Mr. Gray
Honors Physics Per. G
3 May 2017
Blog Post #6
There are some supposed physical impossibilities that may actually be proven possible with laws of physics.
Perpetual Motion Machines
All types of people have been interested in the idea of a machine that functions without any outside force for centuries. Leonardo da Vinci, Robert Boyle, and Blaise Pascal investigated the idea, but no large steps have been made in this realm.
The idea of a perpetual motion machine may seem to contrast with many physics laws, specifically laws of thermodynamics, but Frank Wilczek, a Nobel-prize winning theoretician, has theorized about "time crystals", which are materials that continually repeat in time without an external power source. The quest for whether perpetual motion machines are actually possible continues.
"the overbalanced wheel"
Teleporters
In physicist Michio Kaku's 2008 book, Physics of the Impossible, teleportation is called a "Class I Impossibility", which means that the technology of teleporters is theoretically feasible and could even be invented during our lifetimes.
Teleporters do exist already for subatomic particles, the first one made in 1977. Albert Einstein called this phenomenon, quantum entanglement, in which information and and quantum states are transmitted seemingly instantaneously across space, "spooky action at a distance". Today, the world quantum teleportation record is over 100 kilometers.
The Simpsons "teleportation machine"
Invisibility Cloaks
The real life application of a Harry Potter invisibility cloak is a "metamaterial" cloak, which uses the concept that waves of light bend around an object in one's field of vision. The first metamaterial cloaks were made in 2000, but cloaking has recently been ruled impossible for humans, or anything of our size.
Even if it were possible for humans, the cloak would not be completely invisible, instead it would reroute specific wavelengths of light, making the cloak look strangely colored. Similar cloaking ideas may be used to "divert seismic saves and shield entire cities from earthquakes".
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone "invisibility cloak"
Negative Temperatures
The absolute zero of temperature is at -273 degrees Celsius, and this is the temperature at which atoms stop moving. The idea that we cannot go below it or even reach it seems to make sense. The thermodynamic definition states the temperature is a measure of order: the quieter and more ordered an item is, the lower its temperature. Physicists in Munich, Germany, in 2013 made a group of atoms at absolute zero a little more ordered, and created a temperature that was technically far below zero. There isn't much we can do with this information, but it may help scientists study dark energy, which is the mysterious thing tearing apart the cosmos, as some believe it to have a negative temperature.
Matter Married With Antimatter
In a normal situation, when matter and antimatter come into contact, they both explode in a sudden burst of energy. Our universe just happens to have a lot of matter and then a lot of mysteriously small antimatter. But, it has recently been found that some matter might also be antimatter.
Called Majorana fermions, these particles are capable of self-annihilation under the right conditions. Physicists have suspected that neutrinos, subatomic particles created by the decay of radioactive materials, were self-annihilating particles for a long time, but proof of this may only be available once ever 100 trillion trillion years.
Something similar, though, seems to have been created in the lab through tearing an electron out of a superconductor. This leaves a hole that behaves like a positively-charged particle with exactly the same mass. If these two are manipulated correctly, they could be made to act just like Majorana fermions.
Matter and Antimatter collide
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2129664-5-impossible-things-the-laws-of-physics-might-actually-allow/
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