Physics and Physicists

Creationist Refutes Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory

2009-11-04T05:36:00.003-06:00

I received a lot of flak when I made my blog entry on "An Astronomer At The Vatican", simply because I would have asked more pointed questions rather than the fluff that was given. What I wanted to established is specific and CLEAR stand of Catholicism in particular of various issues where religion and science have come to a loggerhead.

It is with that in mind that we have this example of someone who is using Christianity and are still arguing for creationism AND falsely claiming that evolution is wrong.

According to a presentation held Tuesday at West Virginia University, evolutionist Charles Darwin did not know geology, biology, or Jesus.

Dr. Robert Carter, has a doctorate in marine biology and is currently the head speaker and scientist for Creation Ministries International (USA) in Atlanta, Ga., gave a presentation listing in detail what Darwin did not know at that time. Carter argued evolution theory, therefore, cannot be held as the true explanation of the history of the natural world.

So you get all of these people who complained that my view of the Catholic belief is outdated, and yet you have on the other hand, various parts of the same Christian belief that clearly show that that "outdated" belief is alive and well. My question has always been, how come someone within the church (and I'm talking about ALL of Christianity, and not just a particular denomination) talk to this guy and set him straight, if that's possible? Obviously, he would not listen to other scientists since he has ignored not only the overwhelming evidence, but also the overwhelming consensus among scientists. But maybe he'll listen to someone with the same strong background in theology within his religion! If Catholics believe that evolution does not conflict with Catholicism, and if the Pope truly has declared that evolution is true, then someone's clearly wrong here! You guys are all reading from the SAME book, aren't you?

Zz.

Superconducting Rings and Early Development of the Universe

2009-11-03T07:59:00.002-06:00

I'll sound like a broken record (how many would know that expression anymore?) but I'll say it again that condensed matter physics can be as "fundamental" as any area of physics. I've said this many times previously, and now we have another clear example of that.

This article reviews a recent paper that appeared in PRL. It appears that one can look at the superconducting phase transition in metal rings and gain quite an insight into the rapid cooling of our early universe.

Watching a metal transform into a superconductor, it may not be obvious that this transition provides access to some of the same physics that governed the cooling of the universe following the Big Bang. Yet at the root of both of these phenomena—albeit at astronomically different energy scales—is the question of how defects form in a continuous phase transition. In a paper appearing in Physical Review B [1], Roberto Monaco at the Università di Salerno in Italy, Jesper Mygind at the Technical University of Denmark, Ray Rivers at Imperial College London, UK, and Valery Koshelets at the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow have taken ideas about the early development of the universe and applied them to the dynamics of the superconducting phase transition in metal rings. In doing so, they introduce an elegant way to measure the tiny flux quanta that are trapped at the centers of these rings, and develop a new understanding of how the cooling process works in mesoscopic systems.

I'm a sucker for such a paper. :)

Zz.

Reverse Cherenkov Radiation Detected In Metamaterial

2009-11-02T10:45:00.004-06:00

A group has claimed the detection of the reversed Cherenkov radiation in left-handed metamaterial. However, they didn't pass any charge particle through the metamaterial structure.

The second innovation is to emulate a charged-particle beam by means of a waveguide with a periodic array of slots, instead of using real charged particles [Fig. 1, right]. By doing so, Xi et al. solved the problem of extremely weak Čerenkov radiation in the microwave frequencies associated with moving charged particles. As an electromagnetic wave travels inside the waveguide, it emerges at each slot with a fixed phase retardation relative to the neighboring slots. This leaking radiation from the waveguide is equivalent to the radiation from a phased antenna array. The Fourier transform of the electric current carried by a moving charged particle results in a broad spectrum in the frequency domain. But as long as a single frequency is concerned, the current of the charged particle is equivalent to that of a phased dipole array, as mathematically proved by the authors. In this analog, the phase velocity of the electromagnetic wave propagating inside the waveguide corresponds to the moving speed of the charged particles in a regular Čerenkov radiation configuration.

In the experiment, the authors designed a waveguide with comparatively low refractive index of n ~0.5, which is equivalent to a charged particle moving with a speed twice as great as that of light in a vacuum. With this new experimental configuration, the radiation signal can be many orders of magnitude stronger than the traditional Čerenkov radiation induced by a fast charged-particle beam, and thus the Čerenkov radiation was directly observed along the backward direction within the left-handed frequency range of the metamaterials. It is worth noting that Grbic and Eleftheriades carried out an experimental attempt earlier at the University of Toronto, in which they observed the backward radiation from a low-index left-handed microwave transmission line into free space [8]. However, considering the fact that it is the phase velocity rather than group velocity of the electromagnetic wave propagating in the transmission line that corresponds to the speed of an equivalent moving charge, the Čerenkov radiation observed by Grbic et al. was indeed in the forward direction with respect to the direction of the equivalent moving charge.

I guess this is fine, but I'd say that one still needs to show this with actual particle beams. If this can't be done, then the claim that such phenomenon can be used as beam diagnostics doesn't quite hold.

Ironically, in the same issue of PRL, another paper gave a theoretical analysis of the detection of this reverse Cherenkov radiation of an electron beam passing into a left-handed metamaterial[1]. So it would be nice if one can actually detect this direction from electron beams, rather than simulated ones.

Zz.

[1] S.N. Galyamin et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. v.103, p.194802 (2009).

How To Make A Comet

2009-11-02T07:47:00.002-06:00

This is sort of a "trip report" of the 2009 Open House at Indiana University's Physics and Astronomy Dept. It sounds like a fun event, including an instruction on how to make a comet!

In the hands-on astronomy exhibit, my oldest son devoted about ten minutes to making a comet. Ingredients include: water, ammonia, dirt, corn syrup, and dry ice … plus some sarcasm and melodrama. A couple hours later, the comet didn’t look as pretty, but it retained enough mass to make it to our freezer. I fear this may be a summer snow ball accident waiting to happen.

Definitely a fun Fall event for those who can make it next year.

Zz.

Pumpkin Physics

2009-10-30T10:16:00.003-05:00

With Halloween just a day away, many pumpkins are being massacred as part of physics demonstrations.

At the Chico State University, they had a annual pumpkin drop.

The Society of Physics Students at Chico State University held its 22nd annual Pumpkin Drop in front of Butte Hall Thursday. Students portray historical characters such as Einstein, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton and Igor as they explain and illustrate the theory of gravity to a large crowd of students.

Out in Utah, the Roy Junior High School has homemade trebuchets to launch projectile pumpkins.

As pumpkins were loaded into homemade trebuchets, launched into the air, and obliterated by the earth, students shivered in their Viking helmets and Scottish kilts and worried about their grades.

Trebuchets, physics, medieval warfare and pumpkins all contributed to a memorable learning experience for a trio of ninth-grade physics classes at Roy Junior High School.

The Mundelein High School in Illinois had "Peter" the catapult to toss the pumpkins.

Joining the fun this year are students from Mundelein High School, who along with physics instructor Michael Hickey and student teacher Mark Michalski created "Peter" the catapult (named after the nursery rhyme, "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater"). Painted bright red for Mundelein High, Peter spans nearly 10 feet across. Watch the pumpkins soar after being loaded onto Peter and launched into the air.

SPLAT!!!!!!!!

Zz.

Study Suggests U.S. Could Use Fewer, Not More Science Students

2009-10-29T04:57:00.002-05:00

In a study that not only will cause many responses, but also contradicts many other previous studies, a new report argues that the US does not need more students to pursue STEM subject areas. You can read the actual report in that link, or directly here.

The supply has actually remained steady over the past 30 years, the researchers conclude from an analysis of six longitudinal surveys conducted by the U.S. government from 1972 to 2005. However, the highest-performing students in the pipeline are opting out of science and engineering in greater numbers than in the past, suggesting that the threat to American economic competitiveness comes not from inadequate science training in school and college but from a lack incentives that would make science and technology careers attractive.

The researchers—led by Lowell and Harold Salzman, a sociologist at the Urban Institute and Rutgers University, New Brunswick—argue that boosting the STEM pipeline may end up hurting the United States in the long-term.
This happens, they say, by depressing wages in S&T fields and turning potential science and technology innovators into management professionals and hedge fund managers.

The one criticism against this study was stated in the article:

Susan Traiman of the Business Roundtable criticizes the new study, saying that it gives an illusion of a robust supply because it bundles all STEM fields together. There may be an oversupply in the life sciences and social sciences, she argues, but there is no question that there are shortages in engineering and the physical sciences. The findings "are not going to make us go back and re-examine everything we've been been calling for," she says.

There are definitely indications that this is true. The exploding funding for the NIH has caused a huge surge in jobs related to that funding and therefore, gives the illusion that there is an increase in students pursuing STEM subject areas. That's why there may be an oversupply in the life sciences. I don't have any clue about the social sciences, and why this would even be considered as part of the STEM field.

As far as I'm concerned, my interest in physics education is more towards having student be literate in physics and how it is done, rather than trying to gear them towards specializing or majoring in physics. I don't care if they end up as physicist or not, but they shouldn't be ignorant of what physics is, and how we gather our knowledge.

Zz.

More Verification of Lorentz Invariance

2009-10-28T16:22:00.002-05:00

Another key test of Lorentz invariance has been reported, and this time, it is a test that indirectly measure the Lorentz invariance "close" to the Planck length scale.

Granot and colleagues studied the radiation from a gamma-ray burst – associated with a highly energetic explosion in a distant galaxy – that was spotted by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on 10 May this year. They analysed the radiation at different wavelengths to see whether there were any signs that photons with different energies arrived at Fermi's detectors at different times. Such a spreading of arrival times would indicate that Lorentz invariance had indeed been violated; in other words that the speed of light in a vacuum depends on the energy of that light and is not a universal constant. Any energy dependence would be minuscule but could still result in a measurable difference in photon arrival times due to the billions of light years that separate gamma-ray bursts from us.

The Fermi team used two relatively independent data analyses to conclude that Lorentz invariance had not been violated. One was the detection of a high-energy photon less than a second after the start of the burst, and the second was the existence of characteristic sharp peaks within the evolution of the burst rather than the smearing of its output that would be expected if there were a distribution in photon speeds. The researchers arrived at the same null result when studying the radiation from a gamma-ray burst detected in September last year, but could only reach about one-tenth of the Planck energy. Crucially, the shorter duration and much finer time structure of the more recent gamma-ray burst takes this null result to at least 1.2 times the Planck energy.

The paper appeared in Nature advance online publication today.

If this is true, several quantum gravity theories will crash and burn.

Zz.

America's Accelerator Future

2009-10-28T07:17:00.003-05:00

A wonderful article in Symmetry Breaking today on not only the future of accelerator research in the US, but also its importance beyond just the obvious application to high energy physics.

But behind the scenes, smaller and more modest accelerators have been cutting big swaths through the lives of ordinary Americans.

For instance, “The argument’s been made that accelerators have saved more lives than any other biomedical device,” with an estimated 10,000 of them being used to treat cancer, Tom Katsouleas of Duke University told the audience.

More than 18,000 industrial accelerators have been built over the past half-century and most of them are still in use, according to a commentary by Robert W. Hamm in the Oct 09 issue of symmetry; they sterilize medical supplies, analyze materials, toughen the rubber in tires, play a key role in manufacturing the semiconductor chips at the hearts of electronic devices, and even create shink-wrap, among many other things.

I think that I've tried many times on here to dispel the popular misconception of accelerator physics being tied only to particle physics by pointing out that particle accelerators are used in many doctors offices' x-ray machines. Hopefully, this article reinforces that point.

Zz.

Einstein Versus The Physical Review

2009-10-27T18:01:00.003-05:00

I did a search on this article because I remember reading it quite a while back. Luckily, it is available for free for everyone who does not have a Physics Today subscription.

I was searching for it because someone was criticizing the peer-reviewed process, and arguing that Einstein would not have been accepted for publication had he tried to publish his papers.

Neglecting the fact that Einstein did published his papers, and that all this person can offer is only mere speculation of whether or not Einstein's work could have been published (if he had lived today, he would have been quite familiar with the system and would have accepted how physics is practiced today), the paper above showed that the great Einstein himself could have learned a thing or two had he paid attention to the referee of the manuscript he submitted to the Physical Review.

The irony, of course, is that Einstein could have found that escape route months earlier, simply by reading the referee's report that he had dismissed so hastily. The referee had also observed that casting the Einstein–Rosen metric (as we now call this solution of the Einstein equations) in cylindrical coordinates removes the apparent difficulty.

The peer-review system isn't perfect, because it is done by humans. But it is the best we have now until a better system comes along. And there ARE valuable feedback done by referees who take their responsibility very seriously. I know that *I* try to be very fair when I referee any papers, and often when there's doubt, will err on the side of the authors. This particular incident with Einstein is one such example where Einstein would have done well to pay attention to the referee report, and where the system really worked the way it should.

Zz.

The Medical Isotope Shortage

2009-10-27T07:49:00.001-05:00

I've mentioned before on this issue regarding the Chalk River facility and also the possible alternative of using particle accelerator to produce such isotopes. This is a good comprehensive review of the shortage of medical isotope that will become critical soon if no new solution can be found.

Zz.

The Particles Are Back At The LHC!

2009-10-27T05:28:00.002-05:00

Well, it's about freaking time too, even though this is still way too early in the testing stages.

CERN successfully injected proton beams into the LHC over the weekend. They were at a significantly lower energy, and they didn't go all the way around. This appears to be more for beam diagnostics and to test out the magnets current supply. But at least they are on their way.

Zz.

Spintronics Made Easy

2009-10-26T19:13:00.002-05:00

... well, as easy as can be explained in an interview.

PhyicsWorld has released another video. This time David Awschalom of UC-Santa Barbara describes what spintronics is and why it is important.

Zz.

Quantum Physics in 60 Minutes

2009-10-24T19:23:00.005-05:00

While it is impossible to teach quantum physics in 60 minutes, it is certainly a possible task (barely) to illustrate it to the general public in that time. That's what Damien Pope of the Perimeter Institute tried to do during their Quantum To Cosmos Festival.

You can judge for yourself how successful he was in this video, assuming that you can get past all that long list of sponsors at the beginning of the video.

Zz.

The Tevatron - The Collider That Refuses To Go Away

2009-10-23T09:33:00.002-05:00

There might still be some life left in that big old lady. The Dept. of Energy is now requesting a budget that will allow the Tevatron to run until 2011. With the LHC being delayed due to the mishap, the race to be the first to detect the Higgs is still the major motivation for the Tevatron to continue running.

There is also a clear message by William Brinkman, head of DOE's Office of Science, on the fate of the International Linear Collider.

Brinkman, who took over the $4.9 billion science office in late June, also had some harsh words for advocates of the International Linear Collider, a 30-kilometer-long straight-shot particle smasher that would study in detail the new particles and phenomena physicists hope to glimpse at the LHC. "With all the contingencies, you're talking about $20 billion. In my opinion, that price pushes it way out into the future, and onto the backburner."

I'd say that the ILC in its current form, for all practical purposes, is DEAD, at least here in the US. It is also interesting that the muon collider is now back, considering that that too was thought to be dead several years ago. Now it is clear that, if the Higgs is found, either at the Tevatron or the LHC, an electron-positron linear collider will be needed to refine the discovery. It is just that the ILC design as it is now will probably not get a lot of support, at least not from the DOE.

Zz.

2008 Roster of Physics Departments

2009-10-22T16:27:00.002-05:00

The American Institute of Physics has released the 2008 roster of physics degree-granting departments in the US. The statistics also includes total number of enrollment for both undergraduate and graduate students, number of degrees awarded for that year, and other fun statistics. It appears that the number of students getting their Bachelors degree has remained constant from the previous year, and so is the number of new graduate students.

Zz.

Spooky Science Saturday Returns to NIU Campus

2009-10-21T08:01:00.002-05:00

This really sounds like a fun event, and educational as well.

Last year's successful Spooky Science event at the Northern Illinois University returns this year in time for the Halloween festivities.

Since last year’s event drew such a big crowd, this year’s event has been expanded to two campus buildings. Visitors will be allowed to take a tour of the labs in the Faraday Hall West. There will also be activities located in Faraday Hall.

The two buildings, which are adjacent to one another, are connected by a tunnel, which will be used for traveling between the two buildings.

The program’s original motive was to attract young people’s interest in science, technology, engineering and math before they reach the age where they can attend college.

This is such a tremendous opportunity not only to entertain young kids, but also to educate at the same time, all in a fun environment. So kudos for those who thought of such a thing at this spooky time of the year.

Zz.

The Physics of Tom Stoppard's Movies

2009-10-21T05:35:00.002-05:00

A rather interesting way to teach non-science majors some physics and literature at the same time. This article in Physics Central covers Prof. Brad Carroll's course at Weber State University in Utah that examines the physics in 3 of Tom Stoppard's plays/movies: "Arcadia", "Hapgood", and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead".

I wonder if these movies are included whenever people evaluate the science (or bad physics) in Hollywood movies? :)

Zz.

Focus on Dark Matter and Particle Physics

2009-10-20T13:25:00.002-05:00

... or what is now called the field of Particle Astrophysics.

Don't miss this issue of New Journal of Physics that focuses on the marriage between the search for dark matter and our understanding of particle physics. There are several review articles on the current search for dark matter, and as far as I know, all the papers published in NJP are available for free.

Zz.

Michael Green Replaces Hawking As Lucasian Professor

2009-10-20T08:17:00.001-05:00

One of the co-founder of string theory, Michael Green has been slated to replace Stephen Hawking as Cambridge's Lucasian Professor.

Green, who works in the same department as Hawking, played a major role in developing a form of string theory that describes all of the different types of particles in the universe and how they interact with each other.

Zz.

Ask a Nobel Laureate on YouTube

2009-10-20T07:00:00.003-05:00

Hey, you can now ask questions to Nobel Laureates on YouTube! The Nobel Prize organization now has ways for you to ask questions to various Nobel Laureates on the YouTube channel that they run. The first Nobel Laureate up is the 2006 Physics Nobel Laureate John Mather.

YouTube viewers worldwide have the unique opportunity to "Ask a Nobel Laureate" a question on the official Nobel Prize YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/thenobelprize). Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2006, John Mather, an astrophysicist from NASA, is the first Nobel Laureate to participate and he will answer a selection of questions from the online community.

Nobelprize.org, the official web site of the Nobel Foundation, manages The Nobel Prize YouTube channel, and disseminates content from their vast archives gathered since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901. Besides spreading information about all the amazing discoveries, achievements and inspirational stories that have been rewarded by the Nobel Prize, Nobelprize.org is now offering anyone the chance to pose their questions directly to a Nobel Laureate via their YouTube channel.

You can watch the promotional video and the videos that have been submitted with various questions here.

Zz.

P.A.M. Dirac: Some Strangeness in the Proportion

2009-10-19T08:14:00.004-05:00

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Jeremy Bernstein's article in AJP this month[1]. The article discusses Dirac's life and is motivated by the recent biography of Dirac by Graham Farmelo, which I've mentioned on here.

As with many prominent figures in physics, Dirac had his own eccentricities, many of which are listed in this article. For those who have not read Farmelo's biography, this is the next best "Cliff Notes" version.

I see a movie being made of the book, probably directed by the Cohen brothers! :)

Zz.

[1] J. Bernstein, Am. J. Phys. v.77, p.979 (2009).

Balloon Launch Scheduled for Today at Wesleyan

2009-10-17T07:43:00.003-05:00

A group of physics students in Kansas will be launching high-altitude balloons today to study altitude effects and the atmosphere.

Over the past few years, members of Kansas Wesleyan's Physics Club have launched five high-altitude balloons in order to study various aspects of altitude and the atmosphere. Most recently, the group attempted to set an amateur balloon altitude record with its spring 2009 launch.

The balloons also have been equipped with cameras and GPS transmitters. The GPS transmitters allow team members to track the balloons during flight. Some of the team members have remained on campus and tracked the balloons via the Internet, while others have formed chase teams to follow the balloons.

Normally, this story would have not caught my eye. But after the recent brouhaha on the news of a kid floating in a weather balloon, and then the kid really wasn't in the balloon, etc., I just thought that I should offer an advice to these students to make sure that there's no one floating with the balloon!

:)

Zz.

Computers Have A Fundamental Speed Limit?

2009-10-16T07:23:00.003-05:00

That's what two physicists have argued in a recent PRL paper[1].

Abstract: How fast a quantum state can evolve has attracted considerable attention in connection with quantum measurement and information processing. A lower bound on the orthogonalization time, based on the energy spread DeltaE, was found by Mandelstam and Tamm. Another bound, based on the average energy E, was established by Margolus and Levitin. The bounds coincide and can be attained by certain initial states if DeltaE=E. Yet, the problem remained open when DeltaE[not-equal]E. We consider the unified bound that involves both DeltaE and E. We prove that there exist no initial states that saturate the bound if DeltaE[not-equal]E. However, the bound remains tight: for any values of DeltaE and E, there exists a one-parameter family of initial states that can approach the bound arbitrarily close when the parameter approaches its limit. These results establish the fundamental limit of the operation rate of any information processing system.

In fact, if we go by with Moore's law, the prediction comes to roughly another 75 years before this speed limit is reached.

If components are to continue shrinking, physicists must eventually code bits of information onto ever smaller particles. Smaller means faster in the microelectronic world, but physicists Lev Levitin and Tommaso Toffoli at Boston University in Massachusetts, have slapped a speed limit on computing, no matter how small the components get.

"If we believe in Moore's laW ... then it would take about 75 to 80 years to achieve this quantum limit," Levitin said.

"No system can overcome that limit. It doesn't depend on the physical nature of the system or how it's implemented, what algorithm you use for computation … any choice of hardware and software," Levitin said. "This bound poses an absolute law of nature, just like the speed of light."

Still, 75 years is a very, very long time as far as technology is concerned. While a fundamental limit is a fundamental limit, I can certainly see new physics popping up in 75 years that will require a re-evaluation of this conclusion.

Zz.

[1] L.B. Levitin and T. Toffoli, Phys. Rev. Lett. v.103, p.160502 (2009).

Standing Up For Science

2009-10-15T17:26:00.002-05:00

And excellent article on the importance, and necessity, of fundamental, basic research in light of the Nobel Prize in physics this year.

The problem the country faces is that the conditions in which Charles Kao, Willard Boyle, and George Smith made their breakthroughs are harder to come by today. Kao, for example, made his breakthroughs in fiber optics (the thin glass threads that now carry a vast chunk of the world's phone and data traffic) while at Standard Telecommunications Laboratories in the U.K. Similarly, Boyle and Smith designed the first digital imaging technology while working at Bell Labs, the legendary research organization that was once part of AT&T.

What was so special in these corporate labs of the 1960s?

In these settings, world-class scientists were allowed to work on deep-going, "basic" research quite freely, albeit in close proximity to commercial product development. The result was uniquely productive. No wonder Energy Secretary Steve Chu — another Nobel laureate — often recalls fond memories of his time at Bell Labs, calling it a special place that promoted high-intensity collaboration and empowered scientists to conduct long-term basic research that could lead to new breakthroughs while also holding them accountable for delivering products to the parent company. Indeed, millions of jobs have resulted from such contributions to science and technology, including such Bell Labs inventions as the transistor, photovoltaic cells, and cell phone technology.

Unfortunately though, this sort of corporate research platform is in trouble today. As noted in a recent Wall Street Journal article, the tyranny of shorter-term horizons means big companies now spend much less on potentially risky long-term basic research. Meanwhile, much of the action in long-term research has shifted to universities that have a mixed record in commercializing breakthroughs for the good of the regional and national economy. The upshot: Corporations' shorter-term focus combined with universities' variable record at commercialization serves to limit society's overall innovation capacity and so its capacity for high-quality job creation.

Many of the type of research that was done at the old Bell Labs and are no longer done there are now being taken over by many US National Labs, which till recently, were themselves stretched very thin due to stagnant, or even diminishing budgets. These are basic research in which one simply can't immediately attach any kind of possible applications, much less, bring an quick, short-term profit to a company. Yet, as we have seen this year and repeated many times already, these high-risk endeavor can produce such a tremendous pay-offs that not only advance technology and produce fat profits to many companies, they also change our world and our lives directly.

If this isn't convincing enough for why an investment in such basic research must be supported, and why the economy depends on such a thing, then nothing will.

Zz.

Fractional Hall Effect Observed in Graphene

2009-10-15T05:16:00.002-05:00

Graphene has become almost the "aspirin" of condensed matter, exhibiting everything from "speed of light" electron transport, and now, fractional quantum hall effect.

Andrei and her team have finally spotted electrons in graphene getting together in the right way. To do it, the team suspended micrometer-sized bits of graphene to avoid interference from the underlying substrate. The researchers then used a special arrangement of electrodes to keep from shorting out their own measurements, they report online this week in Nature. They observed quasiparticles with 1/3 an electron's charge. In fact, Andrei says, the researchers saw the effect at higher temperatures and lower magnetic fields than are needed to see it in semiconductors, suggesting that the electrons in graphene interact especially strongly.

This is turning out to be such an amazing material, as amazing, if not more, than the high-Tc superconductors.

Zz.