Spintronics made easy

Spintronics (a neologism for "spin-based electronics"), also known as magnetoelectronics, is an emerging technology which exploits the quantum spin states of electrons as well as making use of their charge state. The electron spin itself is manifested as a two state magnetic energy system. The discovery of giant magnetoresistance in 1988 by Albert Fert et al. and Peter Grünberg et al. independently is considered as the birth of spintronics.

David Awschalom explains how the spin of the electron could be exploited in completely new types of electronic circuits If you are new to spintronics - or if you are wondering what all the excitement is about -- David Awschalom of the University of California, Santa Barbara provides a fantastic introduction to the field and explains how electron spin could be harnessed to create even denser computer memories and even quantum computers. In this video interview Awschalom also outlines the challenges that must be overcome before we see the next generation of spintronics devices and explains how he is addressing some of these in his lab.

TEDxCaltech - David Awschalom - Spintronics: Abandoning Perfection for the Quantum Age"

 See Also:

• How liquid crystals handle conflicting boundary conditions -http://backreaction.blogspot.ca/2012/12/how-liquid-crystals-handle-conflicting.html

My Perspective on the Elemental Nature

The Atomic Structure of Molecules by Matt Strassler December 7, 2012....also precursor to this article also by Matt Strassler, The Molecular Structure of Matter, May 28, 2012

Photo by Graham Challifour. Reproduced from Critchlow, 1979, p. 132.

 

With the discovery of sound waves in the CMB, we have entered a new era of precision cosmology in which we can begin to talk with certainty about the origin of structure and the content of matter and energy in the universe-Wayne Hu

I quoted myself below with regard to Matt Strassler's two articles, because it is of interest to me to say how we might make use of the matters around us. As well,  too point out the Layman I am. I appreciate what is being put out there in terms of the science so as to help one progress in their own studies.

Yes most interesting for sure. Orbitals integration....most important.

Just a few points for consideration in terms of the energy valuations in terms of the Matter construct as energy configurations....right from molecules to proton nucleus(powers of ten). Bohr's Model 

As well Seaborg's contributions, as a precursor to elemental table construction. Quite early, Law of Octaves looking at the historical perspective. 

As a Law of Octave(historically), this also makes for some interesting comparisons in my mind to a string theorist's mind, as a particle interpretation energy valuation description, or, would that be an unfair comparison?? Another way perhaps, in which to perceive the "Pythagorean sound" as weight with water suspended in gourds while plucking strings?:)

In this sense I am speaking in terms of the history of the way on which a mind can perceive being open too, as to what  it is we select to form the realities around us. These are constructive ways in which we may apply a schematic drawing and building up of,  to form the structure of the reality as it is measure and perceived by us. In his answer,  Matt openly addresses the "tent model" by one of his commentators. and says,"Your tent fabric analogy is an interesting one."

This is part of who I am as to my inquiring into the diverse nature of our measures,  which  help to develop the perspective around the elements and how we make use of them. Why I may look to astrophysical sources to help me point toward the reductionist versions of the data we are gaining from measures.  Which  helps ascertain the aspects of the reality building we are doing.

Also too, I have revealed my own bias to "the sound"  as a sensory revelation of sorts. How one may say measure is of this reality,  and is spoken too. In this sense while their is a whole pluralistic need for mathematical ascertains to say one is a string theorist, I would say on a most fundamental level without such structure around me, I may be interpreted "as ignorant" while suggesting the garb and cloak I wear is based on this theatrical disguise.

For consideration by Lumo perhaps then?:)

Now, Aidan says that the electron is not spinning because it's pointlike. Even if we adopt the usual definitions that were developed in the classical framework, this statement by Aidan is wrong at both levels. First, it's not true that the electron is strictly point-like. Before the Planck scale, all particles have to have an internal structure because quantum gravity doesn't allow distances shorter than the Planck length to be resolved. The internal architecture of particles therefore can't be "strictly and sharply point-like". In all perturbative string vacua, the electrons are vibrating strings (occupying space comparable to the string length, a few orders of magnitude longer than the Planck length) and indeed, the spin may be understood as coming from some internal degrees of freedom that are localized at an extended object.

In fact, the stringy picture of the spin tells us exactly where the reasoning that pointlike or tiny objects can't carry a nonzero or rather large angular momentum breaks down. The string is locally a very heavy object – the tension or the linear mass density of the fundamental string in string theory is huge – and the motion of this string just a string length away from the center of mass has a big, Planck's-constant-sized impact on the angular momentum. On the other hand, the overall rest mass of the resulting particle may be small or even zero because of various cancellations, including the fact that the sum of integers is equal to −1/12 which is the primary identity guaranteeing that some stringy vibration modes remain exactly massless (and others' masses only arise from some much smaller corrections).The electron is spinning, after all

But yes, I gaze star-ward as well, as to include in my vision of the reality around us  a fundamental make-up requirement, so as to say,  the LHC is a corresponding feature of the reality coordination as a microscopic understanding of a macroscopic world.

The last major changes to the periodic table was done in the middle of the 20th Century. Glenn Seaborg is given the credit for it. Starting with his discovery of plutonium in 1940, he discovered all the transuranic elements from 94 to 102. He reconfigured the periodic table by placing the actinide series below the lanthanide series. In 1951, Seaborg was awarded the Noble prize in chemistry for his work. Element 106 has been named seaborgium (Sg) in his honor.A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERIODIC TABLE

Standard form of the periodic table. The colors represent different categories of elements

See Also:

• The Nature of Reality

Astrophysical Signals for Quantum Gravity Signals

Logo for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/Sonoma State University/Aurore Simonnet

NASA's newest observatory, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, has begun its mission of exploring the universe in high-energy gamma rays. The spacecraft and its revolutionary instruments passed their orbital checkout with flying colors.

NASA announced August 26 that GLAST has been renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The new name honors Prof. Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), a pioneer in high-energy physics.

See:NASA Renames Observatory for Fermi, Reveals Entire Gamma-Ray Sky

 
See Also:

• ESQG 2012 - Conference Summary - http://backreaction.blogspot.ca/2012/10/esqg-2012-conference-summary.html

• The Holey Grail and its Dual: From String Theory to Strange Metals - http://backreaction.blogspot.ca/2012/11/the-holey-grail-and-its-dual-from.html

Olfactory Experience

 

If you sprinkle fine sand uniformly over a drumhead and then make it vibrate, the grains of sand will collect in characteristic spots and figures, called Chladni patterns. These patterns reveal much information about the size and the shape of the drum and the elasticity of its membrane. In particular, the distribution of spots depends not only on the way the drum vibrated initially but also on the global shape of the drum, because the waves will be reflected differently according to whether the edge of the drumhead is a circle, an ellipse, a square, or some other shape.

In cosmology, the early Universe was crossed by real acoustic waves generated soon after Big Bang. Such vibrations left their imprints 300 000 years later as tiny density fluctuations in the primordial plasma. Hot and cold spots in the present-day 2.7 K CMB radiation reveal those density fluctuations. Thus the CMB temperature fluctuations look like Chaldni patterns resulting from a complicated three-dimensional drumhead that

How we make use of our senses? Does one not wonder about the effect of our memory retention how on how well we can call up memories?

The Vibration theory of smell proposes that a molecule's smell character is due to its vibrational frequency in the infrared range. The theory is opposed to the more widely accepted shape theory of olfaction, which proposes that a molecule's smell character is due to its shape.

I expose myself to a bias in my thinking that seems natural to me with regard to the subject of vibratory reductionism. So the idea of Vibration theory of olfaction is interesting in the sense that we may use a ancient part of our physiological makeup to access memories, that are correlated with this sense as a marker.

 The Shape theory of smell states that a molecule's particular smell is due to a 'lock and key' mechanism by which a scent molecule fits into olfactory receptors in the nasal epithelium.

Would we say that this is a more potent way of remembrance that we may have underestimated the nature and the way that memory induction employed,  not just in terms of this neurological connection of the time there in association, but as a feature of the biological presences that we muster as matter beings.

That the spectrum of sight is much finer then the matter states of consideration in terms of a waffling of a breeze that carries the scent of let's say mom's apple pie? So we see this impression is made not only in the retention of the memory, but is further compacted, with this "emotional significant association."

This "emotional impact"  is significant? Not just in the smell, but of the vibratory experience we correlate with let's say music here, so as to retain and impress upon our youth and vigor,  the choices made then.

So memory is vital in the sense that olfactory experience is important in the retention of these memories. Thus to an understanding and constructive creative schematic of defining our experiences in terms of how well such "other sense are used" to impress upon and recount experience.

Big Ideas presents Seth Lloyd of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology on Quantum Life, how organisms have evolved to make use of quantum effects.

See:

• A Correlation in Perception

Spaun brain activity

The full set of movies is at: http://nengo.ca/build-a-brain/spaunvideos/

See: The Nengo Neural Simulator

Chris Eliasmith

Quantum Foam and Discrete Measures

Physicists would dearly love to study this foam but there's a problem. Spacetime only becomes foam-like on the tiniest scale, at so-called Planck lengths of 10^-35 metres or so. See: How to Measure Quantum Foam With a Tabletop Experiment

An ongoing question was raised by Bee of Backreaction and thoughts I have had as to the applicability of it's experimental design.

 It's difficult to see that while seeing the larger view of a Lagrangian of the universe is to see such an experiment located "as part and parcel of the variance in determination of the strength and weaknesses of that Lagrangian."

So you drive the focus down to the microscopic, and then to ask, in what case has the photon's journey been of value in the ascertaining the distance and time, of that photon's journey?

Just trying to orientate perspective in the case of Lagrange, yet we see on the macroscopically that it works.

It is to orientate the thought experiment in the direction of a determination of value when assigned to Lagrangian and its limits at minimal length.

A phenomenological question then about that environment with this application.

On another note then being respective of the drive toward understanding using Higg's,"The solution is to make the equations more complicated and introduce a Higgs field, which, once it is non-zero on average, can give the electron its mass without messing up the workings of the weak nuclear force.<sup>1

1</sup>.Why the Higgs Field is Necessary

 It is difficult then to ascertain Higgs field at zero, yet I want to count?

See Also: 

• Why the Higgs Field is Necessary

Abell 399 and Abell 401, connected by a bridge of hot gas

This image shows galaxy clusters Abell 399, lower center, and Abell 401 connected by a bridge of hot gas (ESA Planck Collaboration / STScI Digitized Sky Survey)

 Planck’s primary task is to capture the most ancient light of the cosmos. If this faint light interacts with the hot gas permeating different types of space structures including galaxies and galaxy clusters, its energy distribution is modified in a characteristic way, a phenomenon known as the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect. See: Planck Discovers Huge Gas Filament Connecting Two Galaxy Clusters

 Astronomy & Astrophysics; arXiv: 1208.5911

See Also:

• Thoughts on Dark Matter Search

•  It Starts with a Bang

•  Merging Galaxy Cluster Abell 520 

Observational Gravitational-Wave Astronomy.

Figure 1: Gravitational wave strain and strain sensitivity for a 5 year observation with PTAs.
The red dashed line is the approximate strain sensitivity for current PTAs (11), and the green
dashed line shows the previous estimate for the stochastic signal strength that is currently in
standard use for PTA analyses (13, 14). The dark blue solid line corresponds to our mean
estimate for the stochastic signal strength, with the blue shaded region bound by thin solid
blue lines showing our 95% confidence interval for this estimate, based on the observational
uncertainties of our model parameters. The light blue (△ACD) and cyan (△ABE) shaded
regions show the area corresponding to the square root of the 2 integrand, to be integrated over
logarithmic frequency intervals as in Eq. (3), for our expected SNR of 8, and the SNR of 2
expected from previous estimates (13, 14), respectively. See: The Imminent Detection Of Gravitational Waves From Massive Black-Hole Binaries With Pulsar Timing Arrays

As mentioned in article by Technology Review the idea of previous information as to supplying data would have to be identified in future experiments as confirmations. In this instance information gained from Taylor and Hulse  in terms of binary star rotations closeness.

TEDxCambridge - Jeff Lieberman on science and spirituality

 Jeff Lieberman, an MIT-trained artist, scientist and engineer, makes a scientific argument for mystical experience. He asks us to challenge our perception of what we are, our relationship to the universe, and our relationship to one another. Our minds are "thought-generating machines." What we would happen if we could turn off the machine? If we could transcend our individual experience of the world?

This talk was transcribed by Brad Miele. Transcript here: http://bea.st/inevolution/?p=264

Three years ago was a turning point in my life, because I finally had everything I thought I needed to be fulfilled, and I still had this voice in my head saying “I’ve got to do more to be happy”. The more that I looked at my own suffering deeply, the more I saw it in every single person around us. We have trouble standing in lines, we’re impatient with our own children. It’s as if we all think the future holds the promise for our fulfillment. I come from a scientific background, and so I wanted to use that background to understand the real root and source of why there is so much suffering. Where it’s led me has totally changed my views of the current scientific paradigm. More importantly than that, it’s changed my views on what it means to be a human being, and to be alive. I want to share this theory with you, and it is way out there, so I ask you to have a critical but open mind for the next 14 minutes, because you might not actually be what you think you are.Transcript from TEDx talk

Do We Create the Reality by Observing

Anton Zeilinger heads up the IQOQI lab in Vienna. Photograph by Mark Mahaney.

Zeilinger and his group have only just begun to consider the grand implications of all their work for reality and our world. Like others in their field, they had focused on entanglement and decoherence to construct our future information technology, such as quantum computers, and not for understanding reality. But the group’s work on these kinds of applications pushed up against quantum mechanics’ foundations. To repeat a famous dictum, “All information is physical.” How we get information from our world depends on how it is encoded. Quantum mechanics encodes information, and how we obtain this through measurement is how we study and construct our world.Do we create the world just by looking at it?

Interesting question and article by Seed Magazine.