17th May 2006
Dr Quanmin Guo
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham
Physics at the Surface
Dr Quanmin Guo
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham
Physics at the Surface
The
understanding of the physical world usually starts at the surface of things.
For example, the surface of an atom was studied in atomic physics before the
journey of exploration into the nuclei. The exploration of Mars started by
taking snap shots of the surface of the red planet. In condensed matter
physics, however, the bulk of the material, rather than the surface, was
studied first. This is not because the surface is less attractive to
physicists, but because, as W Pauli complained, that surfaces were created by
the devil. The surface is much
more complicated than the bulk solid which was “created by God” according to
Pauli.
The
advances in vacuum technology and surface characterisation techniques during
the second half of the 20th century have led to a flourishing research activity
in surface science, which has revealed so many interesting properties of solid
surfaces and revolutionised our understanding of many physical and chemical
processes such as catalysis, corrosion, and crystal growth. We can now say
“thanks God, we have surfaces”.
The
recent international effort in nanotechnology research has to certain extent
revived surface science research. You do not need even an A level in physics in
order to understand the importance of surfaces in low dimensional materials. A piece of solid of 1 nm in size
has more than 80% of its atoms on the surface. At the nanometer scale, the surface is the bulk.
After
a short, but not too short, introduction to the field, I will present to you my
research activities on nanostructured surfaces. I will demonstrate, how
nanostructured surfaces are created by using a localised electric field below a
scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) tip, and what we can learn from the
structures that are created neither by God nor the devil, but by physicists.
"Yes Sir ! but, "
What ultimately remains is the bulk
because the surface disappear in an
all encompassing reality, hidden for us,
Thank's G.d !!
the 'hidden reality', as say's D'Espagnat.
'Life hates emptiness'
'Life hates emptiness'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
Functions and consequences
Development
Somatic
epigenetic inheritance, particularly through DNA methylation and chromatin
remodeling, is very important in the development of multicellular eukaryotic
organisms. The genome sequence is static (with some notable exceptions), but
cells differentiate in many different types, which perform different functions,
and respond differently to the environment and intercellular signalling. Thus,
as individuals develop, morphogenes activate or silence genes in an epigenetically heritable fashion, giving cells
a "memory". In mammals, most cells terminally differentiate, with
only stem-cells retaining the ability to differentiate into several cell types
("totipotency" and "multipotency"). In mammals , some stem
cells continue producing new differentiated cells throughout life, but mammals
are not able to respond to loss of some tissues, for example, the inability to
regenerate limbs, which some other animals are capable of. Unlike animals,
plant cells do not terminally differentiate, remaining totipotent with the
ability to give rise to a new individual plant. While plants do utilise many of
the same epigenetic mechanisms as animals, such as chromatin remodeling, it has
been hypothesised that plant cells do not have "memories",
resetting their gene expression patterns at each cell division using positional
information from the environment and surrounding cells to determine their fate.
Silvia Costa
and Peter Shaw. 2006. 'Open Minded' cells: how cells can change fate. Trends
in Cell Biology 17(3):101-106. doi:10.1016/j.tcb.2006.12.005
Based on the
Clauser-Freedman experiment, Sarfatti (cited in Zukav, 1991:310) a
physicist, theorised in 1975
that
not only do faster-than-light connections exist between
space-like separated events,
but also that they can be used in a controllable way to
communicate. He called his
theory the “superluminal transfer of negentropy without
signals”, hence the term superluminal communication.
Moreover, the Sarfatti theory
posits that higher levels of
reality, by virtue of the non-local EPR effect, are generally
more coherent (ordered) than
the lower levels of reality. In other words, the whole is
always greater than the sum of its parts. This is what Sarfatti calls “the thermodynamic
inequality of
emergent order” (cited in Zukav,
1991:315).
It all fits…
·
19
June 1999 by Marcus Chown
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16221913.000-it-all-fitshellip.html
WHY does the Moon look the same size as the Sun in the sky? This coincidence, which makes the spectacle of total eclipses possible, has been crying out for an explanation. Now an astronomer in Seattle has proposed one. If he's right, there is a surprising connection between the conditions required for a total eclipse and for the emergence of intelligent life.
WHY does the Moon look the same size as the Sun in the sky? This coincidence, which makes the spectacle of total eclipses possible, has been crying out for an explanation. Now an astronomer in Seattle has proposed one. If he's right, there is a surprising connection between the conditions required for a total eclipse and for the emergence of intelligent life.
The coincidence in the
apparent sizes of the Moon and the Sun occurs because the Sun, though 400 times
bigger than the Moon, is also 400 times farther away. In fact, the Moon
sometimes looks a shade bigger than the Sun, which is essential for a
"perfect eclipse" when the sky is dark enough for you to see the
Sun's faint outer atmosphere, or corona.
Because tidal effects cause
the Moon to slowly recede from the Earth, perfect eclipses have been visible
only for about 150 million years ...
Yossef ben Yaakov-Israel,
a short apology to counteract the total illusionary slander written here:
a short apology to counteract the total illusionary slander written here:
Yossef when becoming Viceroy of Egypt could have forgot his origins, sent his brothers back without revealing himself and not bow to his father, but he did, showing by this behavior where his heart was, his faith, his love.
Before being a near king, he was a son,
Yaakov's eleventh.
Yossef is really the one who put the corner stone of Israel,
the star to follow for the jews to become, at last, freely, the People named so.
His whole world was his family, not his country to which he was faithful too,
you cannot be, unless mentally ill, good on one side and bad on the other.
His whole world was his family, not his country to which he was faithful too,
you cannot be, unless mentally ill, good on one side and bad on the other.
