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Physicists Observe the Majorana Fermion, Which Is Its Own Antiparticle

Posted by Soulskill on from the stuff-that-antimatters dept.

Charliemopps writes: "For the first time Princeton University scientists have observed a Majorana fermion, a long-predicted but never observed exotic particle that acts as both matter and anti-matter (abstract). "The setup they created starts with an ultrapure crystal of lead, whose atoms naturally line up in alternating rows that leave atomically thin ridges on the crystal's surface. The researchers then deposited pure iron into one of these ridges to create a wire that is just one atom wide and about three atoms thick. ...[Next, they] placed the lead and the embedded iron wire under the scanning-tunneling microscope and cooled the system to -272 degrees Celsius, just a degree above absolute zero. After about two years of painstaking work, they confirmed that superconductivity in the iron wire matched the conditions required for Majorana fermion to be created in their material." The particle is surprisingly stable. Being in both states at once seems to make it interact very weakly with its surrounding material. This could also be a major step towards quantum computing.

61 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Well that's random by bhcompy · · Score: 5, Funny

    This could also be a major step towards quantum computing.

    Why is that just thrown in there? It seems kind of random.
    "Pizza Hut has created a bacon, cheese, AND sausage stuffed crust pizza! This amazing pizza is very delicious. This could also be a major step towards quantum computing."

    1. Re:Well that's random by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Informative

      Despite combining qualities usually thought to annihilate each other—matter and antimatter—the Majorana fermion is surprisingly stable; rather than being destructive, the conflicting properties render the particle neutral so that it interacts very weakly with its environment. This aloofness has spurred scientists to search for ways to engineer the Majorana into materials, which could provide a much more stable way of encoding quantum information, and thus a new basis for quantum computing.

      That's what the article says. I don't quite get it, but maybe the math is more elegant than the English representation?

    2. Re:Well that's random by Jaime2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      From the article: "Importantly, Kitaev also outlined how such a particle could be harnessed as a qubit, the basis of a quantum computer, which added significant impetus to the search."

    3. Re:Well that's random by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well it is well known

      Pizza+caffeine = code

      So by your conjecture

      Pizza+caffeine+sausge stuffed crust = quantum code

    4. Re:Well that's random by countach44 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I apologize that I don't have time to construct a proper reply, but this article gives a nice explanation of how majorana fermions can be used to make qubits (hopefully it's not paywalled, but I'm on a university network so it's hard for me to tell): http://www.nature.com/nphys/jo...

    5. Re:Well that's random by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      "Pizza Hut has created a bacon, cheese, AND sausage stuffed crust pizza! This amazing pizza is very delicious. This could also be a major step towards quantum computing."

      You forgot to throw in some marjoram particles into your quantum pizza.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    6. Re:Well that's random by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

      Going back into the Historical Record a bit... "Ogg make 'fire'. This could also be a major step towards quantum computing."

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    7. Re: Well that's random by smaddox · · Score: 3, Informative

      First, this really is one of the most promising qubits, although possibly not using this material system. Their resilience to first-order scattering processes has the potential to make them far more to robust to decoherence. Second, true quantum computing (as apposed to quantum cryptography) is unlikely to ever work at room temperature. That does not, however, imply it won't be an important tool for research. Super computers already require large buildings to house them. A quantum super computer would be far more efficient as certain tasks.

      As far as the summary/article goes, this journalist is clearly confused. This isn't a fundamental particle, its a "quasi-particle", which is a fancy word for an ensemble property. Phonons, for example, are a quasi-particle used to model quantization of crystal lattice vibrations.

    8. Re:Well that's random by Hartree · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not so random. Maybe a long ways distant. (i.e. It's vaporware, but give us more money.)

      One of the problems of current quantum computing qubits is they are easily upset by thermal and other noise from their surroundings.

      There are certain systems that involve Majorana fermions that have been theorized to be what are called topologically protected states. These would be largely immune to noise in a way similar to how electron pairs in a superconductor are immune to the normal energy losses that cause resistance in a wire.

      A problem with this, is, we hadn't really shown that Majorana fermions actually existed.

      This is a hot area of solid state physics research. Note that these are not particles in the usual sense, but things that behave like particles (like electron pairs in a superconductor behave kinda sorta like single particles). They fall under the general term of quasiparticles.

    9. Re:Well that's random by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Because a delicious pizza brings physics nerds together. The team will be well fed, and thus progress marches on. Yeah!!!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    10. Re:Well that's random by arth1 · · Score: 2

      From the article: "Importantly, Kitaev also outlined how such a particle could be harnessed as a qubit, the basis of a quantum computer, which added significant impetus to the search."

      That's a good funding statement. It gives vague hopes for something that's a Big Thing at the time of writing, without really saying anything.

    11. Re: Well that's random by arth1 · · Score: 1

      smaddox (928261) wrote:

      Super computers already require large buildings to house them

      What do you mean, "already"?
      If anything, the size of supercomputers have gone down over the years.
      We can fit a lot of supercomputers in a single facility nowadays.

       

    12. Re:Well that's random by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Gee, it is a good thing then that funding isn't determined by a single line in a PR piece, but does require proposals with gritty details and/or heavy citations.

    13. Re:Well that's random by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Quantum computing is actually related to the infinite improbability field generator...

      Tulips, again.

    14. Re:Well that's random by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The reason you don't get it is because that sentence is very poorly constructed. there are two properties they mention - first is the Majorana fermion being its own antiparticle, second is the fact that it is neutral, that is, it has no electric charge.
      These properties are related in that a charged particle cannot be its own antiparticle, so a Majorana must be neutral, and so it doesn't feel electric fields and doesn't interact as much with the electrons and protons around it. being neutral makes it stable because it isn't disturbed by all the noise in the environment, and that's important for quantum computing 'cause you want to be able to set a qubit and have it stay there until you need it, and interference from the environment tends to ruin it.
      As to calling its properties "conflicting", that's just nonsense, there's nothing wrong about being your own antiparticle - photons do it all the time! of course photons are bosons and not fermions, and while the math works just as well for fermions, for some reason we don't know of any fermion like that (well, maybe neutrinos are Majoranas, we're not sure about them).
      Finally, calling what they found "a particle" is a bit confusing, the correct term is quasi-particle ,meaning it's not one of nature's fundamental particles like photons and electrons, but some stable state that lives in their carefully engineered environment and behaves as a Majorana fermion, not that it matters really.

    15. Re:Well that's random by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

      This could also be a major step towards quantum computing.

      Why is that just thrown in there? It seems kind of random. "Pizza Hut has created a bacon, cheese, AND sausage stuffed crust pizza! This amazing pizza is very delicious. This could also be a major step towards quantum computing."

      The only thing that would improve that comment would be to have it read by Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper...
      Well Done!

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    16. Re:Well that's random by Badger+Nadgers · · Score: 2

      Hey, I ordered marijuana fermions!

    17. Re:Well that's random by doccus · · Score: 1

      Actually, I remember the original promise of the internet, or better yet, of the WWW, wherein vast amounts of quality information would be accessible to raise the general I.Q. of the masses. Alas, it does seem that much of the "vast storehouse" resides behind a brick "paywall", leaving the easily accessible info more about twerks than quarks...

    18. Re:Well that's random by carnivore302 · · Score: 1

      Hey, but at least there's free porn now!

      --
      Please login to access my lawn
  2. What is there to say? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Informative

    This article hasn't gotten any meaningful comments yet. I'm not sure there's a lot to say about it. It's sure a particle alright. And it can only exist in superconductors, apparently, because it would annihilate with other instances of itself, if not contained.

    And it validates an 80 year theory?

    I don't know what else there is.

    1. Re:What is there to say? by turkeydance · · Score: 4, Funny

      finally, some nerd news.

    2. Re:What is there to say? by Falos · · Score: 1

      Hmm.

      "Thanks science, uh, keep up the good work. Great job on that cure or medicine or whatever. But do call us when you get hoverboards worked out, doesn't matter what time it is, we'll come running."

    3. Re:What is there to say? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Naw, we totally talk have lots to say about black holes not being real or whatever.

      It's just that this seems like a very narrow look into some particle physics development work, which, while important, doesn't shine a particularly broad light on the universe as a whole.

    4. Re:What is there to say? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      I brought up black holes because it was a recent example that raised interesting questions, not because only astrophysics counts.

  3. The summary is missleading by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Perhaps it would have been much easier and much more accurate to copy/paste simply the original MIT abstract of the article.

    The 'discovered' Majorana Fermion is a quasiparticle, created at the boundary edges of two superconductors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q...

    In this case iron and lead, so there is actually no 'new particle' discovered but more or less only a 'quantum point' created by weird behaving electrons ...

    And this all together is light years away from anything useful regarding quantum computing (IMHO :) )

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  4. Fermion that is its own antiparticle by blueg3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The summary (and the article!) imply that it is rare and strange for a particle to be its own antiparticle. This is not the case. Plenty of boson and mesons are their own antiparticles: photons, gluons, pions, etc. This isn't a particularly weird situation.

    However, fermions are another story. Fermions and bosons are the two kinds of fundamental particles. They behave very differently. While there are bosons that are their own antiparticle, there are no known fermions that have this property. All the fermions we know of are Dirac-type. It's been long postulated that there could be Majorana-type fermions, which, among other things, are their own antiparticles.

    It's interesting, but not quite as crazy as implied.

    1. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by Prune · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So what matters here is what's interesting to you? How autistic can you get? There's nothing boring or yawn-worthy about a quasi-particle; all you've done is shown that physics is just not your thing. Unlike the GP post, which is high quality and got moderated appropriately, all you've done is take a dump in this discussion. Good job.

      --
      "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
    2. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by nine-times · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ok, so if you know this stuff, what does it mean for a particle to be its own antiparticle? Does that mean if it comes into contact with another such particle, they're both annihilated? Does that mean that they're neutral to matter and anti-matter, or do they still somehow fall into one of those categories?

    3. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by DrJimbo · · Score: 2

      what does it mean for a particle to be its own antiparticle?

      In theoretical calculations if you reverse the charge (C), the parity (P), and time (T) of a particle, you get its antiparticle. A simpler (and less accurate) way of saying this is that antiparticles are normal particles traveling backward in time. This is not just a novelty, it is important for doing quantum field theory calculations (see Feynman-Stueckelberg interpretation).

      So a particle is its own antiparticle if you reverse all three (CPT) and get the same thing. As the OP said, this is not unusual. It is only unusual for fermions. If two of them collide with each other then they can be annihilated and turn into another particle-antiparticle pair, just like photons can. Since they are neutral (I *think*, due to C symmetry) they don't attract each other like positrons and electrons do so you have to make special arrangements to get them to collide.

      Does that mean that they're neutral to matter and anti-matter, or do they still somehow fall into one of those categories?

      If there were an anti-matter universe then the photons there would be the same as the photons here. Same thing with Majorana fermions. I guess you could say they are both matter and anti-matter. You could also say they are neither matter nor anti-matter.

      --
      We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
      -- Anais Nin
    4. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by blueg3 · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's hard to answer for a few reasons. I'm not a particle physicist, the subject is kind of complicated, and most people start off ill-informed (sorry!).

      Antiparticles are not particularly weird and particle-antiparticle interactions are, in particular, not some kind of physical witchcraft. I always have disliked that it's called annihilation. At the subatomic level, particle interactions are common and they generally involve the "creation" and "destruction" of particles. For example, maybe a neutron decays into a proton, an electron, and an electron antineutrino (by way of one of its down quarks changing into an up quark). Particle interactions are all sort of a shuffling of energy between the different flavors of bundles of energy we call particles. Lots of different physical quantities, like charge, are conserved, limiting what interactions can happen.

      In the interest of simplicity, a lot of what I'll say next is slightly wrong.

      Antiparticles aren't particularly weird. Particles all have a set of physical properties. It turns out that for each particle, there is another particle that is basically exactly the same, except all these physical properties are opposite. So an electron has charge -1 and an antielectron (positron) has charge +1. In fact, if you look at a legal particle interaction and replace all of the particles with their antiparticles, it's still a legal particle interaction.

      An implication of this is that if a particle and its antiparticle interact (not a particle and *any* antiparticle, but *its* antiparticle), the net total for any of their conserved quantities (like charge) is zero. That means the major legal interaction is that the two particles are destroy and produce photons. While photons are particles, we tend to think of them as just energy, so the particle-antiparticle interaction is an "annihilation": two particles go in, energy and zero particles come out.

      The "its antiparticle" bit is important. You don't see a lot of antielectrons because a free antielectron would easily encounter an electron and annihilate. But there are plenty of antineutrinos because they interact weakly with the rest of the world. An antineutrino interacting with, say, a proton does not cause annihilation. Even an antielectron interacting with, say, a proton doesn't do anything special.

      Oh, also, it turns out that, at least for the "normal matter" particles like electrons and protons, the universe seems to contain pretty much only the normal-matter particles and (relatively) no antiparticles. There doesn't seem to be any reason, in physics, for one to be preferred over the other. (It's just that in one region of space, you couldn't have a mixture and also have stable matter.) So that's weird.

      This is all a long-winded way of getting to the answer that particles that are their own antiparticles aren't particularly exciting. They all have the property that conserved quantities (at least, those that are negated in antiparticles) are zero. So they all naturally have annihilation interactions: when two collide, they can annihilate and form protons. But the annihilation interaction isn't particularly dramatic or weird, it just sounds interesting. The particles all probably also have interactions with all sorts of other types of particles, too, and it really comes down to what particle it happens to collide with first. Maybe a photon and an antineutrino interact with a proton and form a neutron.

      Most of the particles that are their own antiparticles are relatively neutral to normal matter (and consequently, also to normal antimatter). But they're all a very different kind of particle from normal matter. They're things like force-carriers (photons) and muons, and they interact with electrons and protons differently from how electrons and protons interact with each other.

      For some real fun, look up Feynman diagrams, a neat way of writing down different legal particle interactions. One axis is space (in one dimension) and one axis is time. Now, any 90-degree rotation of a legal interaction is still a legal interaction.

    5. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you think it's uninteresting because you mistakenly think that there's some deep, fundamental difference between a particle and a quasi-particle that makes one "real" and the other "not real".

    6. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by ljw1004 · · Score: 1

      You can build a quantum computer out of anything that BEHAVES like a Majorana particle, regardless of whether it's a "real" particle or not. Likewise current computers are built out of "hole/electron pairs" and work just fine even though the hole is a quasi particle.

    7. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by Prune · · Score: 1

      iggymanz posting as AC so he doesn't lose more /. karma. Sad.

      --
      "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
    8. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by Prune · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up.

      --
      "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
    9. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Of course, quasi-particles are not elementary particles. They are not part of the Standard Model nor anything beyond it, they are not products of collisions in particle accelerators.

    10. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      No, mod them down for talking out of their ass, understanding nothing. Quasi-particles are not fundamental particles that make up the universe. A fundamental majorana fermion would be newsworthy

    11. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      So what, quantum computers can built out of things that aren't Majorana particles too, and in fact all the existing ones aren't.

      hole/electron semiconductors not even relevant, "hole" just a convenient model for electron that has some issues by the way, holes are NOT a quasi-particle as they have different properties than any particle. Holes in semiconductors don't behave as exact opposite of electron.

    12. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      No, what matters more is discovering more fundamental particles of matter and energy. That will push civilization and technology further than any quasi-particle studied just because it *might* be useful for computation. Note no quantum computer using MF exists or likely will exist.

    13. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Wrong, I never post AC. You have no valid argument, nor point; and so now are reduced to mocking an AC who is not me. You are the one who is sad and pathetic, in addition to being ignorant of physics.

    14. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Wow, for someone who spends so much time talking about other people's ignorance of science and people talking out their ass, you're putting a pot and kettle to shame. As other posters have already suggested pick up a solid state textbook sometime. Or if that is too much effort, peruse Wikipedia, or look at just free online course notes since that is what a lot of condensed matter courses use these days. Just because a hole is not the exact opposite of an electron, and that the model is in some ways an approximation, or that they have differences from some other particles, does not negate their status as a quasiparticle. You seem to have no understanding of what a quasiparticle is or their usefulness and meaning in physics, even if you can just quote a very basic definition elsewhere.

    15. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      In 1950s anti-neutrinos discovered and now there are practical applications for it. Muons, positrons, anti-protons have practical applications. So in 60 years we went from only having application for proton, neutron, electron and photon to using four more particles. And if neutrino turns out to be a MF that would be huge.

    16. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      Particles are interesting bundles of localized energy present in particular fields that happen to have a particular set of properties.

      Quasiparticles are interesting bundles of localized energy present in particular fields that happen to have properties similar to particles and also happen to be describable in terms of collective effects of what we call "particles".

      Particles simply aren't as "fundamental" as you seem to think they are.

    17. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      We haven't been discovering new particles for any significant length of time for you to make a statement about how long a practical application of a discovery takes. I could well say we only used four particles in applications for hundreds of thousands of years, and all of a sudden in a span of a decades are using many.

    18. Re:Fermion that is its own antiparticle by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      So you admit about half of particles have an application. dang, we're doing good in that regard.

      There are NO commercial applications whatsoever of quasi-particle MF, your "whole category of things" has zero members. You lose.

  5. Quick explanation by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Informative

    A Majorana particle is it's own antiparticle; such as, for example, a photon.

    Most fermions have different antiparticles from themselves: Protons are notably different from anti-protons, electrons are different from positrons, and so on. The one exception is the neutrino, for which the question is not yet settled.

    If the neutrino is its own antiparticle, we should see double-beta-decay events. A beta decay emits a neutrino, so if two happen simultaneously the neutrinos should annihilate if they are their own antiparticle. (Wikipedia link)

    As yet no experiment has seen double-beta-decay, so it's likely that the neutrino has a distinct anti-neutrino - an intriguing prospect.

    The article referenced in the post does not identify the fermion involved, so one can only assume that it's a "quasi particle", which is a type of vibration. Essentially a phonon (sound wave) with fermion-like properties.

    1. Re:Quick explanation by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      most likely this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
      Directly citing this: http://www.sciencemag.org/cont... (which was actually received for review in JULY).

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  6. Too difficult to tie to naked celebs or fails by Overzeetop · · Score: 2

    Really, they're pretty far down on the click-bait ladder. Naked celebrities, boobs, epic fail videos, and people getting the shit beat out of them are the gold standards. By the time you're throwing in a quantum computing reference you're really just grasping for anything that might get a click.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  7. So... by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 1

    ...It's finally come to this.

    1. Re:So... by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 1

      Yes, you got the reference. =P

  8. NOT a Real Majorana Fermion by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's sure a particle alright.

    Not it is not. It is really just a simulation of a particle. All they have done is create a system which behaves like we think a majorana fermion should behave. They have emphatically NOT created a new fundamental particle. What they have done is hype up the interesting physics they have done to make it look like they are doing particle physics which they are not.

    Don't get me wrong: this is definitely an interesting result but it is unnecessary, and rather deceptive, to present it as particle physics when it isn't. Such experiments are very interesting and worthwhile because they may improve our understanding of how a majorana particle behaves. However if we found an inexplicable deviation between the way that this "simulated particle" behaves and how a theoretical majorana fermion is expected to behave after 'debugging' we would put it down to them not simulating the particle correctly and we would not be rewriting the fundamental laws of physics.

    1. Re:NOT a Real Majorana Fermion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well it's a quasiparticle, but it's still a Majorana fermion because fermions don't have to be fundamental particles. Since QM is all just maths anyway, it doesn't really matter if it's a fundamental particle or a quasiparticle. The statistics are all that matter. If this thing doesn't have the right statistics it's not a Majorana fermion. If it does, then it is one by definition. And if it has the right statistics but causes some interaction that wasn't predicted, then I'm afraid we do have to fix our understanding of interactions.

  9. ...and my brain just cooked itself by ihtoit · · Score: 1

    ...trying to make sense of this:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    1. Re:...and my brain just cooked itself by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      That's because you're supposed to supercool to superconduction before looking for them....

  10. Stop. Posting. These. Articles. by ljhiller · · Score: 3
    Most recently: http://news.slashdot.org/story...

    Any story where the Majorana fermion is "inside" something isn't the earthshattering discovery these mis-representing stories say it is. It's just a bunch of electrons moving around as a group. It's interesting to people interested in such things. It doesn't redefine our understanding of the universe as the discovery of THE Majorana fermion would be. Which probably doesn't even exist, so you should already be looked at these submissions with a skeptical eye.

    Everytime you post one of these, it's like seeing "RSA BROKEN" and then reading the article to find the footnote "for 64 bit keys". Just stop.

    1. Re:Stop. Posting. These. Articles. by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Umm, maybe not earth-shattering, but if they've managed to confirm the existence of something unusual that's pretty significant. I mean what's the ratio these days, something like 80% of published findings are later proved false? So the first time someone publishes about a major discovery the safe bet is that it's a false alarm. It's not terribly significant until several independent research groups have managed to confirm the finding, ideally at least some of which were of the "we did a completely unrelated experiment that *also* found evidence of the same thing" variety. The result being that virtually all major discoveries are only "earth shattering" in retrospect.

      And that's probably just as well - let's confine that kind of damage to the past, we're not using it anymore anyway.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    2. Re:Stop. Posting. These. Articles. by radtea · · Score: 1

      It's interesting to people interested in such things

      Those would be nerds, to whom this news matters.

      The problem is not with the article, but the headline, which I agree is very misleading, although not as bad as those idiotic "Man does X using only HIS BRAIN"(and a few million dollars of heavy electronics that replace his arms and the keyboard.)

      Quasi-particles are real particles. They are just composite particles that exist only inside atomic lattices instead of elementary particles that exist in free space. That someone has created a quasi-particle that is described by Majorana's equation is extremely interesting.

      As well as the potential impact on climate change... no, wait, this discovery got "quantum computing" in the buzzword lottery... as well as the potential impact on quantum computing, this sort of discovery is interesting because it allows us to investigate the dynamics of Majorana particles empirically, and that can lead to unexpected and novel insights. Good science, that.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
  11. This could also be a major step towards quantum... by pigiron · · Score: 1

    Hahahahahahahahaha!

  12. Marijuana Fermion by Tokolosh · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is it just me?

    --
    Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
  13. No scoop, 'Majorana' has been observed in 2012. by Teukels · · Score: 2

    Nature has the article in April 2012 'Signatures of Majorana Fermions in Hybrid Superconductor-Semiconductor Nanowire Devices':
    [ http://www.sciencemag.org/cont... ]

    Which led to reports in popular online media:
    [ http://news-beta.slashdot.org/... ]

  14. Majorana was his own antiparticle by FullBandwidth · · Score: 1

    As good a time as any to recommend my nominee for the most lively biography of one physicist written by another physicist, to wit "A Brilliant Darkness: The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Ettore Majorana..." by Joao Magueijo. A bit of physics, a bit of scandal, a bit of gossip, just enough foul language, plus some honest, original biographical research.

    --
    My friend Debbie Ann is so promiscuous, instead of an appointment book she needs a package manager
  15. That's nothing by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    I'm my own Grandpa!

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