Posted on 07/20/2017 7:04:36 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Topological effects might be hiding inside perfectly ordinary materials, waiting to reveal bizarre new particles or bolster quantum computing.
Charles Kane never thought he would be cavorting with topologists. “I don't think like a mathematician,” admits Kane, a theoretical physicist who has tended to focus on tangible problems about solid materials. He is not alone. Physicists have typically paid little attention to topology — the mathematical study of shapes and their arrangement in space. But now Kane and other physicists are flocking to the field.
In the past decade, they have found that topology provides unique insight into the physics of materials, such as how some insulators can sneakily conduct electricity along a single-atom layer on their surfaces.
Some of these topological effects were uncovered in the 1980s, but only in the past few years have researchers begun to realize that they could be much more prevalent and bizarre than anyone expected. Topological materials have been “sitting in plain sight, and people didn't think to look for them”, says Kane, who is at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Now, topological physics is truly exploding: it seems increasingly rare to see a paper on solid-state physics that doesn’t have the word topology in the title. And experimentalists are about to get even busier. A study on page 298 of this week’s Nature unveils an atlas of materials that might host topological effects1, giving physicists many more places to go looking for bizarre states of matter such as Weyl fermions or quantum-spin liquids.
Scientists hope that topological materials could eventually find applications in faster, more efficient computer chips, or even in fanciful quantum computers. And the materials are already being used as virtual laboratories to test predictions about exotic and undiscovered elementary particles and the laws of physics.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
A long read, but very interesting. Surprising how much we don’t know.
bkmk
Fascinating! I love any thread topic that I don’t quite understand.
Very good one!
Ah, after floundering around for years they have finally stumbled on the causes of pons fleischman effect. Topological abnormalities.
Shows what you know, MC. Haven't you read that 97% of physicists say the science is settled and there is nothing left to learn about physics? Harumph!!
Scientists hope that topological materials could eventually find applications in faster, more efficient computer chips, or even in fanciful quantum computers. And the materials are already being used as virtual laboratories to test predictions about exotic and undiscovered elementary particles and the laws of physics.
...
Well, let’s hope it produces more useful products than graphene. Too many researches go into areas that benefit themselves rather than the rest of the world.
Topologically topsy-turvy and the shapes of divinity.
Graphene is useful. When silver prices rise, articles about graphene are dropped for the purpose of depressing its price.
What does margarine have to do with this? :)
You mean, science isn’t settled?
If knowledge was a 5 gallon jug, we have a thimble’s worth and most of that will turn out to be wrong ...
Bookmark.
Nonsense! The science is settled. One of the great scientific minds of the era, Al Gore, has spoken. /sarc
That was awesome!
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