Slashdot Mirror
Physicists Create 'Quantum Knots' (amherst.edu)
New submitter Kekke writes with news that researchers from Amherst College and Aalto University have figured out a way to create knotted solitary waves in a quantum-mechanical field. They call their creation "quantum knots". Professor David Hall said, "First we cooled a gas of rubidium atoms down to billionths of a degree above zero, at which point it became a superfluid—a tiny, well-ordered environment in which these particle-like objects can exist. Then we exposed the superfluid to a rapid change of a specifically tailored magnetic field, which tied the knot in less than a thousandth of a second." Research group leader Mikko Möttönen added, "For decades, physicists have been theoretically predicting that it should be possible to have knots in quantum fields, but nobody else has been able to make one. Now that we have seen these exotic beasts, we are really excited to study their peculiar properties."
until you look at them.
Let me chill my beer in your fridge for like, a millisecond, right?
I read TFA and I'm still not sure what the importance or application of this is. Is this just to make therotical physicists sqee or are there anticipated important properties or applications?
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
If you keep picking at it you're gonna undo reality.
Supercooled gasses... What is space filled with?
It will be at least 100 years before we understand the implications of this. Unless someone gives it to us.
Well that is the way of their kind.
Tying the knot is a sacred gift ordained by God to be between a man and a woman. Not 'quantum particles' or whatever you heathens call homosexuals now.
Silence is a state of mime.
A string walks into a bar. The bartender looks at him and yells, "Get out! We don't serve your kind in here."
The string walks out and walks back in a few minutes later looking beat up and disheveled. The bartender looks at him and says menacingly, "Aren't you that string that was in here a couple minutes ago?"
The string looks at the bartender and says, "No. I'm a frayed knot."
That is all.
It's just Republican corporate welfare.
First they created quantum headphones, and the knots came easy. They had to keep constant watch on the headphones to prevent them knotting to such an extent that it tears the fabric of reality and our universe becomes intertwined the endless knotting of time and space.
They've got one intern and a 20 gallon drum of eye drops. Fingers crossed (or knotted).
"Amherst College and Aalto (Wave) University have figured out a way to create knotted solitary waves." Student life is like that sometimes, knotted and solitary.
I got these garlic knots for Walmart that were pretty good. No physicists involved though.
Have gnu, will travel.
OK, can we start calling these things Warped Fields, or Warp fields yet? :) Now we just have to start factoring them (I suggest a metric scale of 1 to 10)!
Though I know not really related to this quantum topic, but as far as applied physics, if I remember correctly (and I perhaps don't) that new exotic fusion reactor that the Germans built, used warped magnetic fields to contain plasma... Or it could be they just use magnetic fields to contain plasma and the reactor itself is warped shaped, which I guess would be a bit different... maybe.
Tie a knot in it.
There are other things in the world besides politics, Horatio.
This all sounds great, until those quantum knots start converting all other matter into quantum knots at an exponential rate thus converting the known universe into a big mass of useless quantum knots. Sort of like how Prions from mad cow disease twist proteins in our brains into more useless prions..