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Worlds Fastest spinning object dissapears into nothingness!
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 12:25 pm
by peter
I tell you no lie!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySZNPUu3v58
Any observations guys?
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 12:35 pm
by Hashi Lebwohl
The researcher actually used the phrase "centrifugal force" even though that doesn't exist?
I suspect that either the sphere collapsed in on itself in one of the smallest black holes ever to exist or it was spinning so fast that its energy level allowed it to slip into one of those higher dimensions which mathematically exist but which we will never detect or travel through.
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 5:39 pm
by Vraith
Weird. I wish there was a bit more info.
If it "disintegrated," there would have to be an extremely large [relative to scale] energy release...I don't know how they'd have equipment that can observe its spin and NOT detect such a burst of energy.
The only way I can think of it collapsing into a tiny black hole would be if the rotation speed was so close to light speed it increased its effective mass...and I'm not sure [and not willing to attempt the math to find out], but I'd guess that, though 600 million rotations is really fast, it still isn't anything like light speed.
Bah...I gave in and did a rough estimate. The surface velocity would be just over 2 inches per second. Light speed is over 11 MILLION inches per second. Not even close to fast enough.
But in some ways similar to your dimension notion, Hashi...at that ultra-pin prick size, perhaps the velocity IS enough to "tear" a hole in whatever the "fabric" of space is. Heh...they accidentally made the worlds smallest drill bit for the world's largest Dremel tool.
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 5:59 pm
by Obi-Wan Nihilo
Warp drive boys. Finally!
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 6:35 pm
by Hashi Lebwohl
Vraith wrote:Weird. I wish there was a bit more info.
If it "disintegrated," there would have to be an extremely large [relative to scale] energy release...I don't know how they'd have equipment that can observe its spin and NOT detect such a burst of energy.
The only way I can think of it collapsing into a tiny black hole would be if the rotation speed was so close to light speed it increased its effective mass...and I'm not sure [and not willing to attempt the math to find out], but I'd guess that, though 600 million rotations is really fast, it still isn't anything like light speed.
Bah...I gave in and did a rough estimate. The surface velocity would be just over 2 inches per second. Light speed is over 11 MILLION inches per second. Not even close to fast enough.
But in some ways similar to your dimension notion, Hashi...at that ultra-pin prick size, perhaps the velocity IS enough to "tear" a hole in whatever the "fabric" of space is. Heh...they accidentally made the worlds smallest drill bit for the world's largest Dremel tool.
I didn't do those calculations but I don't doubt your findings because 600M rpm is pretty darned fast.
I think you are on to something there with the spin causing a localized tear. That makes perfect sense. Increasing the rotational momentum would give the sphere a really high energy level, possibly high enough to do just that.
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 9:11 am
by peter
Did anyone notice the comment below the clip that said 'they created a worm-hole'. Is this a posssibility?
[nb The potential pun within the phrase 'any observations guys' in relation to an object that had dissapeared only occured to me after I had typed the question in. I somehow wish I could claim the opposit.]
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 9:37 am
by TheFallen
Unfortunately for those expecting a soon-to-occur warp drive- or wormhole-enabled day trip to planet Vulcan, calmer scientific journals are merely stating that the object - a near-perfectly spherical crystal of 4.4 micrometre diameter - "disintegrated" and/or "was lost from the levitation trap", rather than it just popped into nothingness. Sorry to rain on your parade, but you're going to have to put your pointy rubber stick-on ears back into storage for a while.
Here's a link to the official St. Andrews website and its press release on the story. Or if you're feeling particularly brave or positively propeller-headed,
here's another link, this time to to the full scientific paper as published in Nature Communications. Now I'm no quantum physicist, but there's no real mention in the latter of disappearing microspheres, co-tangent dimensions or wormholes. Instead, the scientists who constructed and carried out the experiment are most interested in the possibility of having identified quantum friction - from the little that I can make out anyway. They really don't seem that interested in any strange Outer Limits-esque disappearances of crystal microspheres.
If you guys want to know how they got the crystal to spin, just picture one of those old-time shooting booths at a country fair. Remember those ping-pong balls that were balanced on a constant jet of water? This was pretty much the same thing, except for "ping-pong ball", read "vaterite crystal", for "jet of water", read "laser beam" and for "shooting booth", read "sealed vacuum".
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 10:05 am
by peter
Wasn't 'quantum friction' what tv physics proffesor Brian Cox used to explain the sudden and unexplained propensity of an egyptian statuete to start revolving on it's plinth in Manchester Museum. The museums creator responded some what drily that if it were so, it had taken some time to build up. The statue had been under its glass dome in the same spot for eighty years!
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 3:02 pm
by Hashi Lebwohl
Well, we know it didn't disintegrate because matter cannot be destroyed but I am uncertain if they saw an energy spike when the sphere disappeared (presuming they were looking for one). I still suspect that the sphere's total kinetic energy level, which would include that from its rotational momentum of spinning that quickly, allowed it to go through some sort of quantum-type movement into a direction we normally cannot track, which would look to us like "disintegration". The one thing that makes me question myself is that even though 4.4 micrometers is pretty small, it might still be large enough to exist above the quantum threshold.
I'll browse the links later. Every now and then I have to do some work while at work.
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 4:10 pm
by Vraith
Hashi Lebwohl wrote: though 4.4 micrometers is pretty small, it might still be large enough to exist above the quantum threshold.
I'm pretty sure the largest molecule so far to display quantum effect was right around .5 micrometers, so about 1/10th the size of this one.
Way to spoil our fun with facts, TF.
On the Warp Drive mentioned, tangentially:
Voyager officially entered interstellar space last year [just announced a day or two ago].
So only 50 years till we meet the Vulcans for the first time, and 260 or so till it comes back looking for us!
Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:51 am
by peter
I'm getting lost here - am I putting my pointy rubber ears back in the cuboard or not?
