Posted on 10/03/2014 12:14:19 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The new Majorana particle showed up inside a superconductor, a material in which the free movement of electrons allows electricity to flow without resistance. The research team, led by Ali Yazdani of Princeton University, placed a long chain of iron atoms, which are magnetic, on top of a superconductor made of lead. Normally, magnetism disrupts superconductors, which depend on a lack of magnetic fields for their electrons to flow unimpeded. But in this case the magnetic chain turned into a special type of superconductor in which electrons next to one another in the chain coordinated their spins to simultaneously satisfy the requirements of magnetism and superconductivity. Each of these pairs can be thought of as an electron and an antielectron, with a negative and a positive charge, respectively. That arrangement, however, leaves one electron at each end of the chain without a neighbor to pair with, causing them to take on the properties of both electrons and antielectrons—in other words, Majorana particles.
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
Oky Doky......
I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but isn't that something like Obama & The Constitution?
It’s called ‘Majorana’ because that’s what they were smoking. :)
Great! A transgendered particle.
A is now officially non-A. Sure...
Sci-Fi masquerading as science again?
.
No, even better: a Poly-gendered particle.
Born protected!
Looks the basis for a heck of a supercomputer, if they could commercialize it...
Call it a Kerrion, from the class of Barryon`s
(”I was normal Matter, before I was Antimatter...”)
Im still the anti-Margaret
It is the politician of particles.
Why is it always antimatter? That’s just so negative. Couldn’t they call it “matter that’s like matter but a little bit different but not so different that you’d have to give it a harsh label like antimatter”?
Because 'advanced matter substitute' is already copy-righted by Douglas Adams?
"Almost but not quite entirely unlike real matter..."
It is named after http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettore_Majorana and he disappeared suddenly under mysterious circumstances while going by ship from Palermo to Naples. He might not have met his anti-Ettore if this is correct:
http://www.science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/ettore_majorana_mystery_might_be_solved-79823
Seems to me the best possibilities are suicide,Kidnapped or fled to Argentina.
More graduates of WhatsamatterU?
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