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Physicists Attempting To Test 'Time Crystals'
ceview writes "This story at Wired seems to have lots of people a bit confused: 'In February 2012, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek decided to go public with a strange and, he worried, somewhat embarrassing idea. Impossible as it seemed, Wilczek had developed an apparent proof of "time crystals" — physical structures that move in a repeating pattern, like minute hands rounding clocks, without expending energy or ever winding down. ... [A] Berkeley-led team will attempt to build a time crystal by injecting 100 calcium ions into a small chamber surrounded by electrodes. The electric field generated by the electrodes will corral the ions in a "trap" 100 microns wide, or roughly the width of a human hair. The scientists must precisely calibrate the electrodes to smooth out the field. Because like charges repel, the ions will space themselves evenly around the outer edge of the trap, forming a crystalline ring.' The experimental set up is incredibly delicate (Bose Einstein Condensate), so it implies this perpetual motion effect can't really be used to extract energy. What is your take on it? It's unlike to upend anything, as the article suggests, because at a quantum level things behave weirdly at the best of times. The heavy details are available at the arXiv."
Bose? Awesome? Really?
I heard this phrase while I was in the states, "No highs, no lows, must be Bose". I thought it a little harsh at the time, but in general I haven't been overly impressed with Bose products.
From your .sig:
I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease." - Linus Torvalds
Color me infected. Microsoft are a bunch of thieving backstabbing pricks. They deserve contempt and hatred.
They are indeed, but so are all other large tech (or non-tech) corporations. Google and Apple might have better PR with the geek crowd, but they're all the same deep down.
The irrationality in hating Microsoft is in singling them out as something egregious.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it