Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
53 minutes ago
Using strong magnets and a pigment developed by ancient Chinese warriors, scientists turned a three-dimensional system into one with just two dimensions.
The transformation was accidental, but it provides physical evidence for several theories and might help scientists build faster computers.
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"Han purple" is a pigment used more than 2,000 years ago to color Xi'an terra cotta warriors of the Qian Dynasty. Scientists know the pigment as BaCuSi2O6—a highly symmetric crystal structure consisting of layers of spinning atoms.
In high magnetic fields and temperatures between minus 454 and minus 457 degrees Fahrenheit, magnetic waves in Han purple crystals exist in three dimensions. But when the researchers chilled the pigment closer to minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit—which scientists consider to be absolute zero—the magnetic waves merged into one large, undulating pulse that was restricted from the up-down dimension by the crystal's copper layers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060602/sc_space/lostdimensionyieldsaccidentaldiscovery