Tea at Trianon: The Exotic State of Matter

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The Exotic State of Matter

From SciTech Daily:

Using a novel technique, scientists working at the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory have found evidence for a quantum spin liquid, a state of matter that is promising as a building block for the quantum computers of tomorrow.

Researchers discovered the exciting behavior while studying the so-called electron spins in the compound ruthenium trichloride. Their findings, published recently in the journal Nature Physics, show that electron spins interact across the material, effectively lowering the overall energy. This type of behavior — consistent with a quantum spin liquid — was detected in ruthenium trichloride at high temperatures and in high magnetic fields.

Spin liquids, first theorized in 1973, remain something of a mystery. Despite some materials showing promising signs for this state of matter, it is extremely challenging to definitively confirm its existence. However, there is great interest in them because scientists believe they could be used for the design of smarter materials in a variety of applications, such as quantum computing.

This study provides strong support that ruthenium trichloride is a spin liquid, said physicist Kim Modic, a former graduate student who worked at the MagLab’s pulsed field facility and is now an assistant professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria.

“I think this paper provides a fresh perspective on ruthenium trichloride and demonstrates a new way to look for signatures of spin liquids,” said Modic, the paper’s lead author.

For decades, physicists have extensively studied the charge of an electron, which carries electricity, paving the way for advances in electronics, energy, and other areas. But electrons also have a property called spin. Scientists want to also leverage the spin aspect of electrons for technology, but the universal behavior of spins is not yet fully understood. (Read more.)