Engineered Metamaterials Could Recreate the Birth of Extra-Dimensional Universes in the Lab

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...-universes-lab

Engineered Metamaterials Could Recreate the Birth of Extra-Dimensional
Universes in the Lab

By Clay Dillow Posted 05.10.2010 at 2:50 pm

Multiverses from Metamaterials Using metamaterials, one physicist thinks we
can create analogies for some of the most interesting - and far out -
cosmological occurences like multiverses and even the birth of universes.
NASA
Man-made metamaterials could theoretically bend light to create invisibility
cloaks, or alter electromagnetic waves in ways nature never intended. Now, a
researcher at the University of Maryland in College Park thinks they could
do much more than that, becoming man-made analogies to various cosmological
theories of how the Universe works and helping researchers explain certain
aspects of those universes.

The theories Igor Smolyaninov has in mind are those that have to do with
parallel universes or dimensions of space and time that we don't experience
in this world. In these lines of thought, different dimensions become
"compactified" early in the Universe's life, leaving the three dimensions of
space and one of time that we understand today.

These other dimensions are quite different, and the laws of physics there
could be completely different as well, dictated by the particular way they
are compactified, etc.


Now Smolyaninov thinks we can take the idea to new heights. In the same way
gravity bends light, metamaterials can bend electrical and magnetic fields
to create a metamaterial version of relativity. We can, he says, create
metamaterials with electromagnetic spaces that possess compactified
dimensions.

Not only that, but we could create metamaterials in which the number of
dimensions and compactified dimensions changes from region to region, with
wormholes transiting from space to space. We might even be able to witness
the birth of photons in these metamaterials, the transition of which would
in some ways represent the spawning of a new universe within the
metamaterial itself. We could even create a metamaterial multiverse in which
different universes have different properties, or wherein different physical
laws apply. Bizarro World, here we come.

Put another, perhaps simpler, way, Smolyaninov thinks it's possible to
recreate several of our most out-there cosmological ideas within
metamaterials, observing how they work and perhaps informing our search for
the real meaning of how space and time work to make up the fabric of
existence. We could even witness our own tiny Big Bang by engineering an
optical "photon blockade" device in which topological transitions within the
metamaterial resemble the birth of a universe. So by creating fake materials
that don't actually exist in nature, we might finally observe the real
nature of the Universe. Which makes me wonder if perhaps we're not in
Bizarro World already.







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Dear NSA TORTURE TECHNOLOGY, NEWS and RESEARCH:

On May 18, 2:26*pm, "NSA TORTURE TECHNOLOGY, NEWS and RESEARCH"
wrote:
Msnip link now broken by Google.Groups

Engineered Metamaterials Could Recreate the Birth
of Extra-Dimensional Universes in the Lab

How long before someone proposes the end of the Earth because of this
(ala. LHC), or invasion from parallel Unvierses?

David A. Smith

On May 19, 12:49*pm, dlzc wrote:
Dear NSA TORTURE TECHNOLOGY, NEWS and RESEARCH:

On May 18, 2:26*pm, "NSA TORTURE TECHNOLOGY, NEWS and wrote:

Msnip link now broken by Google.Groups



Engineered Metamaterials Could Recreate the Birth
of Extra-Dimensional Universes in the Lab

How long before someone proposes the end of the Earth because of this
(ala. LHC), or invasion from parallel Unvierses?

Look on the bright side; we get to *make* the parallel Universe that
invades ours. From the description, we get to design it.

Can we also engineer it to produce something we wouldn't mind being
invaded by, like plants that digest conspiracy loons and secrete
gasoline?

(Uncle Al, if Dr. Schund has already suggested this, I didn't know
so it isn't plagiarism. So there.)


Mark L. Fergerson

Dear n...:

On May 20, 3:43*am, " wrote:
On May 19, 12:49*pm, dlzc wrote:
On May 18, 2:26*pm, "NSA TORTURE TECHNOLOGY, NEWS and wrote:

Msnip link now broken by Google.Groups

Engineered Metamaterials Could Recreate the Birth
of Extra-Dimensional Universes in the Lab

How long before someone proposes the end of the
Earth because of this (ala. LHC), or invasion from
parallel Unvierses?

* Look on the bright side; we get to *make* the
parallel Universe that invades ours. From the
description, we get to design it.

*Can we also engineer it to produce something
we wouldn't mind being invaded by, like plants that
digest conspiracy loons and secrete gasoline?

Or simply push them in, and allow the hot air generated to return, and
we place this "portal" next to a wind farm...

* (Uncle Al, if Dr. Schund has already suggested
this, I didn't know so it isn't plagiarism. So there.)

David A. Smith

In article
,
dlzc wrote:
On May 20, 3:43*am, " wrote:
On May 19, 12:49*pm, dlzc wrote:
On May 18, 2:26*pm, "NSA TORTURE TECHNOLOGY, NEWS and
wrote:

Engineered Metamaterials Could Recreate the Birth of
Extra-Dimensional Universes in the Lab

How long before someone proposes the end of the Earth because of
this (ala. LHC), or invasion from parallel Unvierses?

* Look on the bright side; we get to *make* the parallel Universe
that invades ours. From the description, we get to design it.

*Can we also engineer it to produce something we wouldn't mind
being invaded by, like plants that digest conspiracy loons and
secrete gasoline?

Or simply push them in, and allow the hot air generated to return,
and we place this "portal" next to a wind farm...

I dimly recall reading a sci-fi story (from the '50s or '60s) in which a
portal to another universe was created or discovered, soon finding
application as the perfect waste-disposal system. Until, that is, the
inhabitants of the other world figured out how to return the favour ...

--
Odysseus