum theory what most people would call "actual particles" are "just states." It's turtles all the way down.

      --

      this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice

    16. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Philosophically, what makes these particles any more quasi- than electrons? Surely all we have to work with is the sum of their effects in either case.

      It's the medium. When you look at a quasiparticle, it only exists in the context of its medium, whereas fundamental particles exist in the vacuum. It's a bit like the difference between sound waves and light waves. A sound wave needs something to wave in; a light wave doesn't. Or at least, if it does, the thing it waves is omnipresent throughout the universe and obeys the peculiar laws of relativity; that makes it seem pretty special, doesn't it?

    17. Re:Sigh by kwoff · · Score: 1

      Another example of quasi-particles are phonons. Maybe easier to understand. Phonon makes you think of sound (phonograph). What is sound? It's waves of compression of air molecules. Sound can travel through solids, too, in which case it's waves of compression of the molecules in the solid. Imagine you have a lattice (regular array) of molecules, like a solid crystal, and you tap it on one side. Where you tap, it will push the molecules closer to other molecules, and those will push away other molecules, which then get close to other molecules, which get pushed away, etc.. You can pretend the molecules are connected by springs. (If you take calculus through differential equations, you'll probably solve this kind of boundary-value problem.) So a wave travels through the solid.

      The cool thing, mathematically, is that these waves bounce around inside the "box" of the solid as if they were billiard balls (though usually I think the phonons pass through each other, which isn't how billiard balls are, but I mean they bounce off the "walls"). So you can effectively stop thinking of molecules jiggling on springs, and instead think of a kind of "gas" of phonons bouncing around in a box, as if the waves are really particles. That's why they are "quasi" particles. They're not real, but they behave like they are. And like another poster pointed out, how exactly do you define a "particle" anyway? :)

      Now where things get really cool is when you shine laser light on a crystal. What is laser light? Either you think of light as electromagnetic waves, or you think of it as particles called photons. (Photo makes you think of light, right? :) So you can think of laser light as a bunch of photons with pretty much all the same energy (plus or minus some relatively small margin; in real experiments you even pass laser light through filters to make the range of energy/wavelength/frequency even narrower). In a technique called Raman spectroscopy (among other techniques), you shine a laser on a crystal and observe the light that bounces back. What happens here? Imagine one of the photons of light going in. It has a certain energy. The photon goes into the crystal and bounces off a phonon (again, like billiard balls). The photon comes back out with more or less energy. Say that it comes out with less energy. Where did that energy go? It smacked into the phonon! So you can actually measure how a material likes to vibrate by looking at the light that bounces back. The peaks in that spectrum of light (measured relative to the energy of the laser) correspond to the phonons. You can even get information by looking at the height and width of the peaks.

      So I hope this gives a simpler example of a quasi-particle, and how it can be useful to think this way. The article is a bit misleading, referring to breaking apart an electron, as if it was just one electron. But really they mean a bunch of electrons, acting together in (as the article also said) a "one-dimensional chain of atoms". So very roughly, maybe you can imagine something like a phonon in a "lattice" of electrons.

  3. What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO3? by kava_kicks · · Score: 1

    Can someone actually explain this? I am trying to get my head around a one-dimensional anything ...

  4. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by kava_kicks · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wikipedia says this about Mott insulators: Mott insulators are a class of materials that should conduct electricity under conventional band theories, but are insulators when measured (particularly at low temperatures). This effect is due to electron-electron interactions which are not considered in conventional band theory.

  5. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by Y.A.A.P. · · Score: 3, Informative

    I believe you're over-thinking the one-dimensional attribute. It simply means they're using a straight-line chain of the molecules in question. There are no molecules in the construct branching off at any other angle, that's all.

  6. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by mug+funky · · Score: 1

    i have trouble understanding politicians too.

  7. Re:Split shmit! by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe a flying car can be made feasible with a new kind of drive, like ejecting orbitons from the bottom.This research is in order to understand stuff. Forget about flying cars, maybe FTL drive is possible.

    Think about the laser. When is was first conceived of by Einstein he had no way of doing it and no application for it. When Lamb and Retherford made it work there still was no use for it. But think about the world now: Internet, CD/DVD/Blu ray players and even the next gen IC fabs are based on the laser. Many metal parts are cut with lasers, welding is sometimes done with lasers (high presision work) and many measurements are done with lasers. If there had been no theoretical physics last century we wouldn't have lasers. Who knows what we could do with another century of theoretical research?

    --
    Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
  8. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    All I know I know is that they are NOT FUNNY.

  9. Re:Lord, Jewsus! by mwvdlee · · Score: 2

    All you have to do is just become a particle physicist yourself, discover a completely new set of even smaller particles and you can setup any IUPAC-like standardized naming convention you want for those. For the current particles, it's probably best to keep using the current standardized names.

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  10. Re:Split shmit! by Surt · · Score: 1

    It's not going to be FTL. FTL would leave the universe pretty crowded by now. Maybe it will allow exit from the conventional universe, that would explain Fermi's paradox.

    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  11. Re:Split shmit! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

    It'd be less fun than you might think. In these post-9/11 days, do you think the government would actually let people fly their cars? No, even if the engineering problems were solved, the car's controls would only be accessible via an autopilot box fitted with more anti-tamper measures than an XBox 360 and embedded in a cube of epoxy. You'd only be able select from it's list of pre-approved 'safe landing zones' and it'd do the rest. The law will be proposed within a month after the first case of a drunk flier crashing into a building. Within a week if a child is killed.

  12. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by Svartormr · · Score: 1

    There's a good one in a previous comment thread above here.

  13. What would the Megatron be? by craznar · · Score: 1

    I think the 'heaviest' particle should be deemed the Megatron, in keeping with the WTFatron naming convention.

    --
    EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
    1. Re:What would the Megatron be? by craznar · · Score: 3, Funny

      Damn - a transformer got in the way of my post.

      That should be Megaton and WTFaton ...

      --
      EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
    2. Re:What would the Megatron be? by zippo01 · · Score: 1

      I tried to email you, but your email address doesn't appear to divisible by 8. Fail.

    3. Re:What would the Megatron be? by f3rret · · Score: 1

      "megaton" - 10^6 tons. != particle

      --
      Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
    4. Re:What would the Megatron be? by turkeyfeathers · · Score: 1

      And the most 'evil' particle should be the Hitleron, in keeping with Godwin's Rule.

  14. Re:Split shmit! by Intropy · · Score: 1

    Leaving aside all the political gobbledygook, I'm totally in for an automated personal flying car.

  15. There is a fourth fundamental particle... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ..it is called a "holdon".

    As in; hold on, we better check these results again.

    1. Re:There is a fourth fundamental particle... by tomhath · · Score: 1

      Get a grip on yourself.

    2. Re:There is a fourth fundamental particle... by eriqk · · Score: 1

      No, for that you'd need a gripon.

  16. Re:Lord, Jewsus! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are not that many, and there isn't a good systematic way to name them anyway. The root of the word denotes the basic property that describes the particle.

    'holon' comes from 'hole', which is the absence of a particle. that may sound weird, but in quantum mechanics, everything is discrete so a particle present or absent is like a binary 1 or 0, and the 0 states (holes) are just as good as 1 states (particles).

    'spinon' comes from 'spin', which is the intrinsic angular momentum.

    'orbiton' comes from 'orbital', which is the agular momentum from the orbital motition around the nuclei.

    There are lots of other quasi-particles that occur in condensed matter, pasmons, phonons, polarons, polaritons, and so on. They all arise as emergent effects from interactions between large numbers of 'fundamental' particles, such as electrons.

  17. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Imagine a long chain of molecules, so that the electrons jump from orbiting one molecule to another along a 1D path.

    A Mott Insulator is an insulator (ie it doesn't conduct electricity), but one that is caused by interactions between electrons. In an ordinary insulator (a 'band insulator') doesnt conduct electricity because there are simply no available orbital states for the electrons to move into. Imagine a series of boxes, with electrons as balls moving from one box to another. In a band insulator the boxes are full, so you simply can't move the balls around. In a Mott insulator however, the boxes are plenty big enough but the interactions between the electrons (balls) are strong enough that you can't put more than one ball in each box. So you end up with one ball per box and nothing can move.

  18. Re:Split shmit! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

    It'd revolutionise transport, yes. A good thing, assuming it's no more energy-hungry than existing cars. But the dream of a flying car you can really fly, free to cruise the skies, to go wherever you please... out of the question.

  19. If you think you understand the world of 10^(-22)m by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 2

    Give a short, complete, accurate answer to this question: what is a particle?

    If you must be ignorant, keep an open mind. Outside of the scale that human senses are designed to appreciate, extrapolation from experience tends not to be very useful.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  20. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by mathfeel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I believe you're over-thinking the one-dimensional attribute. It simply means they're using a straight-line chain of the molecules in question. There are no molecules in the construct branching off at any other angle, that's all.

    Charge-spin separation and spin-orbital separation are specifically effect of electron collective behavior in one-dimension: that is when the motion of electron is constrained to have one degree of freedom. Think of a single-lane road in which lane change is forbidden.

    --
    The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
  21. Re:Lord, Jewsus! by crutchy · · Score: 1

    We need an IUPAC-like standardized naming convention for these particles

    star trek?

  22. Re:The heck with splitting the electron... by crutchy · · Score: 1

    are they the particles that enable you to light a fart on fire? i've only ever heard of that being possible when you're drunk

  23. Re:Split shmit! by crutchy · · Score: 1

    i think you're ejecting orbitons out of your bottom

  24. WHY IS THIS MODDED TROLL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    (Honestly not the same AC): WTF is up with you mods? Snarxiv is hardly a troll website, and neither is pointing it out in this context. (Hint: It was made by a HEP theory researcher, poking a bit of fun at his own field -- it's the kind of thing Human Beings like to do sometimes...)

    1. Re:WHY IS THIS MODDED TROLL? by Khyber · · Score: 1

      It's modded troll because the people with moderator points are fucking morons.

      You needed any other explanation?

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  25. Re:If you think you understand the world of 10^(-2 by indre1 · · Score: 2

    Only the likes of Sheldon Cooper with superior intellect to the others' may understand this.

  26. Re:Split shmit! by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

    and that is a good thing, think of how awful drivers are on a 2D surface

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  27. Re:Lord, Jewsus! by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny

    Physicists should use the D&D alignment and class system to assign particle names. Muon neutrino becomes neutral evil cleric, Up quark is lawful good fighter, etc.

  28. Re:Unicorn ponies by LeadSongDog · · Score: 1

    I have unicorn ponies for sale. Males only, 9-12 hands in blue, pink and rainbow. Some have been ridden but most not. Horns are as-found. Pls reply at the usual email for the sale and delivery info.

    ILL TAKE TWO!

    If regular unicorns fart rainbows, do gay unicorn ponies fart plaid? Inquiring minds want to know!

    --
    Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
  29. Re:Unicorn ponies by bughunter · · Score: 1

    If regular unicorns fart rainbows, do gay unicorn ponies fart plaid?

    Bloody santorum, I would imagine... or am I being too literal here?

    --
    I can see the fnords!
  30. silly video game names by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    damn, I got excited when I first misread that as Physicists detect elusive orbitron .

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  31. Re:If you think you understand the world of 10^(-2 by Dyinobal · · Score: 2

    I can't watch the big bang theory. If Sheldon was so smart there is no way he could be a proponent of string theory.

  32. Re:Lord, Jewsus! by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 2

    Shouldn't they have renamed the electron the "hardon" because it is so difficult to split into smaller components?

    --
    You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  33. So where by rossdee · · Score: 1

    Where does the charge go?

  34. team Preston Preston by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    Man, I remember when everything from Austrailia used to be cool .
    Then that movie ruined everything. Forever.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  35. Re:Lord, Jewsus! by Gilmoure · · Score: 1

    Yeah but soon you have hemi-demi-semi-quiver neutral ++good archers and such.

    --
    I drank what? -- Socrates
  36. Do you have a hadron for particle physics? by tepples · · Score: 1

    Shouldn't they have renamed the electron the "hardon" because it is so difficult to split into smaller components?

    They called the atom itself an "atom" because it was considered hard to split (from the Greek: a- = not; tom = split). Since the atom was split, two of the particles inside an atom was itself called the hadron, from the Greek word for "thick". The resemblance between "hadron" and a slang term for something else that gets "thick" led to all sorts of dick jokes in comments to news articles about the LHC.

  37. Re:Lord, Jewsus! by Teancum · · Score: 3, Informative

    The original names for quarks were based upon a poem by James Joyce. There are some other rather esoteric names that have come up in science over the years so such references really aren't totally unheard of.

  38. not crack by schlachter · · Score: 2

    I'm not sure about crack cocaine...but I've heard that they use these colliders to generate a significant amount of speed.

    --
    My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
  39. Re:Split shmit! by Surt · · Score: 1

    It's certainly a possibility. The cost of killing most of the people on one planet is coming down a lot faster than the rate at which we are adding new planets to live on. We'll soon reach the point where a well funded terrorist could bring down an asteroid and wipe out western civilization (and most of the rest, but I think evidence suggests they'd consider that a victory scenario).

    I'm sure there are other hazards ahead of us as well. But if there were some technology thing that would accidentally kill us all (rather than intentionally) it seems likely we'd be able to see that happening in the universe.

    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  40. Re:If you think you understand the world of 10^(-2 by geekoid · · Score: 1

    You have no clue what you are talking about, and you know it. for proof I present a post you made in this very thread:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2796089&cid=39731421

    PLesae..please shut up about thing you don't know anything about.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  41. Re:Split shmit! by geekoid · · Score: 1

    YO seriously underestimate the size of the universe.

    IF a civilization could travel at 100 time the speed of light, they would only scratch a tiny bit of the universe before that civilization died out.

    Plus you assume that because someone else didn't discover something, that there is nothing to discover.
    Which is an attitude parent have used to squash children dreams for generations.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  42. Re:Split shmit! by Surt · · Score: 1

    I think you're underestimating the size of the galaxy. At 100x the speed of light it takes only one advanced race to fill it up quite rapidly. And then the same goes for each other galaxy, plus you'd be seeing quite a few species make it to additional galaxies by now. A civilization doesn't have to last that long, just the technological capability of the species. A species only 10 times as mature as ours would have had plenty of time to reach additional galaxies by now, and there's plenty of room for species as much as 1000 times as mature.

    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  43. Re:Split shmit! by ImprovOmega · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, there is a small, but measurable, chance that we're the most mature species in the galaxy. Maybe we're on track to fill it up while some other poor buggers are just now starting to make stone tools and we'll show up just as they start their first atomic bomb tests or something.

    I mean, people look at it as some advanced civilization will come and wipe out our poor primitive selves, but someone had to be first, and maybe that's us. I mean, why not?

  44. Re:Split shmit! by Surt · · Score: 1

    Sure, statistical chance is one possible explanation. Someone does have to be first. But to say that the chance is small is underselling it ... it is remotely tiny. The 'first' civilization should have been multiple billions of years ago. That we'd get this 'lucky' is so close to impossible that we have the whole 'Fermi paradox' name for it.

    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  45. Re:Split shmit! by Surt · · Score: 1

    That's the whole question behind the fermi paradox. If pWe_Are_First should be small, yet we seem to be first, are we wrong about the probability, about the being first, or are we incomprehensibly lucky?

    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  46. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by stepho-wrs · · Score: 1

    And understanding the difference is a hairy problem.

  47. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by kava_kicks · · Score: 1

    I would have given you points for this if you hadn't posted AC ;)

  48. Re:What is a one-dimensional Mott insulator Sr2CuO by kava_kicks · · Score: 1

    Thanks.

  49. Re:hunh? by Roachie · · Score: 1

    Dr Freud, phone call, line sex, er, I mean six, Dr Freud - line six.

    --
    This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
  50. Re:Lord, Jewsus! by wallsg · · Score: 1

    When I saw "orbiton" the first thing that popped into my mind was "armitron". I have one stuck in a closet somewhere.