Three British Scientists Discover New Strange Form of Matter

Three British Scientists Discover New Strange Form of Matter

WARNING: Major Nerd alert! Imagine a single sheet of metal no thicker wider or longer than a thin human hair. So powerful it generate its own power, used to store an almost infinite amount of data and do everything even the worlds best computers can do today, literally a million times faster. Sounds like a dream for mobile battery providers!

Three scientists from Britain have been given the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering strange new forms of matter that could help make that come about. These Brits,shared a cash prize of £727,000,000 which went to David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz. Three scientists from Great Britain.

Image source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37486373

They have won the award for discovering a new material that can be used in electronics and super quantum computers and is seen as a significant giant leap and bound in super fast quantum computing and nano-technology and has what the Nobel Prize Committee says "opens the door on an unknown world".

The work that has lead up to the discoveries that are being made today have been long on going for many years following a math topic, aptly named Topology. (Basically an ancient Greek set of mathematics on measuring how things behave when they are stretched, moved around in space or transformed from one thing into another on very very large or very very small scales. Nano-sized scales. And it's been through all the work that these latest discoveries have come about.

What they discovered is that matter (atoms) behaves phenomenally differently when it's very cold or flat during its phase from liquid to gas. Using the their Topology math they explained how it can have an effect on the way rare states of matter behave on very thin two-dimensional layers which contrasts against what we see and know to be a three-dimension reality.

Acting chairman of the Nobel committee, Prof Nils Mårtensson, commented: "Today's advanced technology - take for instance our computers - relies on our ability to understand and control the properties of the materials involved. And this year's Nobel laureates in their theoretical work discovered a set of totally unexpected regularities in the behaviour of matter, which can be described in terms of an established mathematical concept - namely, that of topology. This has paved the way for designing new materials with novel properties and there is great hope that this will be important for many future technologies."

As an example, one by product of the discovery is something called the Quantum Hall effect and that has a lot of real-world applications. according to Professor Nigel Cooper from Cambridge University who says that;

"The Quantum Hall effect is used in metrology to give a precise definition of the Ohm in resistance. Just as a kilogram or a meter requires an exact definition, the math behind today's Nobel prize has helped precisely describe the unit of electrical resistance - how a device or material reduces the electrical conductance flowing through it. As an application, it's not in your iPhone, but it's already used in government labs around the world. There are many more ways that Topology can benefit people in the future even though they aren't working right now. Topology will serve as the foundation for them to get built on to improve conductors and transistors and go on to help with the construction of super fast AI computers and nano-technology that is fully automated and can think and do everything for itself without the need for any input."

An example of the physics of strange matter.

Computer scientists will now be looking into topological concepts and materials that can be used in robust quantum devices will be able to do things that classic binary based computers with classical chip based circuit boards are unable to do and the aspects of it can give the quantum information a robustness against being destroyed by the usual noisy environment.

So yeah, 3 British guys, all though who now live and work in the US. Have discovered some strange new form of matter that is sized up to help pave the way for super fully automated quantum computers.

I think we should be very careful with this new technological discovery though! Call me paranoid, but let's not praise them too much just yet. In another 20-50 years we could be looking back and wanting to stop these guys before the fully self aware quantum computers they create decide that mankind is not longer needed and wipe us out. LOL

Paranoid illusions de grandeur aside. I think this new discovery could have really great implications and applications in the real world and if it means not having to wait for our current slow and bulky computers to work then I'm all for that!

Isn't it funny though, how this new exciting discovery for computer scientists has only come about from some math based on geometry from thousands of years ago?

Exciting times!