All these things have to do with time. We're getting better at seeing smaller time intervals. Back when femtosecond spectroscopy came out, someone used it to suggest a quantum nature of photosynthesis, as if the photons take all the routes possible through the leaf until they find the optimal route, and then all collapse onto that one (although this has since been revisited in 2020).
Now we can see in attoseconds.
We're getting better at coordinating on smaller time scales. Back before there were cross-continental railroads, we didn't need time zones. Now we need to periodically "smear" the clock at the micro-second scale just to keep all the world's computers in perfect synchrony. And big platforms are developing their own Time Cards to keep in sync with itself via radio wave oscillations from satellites.
But then there's the far out stuff, the kind of phenomena that the average person, including myself, cannot understand. We're talking about time crystals and extra time dimensions. No idea what these really are, but they seem to be hanging around with the quantum computer news a lot.
Oh let's not forget that crazy but intuitive theory of Quantum Exoticism -- that we need to just get over it and accept that things move faster than the speed of light; the subluminal and the superluminal can co-exist [links and links].
A new window into the world of attosecond phenomena
May 2022, phys.org
X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers (XFEL) and chronoscopy.
via The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences: Wojciech Błachucki et al, Approaching the Attosecond Frontier of Dynamics in Matter with the Concept of X-ray Chronoscopy, Applied Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.3390/app12031721
Time crystals 'impossible' but obey quantum physics
Jun 2022, phys.org
Sounds like a challenge.
Scientists have created the first "time-crystal" two-body system in an experiment that seems to bend the laws of physics.First theorized in 2012 by Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek and identified in 2016, time crystals exhibit the bizarre property of being in constant, repeating motion in time despite no external input. Their atoms are constantly oscillating, spinning, or moving first in one direction, and then the other.They cooled superfluid helium-3 to about one ten thousandth of a degree from absolute zero (0.0001 K or -273.15 C). The researchers created two time crystals inside the superfluid, and brought them to touch. The scientists then watched the two time crystals interacting as described by quantum physics.Time crystals could be used to build quantum devices that work at room temperature.
via Lancaster University, Landau Institute, and Aalto University in Helsinki: Nonlinear two-level dynamics of quantum time crystals, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30783-w
Researchers observe continuous time crystal
Jun 2022, phys.org
In their experiment, the scientists used a Bose-Einstein condensate inside an optical high-finesse cavity. Using a time-independent pump, they observed a limit cycle phase which is characterized by emergent periodic oscillations of the intracavity photon number accompanied by the atomic density cycling through recurring patterns.
I'm just reading it for the words, and I see "time pump" in there.
via University of Hamburg Institute of Laser Physics: Phatthamon Kongkhambut et al, Observation of a continuous time crystal, Science (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abo3382
As Earth spins faster, Meta joins fight against leap seconds
Jul 2022, Ars Technica
"Leap Smearing"
Facebook, like many large-scale tech companies, is tired of trying to time a global network of servers against leap seconds, which add between 0.1 and 0.9 seconds to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) every so many years. There have been 27 leap seconds added since 1972. In a post on Meta’s engineering blog, Oleg Obleukhov and Ahmad Byagowi say 27 is quite enough for non-solar-scientist types—"enough for the next millennium."International timekeeping bodies add leap seconds at unpredictable intervals because the things that cause them—the braking action of tides on rotation, moon position, the distribution of ice caps on mountaintops, mantle flow, earthquakes—are unpredictable. When the Earth’s speed varies too much from atomic time-keeping, a leap second is called for by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS).At midnight on the designated day, clocks are set to tick from 23:59:59 to 23:59:60 to 00:00:00. That uncommon middle timestamp drives coordinated systems bonkers. A leap second in 2012 took down Reddit, Gawker, and Australian airline Qantas. Cloudflare took the hit on New Year’s 2017 (and detailed why). Since then, many technologies have prepped themselves for the next leap second with “leap smearing,” or using micro-second slowdowns over a long, global-server-friendly span leading up to midnight.
-"We encourage anyone smearing leap seconds to use a 24-hour linear smear from noon to noon UTC."
Google Developers, Public NTP, Aug 2022
Image credit: Cold Atoms in an Optical Resonator Forming a Time Crystal, University of Hamburg, 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment