Date: 18/04/2016 12:20:24
From: CrazyNeutrino
ID: 875977
Subject: Physicists build a single atom engine.

Physicists have built a single atom engine and it works, will it unlock secrets of the quantum world?

There’s just one small atom in this engine, but it’s one giant leap for mankind. Physicists have finally built the single-atom engine — a working engine that is made up of only one atom.

more…

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Date: 19/04/2016 05:47:20
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 876367
Subject: re: Physicists build a single atom engine.

CrazyNeutrino said:


Physicists have built a single atom engine and it works, will it unlock secrets of the quantum world?

There’s just one small atom in this engine, but it’s one giant leap for mankind. Physicists have finally built the single-atom engine — a working engine that is made up of only one atom.

more…


“The new single atom engine, or nano-engine, follows a four-stroke process that closely parallels the classic car engine. The atom is trapped in a cone of electromagnetic radiation. Physicists focus two laser beams on the cone. One beam heats the cone, and the other, applied closer to the base, uses Doppler cooling to cool it. The particle is thus subjected to a thermodynamic cycle. It moves back and forth within the trap, thus replicating the stroke of a typical engine.”

“Because this heating and cooling slightly changes the size of the atom, and the cone fits the atom so snuggly, the temperature change forces the atom to race back and forth along the length of the cone as the atom expands and contracts.”

Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/3001432/physicists-have-built-a-single-atom-engine-and-it-works-will-it-unlock-secrets-of-the-quantum-world/#cPouoMuuBV1UfqAL.99

I like it. I was expecting something like the single atom memory, that moves an atom of xenon backward and forward using an electric charge, but this is more complicated.

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Date: 19/04/2016 19:17:15
From: AwesomeO
ID: 876652
Subject: re: Physicists build a single atom engine.

Is it really an engine? It doesn’t make any power? More of a valve?

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Date: 19/04/2016 21:23:00
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 876762
Subject: re: Physicists build a single atom engine.

AwesomeO said:


Is it really an engine? It doesn’t make any power? More of a valve?

Perhaps, but it converts heat pulses into reciprocating mechanical movement.

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Date: 19/04/2016 21:26:55
From: roughbarked
ID: 876767
Subject: re: Physicists build a single atom engine.

mollwollfumble said:


AwesomeO said:

Is it really an engine? It doesn’t make any power? More of a valve?

Perhaps, but it converts heat pulses into reciprocating mechanical movement.

Thermal waves?

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