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All the matter you've ever interacted with has mass, and as such it obeys the standard laws of motion equally enunciated past Newton centuries agone. If you button something, it moves in the management you push it. Nevertheless, matter with negative mass would exercise the opposite. It sounds like wacky science fiction, but it's close to becoming reality. Researchers at the University of Rochester have worked out a way to create negative mass particles using, what else, lasers. Is in that location anything lasers can't do?

Physicists accept been chasing existent-world examples of negative mass for years, only it'due south all been theoretical until recently. The math predicted negative mass was possible, though. In the archetype physics equation for force (F = ma), all three variables are positive. Yet, if you brand mass a negative number, the resulting force is negative likewise. Thus, pushing an object with negative mass causes information technology to accelerate toward you. Endeavour to pull it toward you and it'll movement away. It's a real heed-bender.

The University of Rochester team says the new experiment published in Nature Optics is the beginning case of creating particles that exhibit negative mass. In the experiment, a laser bounces off mirrors within a modest optical cavity. The key to generating negative mass particles was the apply of an ultra-thin semiconductor made of molybdenum diselenide. The photos on the laser and excitons in the semiconductor and so collaborate to produce the negative mass effects.

Harold White's possible warp drive, and star ship

The Alcubierre warp bulldoze makes use of negative mass.

We're getting into serious condensed matter physics here, merely the gist is that an exciton is a jump quantum state of an electron and an "electron hole" where an electron could exist in the semiconductor. The end result of this interaction is a new quasiparticle called a polariton that has negative mass. The researchers verified negative mass qualities in the experiment, but nosotros're a long style from harnessing that power to actually practise something.

Lead author Nick Vamivakas describes a way negative mass particles could be employed in, you guessed it, lasers. Applying an electric field across a device with negative mass particles could let researchers to apply push and pull forces with much more than efficiency. With polaritons, it'southward possible to generate a laser with much lower free energy input. Taking things to a more sci-fi place, negative mass is also one of the requirements for the theoretical Alcubierre warp drive. Of course, we're a long mode from figuring out how to make that much negative mass.