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Science Section => Science General Discussion => Topic started by: Hydra009 on December 14, 2020, 04:50:26 PM

Title: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Hydra009 on December 14, 2020, 04:50:26 PM
QuoteIn the three-dimensional world we live in, there are only two types of particles: "fermions," which repel each other, and "bosons," which like to stick together. A commonly known fermion is the electron, which transports electricity; and a commonly known boson is the photon, which carries light. In the two-dimensional world, however, there is another type of particle, the anyon, which doesn't behave like either a fermion or a boson.

In a two-dimensional world, two identical anyons change their wavefunction when they swap places in ways that can't happen in three-dimensional physics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anyon

QuoteAfter decades of exploration in nature’s smallest domains, physicists have finally found evidence that anyons exist. First predicted by theorists in the early 1980s, these particle-like objects only arise in realms confined to two dimensions, and then only under certain circumstances â€" like at temperatures near absolute zero and in the presence of a strong magnetic field.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/physicists-prove-anyons-exist-a-third-type-of-particle-in-the-universe

I won't even pretend that this stuff isn't waaay over my head - the concept of a 2D particle in 3D space is mindbending enough by itself - but regardless, the practical application is that these particles may be useful in quantum computers, allowing these computers to encode data more efficiently.

Also, I'm amazed at the sheer variety of subatomic stuff going on invisibly around us.  The ancient greeks hypothesized indivisible atoms, but we've dug so much further down than that, into electrons and protons and neutrons, and then further down into ferminions (quarks, leptons, antiquarks, antileptons), gauge bosons (aka force carriers - photons, W and Z bosons, gluons) and Higgs bosons.  Add to that quasiparticles - emergent properties of particles, kind of like flocks of birds.  (I hope I got that basically correct, even this short summary was taxing!)  And boy are there a lot of them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_quasiparticles).  We dig and dig and we just go down and down, seemingly forever...

My question is, how far can we dig until we hit bedrock?  Surely we can't keep discovering new subatomic particles forever - like some infinite russian doll.  Surely, there have to be the fundamental building blocks of reality somewhere down there.  And just how much of this stuff actually exists in reality and how much are convenient mathematical abstractions?
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: aitm on December 14, 2020, 05:00:20 PM
Yes, yes yes, no, yes, no,yes,yes,no,no, yes yes yes, no yes, yes
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on December 14, 2020, 05:27:34 PM
Maybe.  There have been fevered announcements of scientific utopia in every issue of Popular Science since I first got my haircut in a barber shop ;-)  And no, whatever the next scientific discovery might be, it doesn't mean that you won't have to work anymore and that the government will wither away ;-)  It took 80 years for General Relativity to have any practical impact on ordinary people (GPS satellite).  Special Relativity was useful in understanding muon decay for example, before that (time dilation of half life) ... but most people won't know or care.

Solid state physics has been of immense benefit, because of transistors.  But that doesn't take any Relativity theory to explain it.  Also liquid crystal technology has been of benefit for displays.  So far, plasma physics hasn't helped overcome the engineering difficulties of fusion power (except for frauds like cold fusion).  The physics of 1950 has been very fruitful for electronics, but Moore's Law was exhausted 10 years ago.  Cramming more transistors per square millimeter have reached a declining benefit per added transistor.  The major problem (see US Treasury hack) has been in software and administration.
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Jason Harvestdancer on December 14, 2020, 10:04:36 PM
2D objects in 3D space makes some sense - at least more sense than 3D objects in 2D space.

I read in Scientific American several years back that some scientists think that the spacial dimensions didn't all unwind at the same time, that during the early universe it was 1D, then 2D, then 3D.  Those same scientists think that in the great voids between galactic clusters the 4th spacial dimension is starting to unwind, creating 4D space.
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Unbeliever on December 14, 2020, 10:22:37 PM
Our galaxy is near the edge of the Local Void, which is why we've had so few major galactic collisions in billions of years. It may have been a minor collision with one of the Megallanic clouds that began the collapse of the pre-solar nebula.

I 've read that in the centers of the voids the flow of time is faster, due to weak gravity, whereas the galaxies in clusters have a slower-flowing time. The universe is older deep in the voids than in the clusters. The time flow difference may not be large, but in the billions of years of the lifetime of the universe it has added up so that the central regions of voids are much older than we see it.
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: drunkenshoe on December 15, 2020, 08:38:43 AM
I can't comprehend 2D. LOL
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Hydra009 on December 15, 2020, 09:37:12 AM
Quote from: drunkenshoe on December 15, 2020, 08:38:43 AM
I can't comprehend 2D. LOL
Same.  I can conceptualize something very, very thin, but literally nothing is bizarre.  Imagine an object with no height.  It just doesn't compute.
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on December 15, 2020, 11:04:31 AM
Quote from: drunkenshoe on December 15, 2020, 08:38:43 AM
I can't comprehend 2D. LOL

Go study your kitchen table ;-)
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on December 15, 2020, 11:06:30 AM
Quote from: Hydra009 on December 15, 2020, 09:37:12 AM
Same.  I can conceptualize something very, very thin, but literally nothing is bizarre.  Imagine an object with no height.  It just doesn't compute.

Math is idealistic.  That is why Pythagoras formed a communist society.  And why Samos drove him out and Croton burned him out.

Parmenides of Elea calls BS on infinitesimals and infinities.  Stick to the natural numbers (if you admit you are a zero not a hero include null).
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Unbeliever on December 15, 2020, 03:50:44 PM
I wonder if a molecular monolayer, like graphene, might appear and act as a two-dimensional surface for a sufficiently large organism? The Earth's surface appears to us as 2d, though we can still perceive the 3rd dimension.
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on December 15, 2020, 07:04:49 PM
Most of the weird solid state physics today is done along mono-atomic threads, or upon a mono-atomic layer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3xH97Su-KY
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: trdsf on December 17, 2020, 05:59:56 PM
Quote from: Jason Harvestdancer on December 14, 2020, 10:04:36 PM
2D objects in 3D space makes some sense - at least more sense than 3D objects in 2D space.

I read in Scientific American several years back that some scientists think that the spacial dimensions didn't all unwind at the same time, that during the early universe it was 1D, then 2D, then 3D.  Those same scientists think that in the great voids between galactic clusters the 4th spacial dimension is starting to unwind, creating 4D space.
I can't help but wonder that if true, dimensional unfolding has anything to do with the accelerating expansion of the universe.

2D particles already part of modern theory -- subatomic strings are thought to be essentially 2D objects existing in 11D space, or something computationally painful like that.
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: trdsf on December 17, 2020, 07:00:06 PM
Quote from: Hydra009 on December 15, 2020, 09:37:12 AM
Same.  I can conceptualize something very, very thin, but literally nothing is bizarre.  Imagine an object with no height.  It just doesn't compute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0WjV6MmCyM

(there is a Flatland movie on YouTube, but they almost completely lose the maths)
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on December 17, 2020, 08:03:36 PM
Carl Sagan can explain things, because he practiced billions and billions of times ...
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Unbeliever on December 17, 2020, 09:48:13 PM
Sagan never uttered the phrase "billions and billions." That's an urban myth.

:-)
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: trdsf on December 17, 2020, 10:26:49 PM
Quote from: Unbeliever on December 17, 2020, 09:48:13 PM
Sagan never uttered the phrase "billions and billions." That's an urban myth.

:-)

Actually, he did, but not in Cosmos.  I believe he did it on the Johnny Carson show to retroactively make it that he actually said it at some point.  :D
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on December 19, 2020, 10:33:29 AM
Quote from: Unbeliever on December 17, 2020, 09:48:13 PM
Sagan never uttered the phrase "billions and billions." That's an urban myth.

:-)

Sagan was an alien from the future ;-)  Remember his spaceship of the imagination?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZmafy_v8g8

Of course Youtube is a vast Trump conspiracy ...
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Unbeliever on December 19, 2020, 04:44:00 PM
Sagan was a pothead, he said it helped him think more creatively.

:-)
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on December 19, 2020, 07:20:50 PM
Quote from: Unbeliever on December 19, 2020, 04:44:00 PM
Sagan was a pothead, he said it helped him think more creatively.

:-)

He never got to go into space physically, but he had other ways ;-)
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on December 26, 2020, 12:00:34 AM
The problem with theoretical physics not backed up with repeatable observation or controlled experiment ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqLM3JYUByM
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Cassia on December 26, 2020, 07:36:29 AM
Most of the advances in electronics, lasers, microscopy, and nuclear engineering is based on QM, however those advances seem to have been incidental to the spooky stuff. Quantum communication and computing advances are revolutionary and we are just getting started. My SO always says that we don't even know what we don't know. 
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: SGOS on December 26, 2020, 08:30:51 AM
Quote from: Unbeliever on December 17, 2020, 09:48:13 PM
Sagan never uttered the phrase "billions and billions." That's an urban myth.

:-)
I guess I better watch Cosmos again, because I remember him saying "billions and billions" about a billion times.  This doesn't help much, but supposedly it's on record:

https://youtu.be/HZmafy_v8g8
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on December 26, 2020, 10:09:37 AM
Quote from: Cassia on December 26, 2020, 07:36:29 AM
Most of the advances in electronics, lasers, microscopy, and nuclear engineering is based on QM, however those advances seem to have been incidental to the spooky stuff. Quantum communication and computing advances are revolutionary and we are just getting started. My SO always says that we don't even know what we don't know.

"we don't even know what we don't know" because of quantum woo (see previous string), and thru that open door, warp drive and every sci fi nonsense enters.  A general purpose quantum computer has factored 143 ... an awesome accomplishment!  And don't we have fusion reactors powering our cars yet?  If we did, would a car accident result in a thermonuclear explosion?  Starting with H G Wells sci fi is actually communist propaganda, not innocent entertainment.  Right now, Klaus Schwab wants to turn the world into Morlocks and Eloi.  Thru scientism, not science.

Yes, per Jules Verne/Karl Marx, communism is made inevitable by technical/medical progress?  But what if this non-political progress is finite?  And why is it tied to dubious social/political progress based on the French Revolution?  Moore's Law ended 10 years ago.  You won't be having sub-atomic cell phones ... the keypad would be impractical ;-))  Star Cops did feature a one of a kind cell phone/internet terminal.  That was in the tradition of Jules Verne.  But Carl Sagan was one of the Jewish atheist technocrats pushing this collectivist fantasy.

Independent anyons IMHO, so far, are like super-strings.  A cross between a boson and a fermion (two families of quantum statistics).  They do exist as part of a potential architecture of quantum computing, as a phenomenon inside matter, not in empty space.  Phonons for example exist as quantized sound (in matter).  Same with my post on magnetic monopoles.  Collective behavior happens with matter, and does matter.  But don't think of these as elementary particles.

We knew there were free electrons because J J Thompson actually produced them in a reproducible way, in a lab.  Not because he had some beautiful brain child/math he was enamored of.  Let someone produce a stream of anyons, or super-strings and I will believe them.  Of course, electrons as dependent, inside a crystal lattice, is very useful indeed (all solid state electronics is based on it).  They are able to fulfill both roles.
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: trdsf on January 04, 2021, 09:23:00 PM
I know whenever I saw a McDonald's sign that read "Billions and billions served" I always wanted to replace it with "Over one sagan served".
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: SGOS on January 05, 2021, 02:56:04 AM
Quote from: trdsf on January 04, 2021, 09:23:00 PM
I know whenever I saw a McDonald's sign that read "Billions and billions served" I always wanted to replace it with "Over one sagan served".
I grew up in Chicago, and I remember the first McDonald's to open.  It was in Elmhurst, IL, which was a short drive from our home.  At the time, it was just one more burger joint, and we never expected there to be another restaurant someplace else.  Our family was always impressed with the sign "Over One Million Served."  We used to wonder, "Do you think they really sold that many?"  I actually remember it saying, "Over 100,000 SOLD,"  but I can't find anything to verify that, although that's what I picture in my head.
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Unbeliever on January 05, 2021, 01:16:31 PM
I heard that in Japan you can now get a burger ( I think from Burger King) that can protect you from evil spirits.


Anything to sell more product, I guess.
Title: Re: Anyons proven to exist
Post by: Baruch on January 05, 2021, 03:04:43 PM
Quote from: Unbeliever on January 05, 2021, 01:16:31 PM
I heard that in Japan you can now get a burger ( I think from Burger King) that can protect you from evil spirits.


Anything to sell more product, I guess.

Nah, you go to a bar, get a drink with snake blood in it, the snake cut open right into your drink, makes you stronger with the girls ;-)