Aug 20, 2020 06:32 PM
(This post was last modified: Aug 20, 2020 06:55 PM by C C.)
Doctor Strange might want to trade his Time Stone for time crystals that are doing some otherworldly things
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/time-cryst...first-time
EXCERPT: Time crystals were once just a phantom of a theory. While they can’t take you back or zoom you forward in time like the Time Stone, their atoms are arranged in a repeating pattern just like a regular crystalline structure. The difference is that time crystals follow a pattern that repeats in time instead of space. Their repeating motions in time happen on their own with no external influence, and could seriously upgrade quantum computers or the atomic clocks behind your GPS. This new phase of matter was confirmed to be real several years ago, and now two of them that were created in a lab were observed touching for the first time ever. (MORE - details)
Incredible fossil shows a sea monster in the belly of an even bigger sea monster
https://gizmodo.com/incredible-fossil-sh...1844776009
INTRO: As the Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn once said, “There’s always a bigger fish.” Or in the case of the Triassic Period, there’s always a bigger aquatic reptile, as this incredible fossil demonstrates. New research published in iScience offers the oldest direct evidence of “megapredation” in the fossil record, in which an apex predator feeds upon formidably sized prey. The fossil, found at a quarry in Guizhou province of southwestern China, appears to show a 15-foot-long (5-meter) ichthyosaur (pronounced “ick-thee-oh-sore”) shortly after feasting upon a 12-foot-long (4-meter) thalattosaur. Regrettably, the ichthyosaur probably died shortly after its meal, having bitten off more than it could handle... (MORE)
In quantum physics, even humans act as waves
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswitha...3ee970312c
EXCERPTS: “Is it a wave or is it a particle?” Never has such a simple question had such a complicated answer as in the quantum realm. The answer, perhaps frighteningly, depends on how you ask the question. Pass a beam of light through two slits, and it acts like a wave. Fire that same beam of light into a conducting plate of metal, and it acts like a particle. Under appropriate conditions, we can measure either wave-like or particle-like behavior for photons — the fundamental quantum of light — confirming the dual, and very weird, nature of reality.
This dual nature of reality isn’t just restricted to light, either [...] Even an entire human being, under the right conditions, can act like a quantum wave. ... Subsequent experiments have revealed this wave-like behavior for many different forms of matter, including forms that are significantly more complicated than the point-like electron. Composite particles, like protons and neutrons, display this wave-like behavior as well. Neutral atoms, which can be cooled down to nanokelvin temperatures, have demonstrated de Broglie wavelengths that are larger than a micron: some ten thousand times larger than the atom itself. Even molecules with as many as 2000 atoms have been demonstrated to display wave-like properties.
Under most circumstances, the momentum of a typical particle (or system of particles) is sufficiently large that the effective wavelength associated with it is far too small to measure. A dust particle moving at just 1 millimeter per second has a wavelength that’s around 10^-21 meters: about 100 times smaller than the smallest scales humanity’s ever probed at the Large Hadron Collider.
For an adult human being moving at the same speed, our wavelength is a minuscule 10^-32 meters, or just a few hundred times larger than the Planck scale: the length scale at which physics ceases to make sense. Yet even with an enormous, macroscopic mass — and some 1028 atoms making up a full-grown human — the quantum wavelength associated with a fully formed human is large enough to have physical meaning. In fact, for most real particles, only two things determine your wavelength:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/time-cryst...first-time
EXCERPT: Time crystals were once just a phantom of a theory. While they can’t take you back or zoom you forward in time like the Time Stone, their atoms are arranged in a repeating pattern just like a regular crystalline structure. The difference is that time crystals follow a pattern that repeats in time instead of space. Their repeating motions in time happen on their own with no external influence, and could seriously upgrade quantum computers or the atomic clocks behind your GPS. This new phase of matter was confirmed to be real several years ago, and now two of them that were created in a lab were observed touching for the first time ever. (MORE - details)
Incredible fossil shows a sea monster in the belly of an even bigger sea monster
https://gizmodo.com/incredible-fossil-sh...1844776009
INTRO: As the Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn once said, “There’s always a bigger fish.” Or in the case of the Triassic Period, there’s always a bigger aquatic reptile, as this incredible fossil demonstrates. New research published in iScience offers the oldest direct evidence of “megapredation” in the fossil record, in which an apex predator feeds upon formidably sized prey. The fossil, found at a quarry in Guizhou province of southwestern China, appears to show a 15-foot-long (5-meter) ichthyosaur (pronounced “ick-thee-oh-sore”) shortly after feasting upon a 12-foot-long (4-meter) thalattosaur. Regrettably, the ichthyosaur probably died shortly after its meal, having bitten off more than it could handle... (MORE)
In quantum physics, even humans act as waves
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswitha...3ee970312c
EXCERPTS: “Is it a wave or is it a particle?” Never has such a simple question had such a complicated answer as in the quantum realm. The answer, perhaps frighteningly, depends on how you ask the question. Pass a beam of light through two slits, and it acts like a wave. Fire that same beam of light into a conducting plate of metal, and it acts like a particle. Under appropriate conditions, we can measure either wave-like or particle-like behavior for photons — the fundamental quantum of light — confirming the dual, and very weird, nature of reality.
This dual nature of reality isn’t just restricted to light, either [...] Even an entire human being, under the right conditions, can act like a quantum wave. ... Subsequent experiments have revealed this wave-like behavior for many different forms of matter, including forms that are significantly more complicated than the point-like electron. Composite particles, like protons and neutrons, display this wave-like behavior as well. Neutral atoms, which can be cooled down to nanokelvin temperatures, have demonstrated de Broglie wavelengths that are larger than a micron: some ten thousand times larger than the atom itself. Even molecules with as many as 2000 atoms have been demonstrated to display wave-like properties.
Under most circumstances, the momentum of a typical particle (or system of particles) is sufficiently large that the effective wavelength associated with it is far too small to measure. A dust particle moving at just 1 millimeter per second has a wavelength that’s around 10^-21 meters: about 100 times smaller than the smallest scales humanity’s ever probed at the Large Hadron Collider.
For an adult human being moving at the same speed, our wavelength is a minuscule 10^-32 meters, or just a few hundred times larger than the Planck scale: the length scale at which physics ceases to make sense. Yet even with an enormous, macroscopic mass — and some 1028 atoms making up a full-grown human — the quantum wavelength associated with a fully formed human is large enough to have physical meaning. In fact, for most real particles, only two things determine your wavelength:
- your rest mass,
- and how fast you’re moving.
