I try to post some interesting "any stuff" which I call "etc..." and QUITE SIMPLE physics
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Quantum Time Machine Lets You Travel to the Past Without Fear of Grandfather Paradox
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Topological insulators: Star material
A topological insulator sounds simple enough: A block of material that lets electrons move along its surface, but not through its inside . In fact, it is far from straightforward. Ordinary metals conduct electrons all the way through, whereas ordinary insulators don't conduct electrons at all. A copper-plated block of wood conducts only on the surface, but that is two materials, not one. The idea of a topological insulator is so strange that for a long time, physicists had no reason to believe that such a material would exist
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Researchers also believe that the collective motions of electrons inside topological insulators will mimic several of the never-before-seen particles predicted by high-energy physicists. Among them are axions, hypothetical particles predicted in the 1970s; magnetic monopoles, single points of north and south magnetism; and Majorana particles — massless, chargeless entities that can serve as their own antiparticles.