VIII. Earth Earns: An Open CoCreative Earthropocene to Astropocene PediaVerse

1. Mind Over Matter and Energy: Quantum, Atomic, Chemical, Astronomic Realms

Willner, Alan. Communication with a Twist. IEEE Spectrum. August, 2016. A report on how a previously under-appreciated property of certain light beams, namely spiraling, corkscrew waves with an orbital angular momentum, can attain much higher levels of data transmission. A fiber optic cable which can carry this vortex pattern is now in the works. Our interest is still another instance of human ingenuity learning all about a natural genesis, in this case electromagnetic radiation, so as to be able to enhance a new radically intentional creation.

Windsor, Colin. Can the Development of Fusion Energy be Accelerated? Philosophical Transactions A. 377/20170446, 2019. A Tokamak Energy, UK engineer introduces the proceedings from a March 2018 Royal Society meeting on this issue of how to foster the research and construction of safer atomic fusion sources beyond calamity-prone fission reactors. Some papers are The European Roadmap towards Fusion Electricity, Towards a Compact Spherical Tokamak Pilot Plant, and Engineering Challenges for Accelerated Fusion.

This introduction reviews the unique opportunity of fusion power to deliver safe, carbon-free, abundant, base-load power. The differences from fission power are considered: especially why a Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima accident could not happen with a fusion reactor. The Lawson triple product is introduced, along with tokamaks, or magnetic bottles, whose ability to approach close to fusion burn conditions has so far put them above their competitors. The question posed is whether the two developments of spherical tokamaks and high-temperature superconductors could lead to more economical fusion power plants and faster development than the current route. (Abstract)

Winpenny, Richard. Quantum Information Processing Using Molecular Nanomagnets as Qubits. Angewandte Chemie International. 47/7992, 2008. In another example, a University of Manchester chemist involves in and contributes to the genetic generation of life’s informational florescence.

Wolf, Edward. Graphene: A New Paradigm in Condensed Matter and Device Physics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. A NYU Polytechnic Institute physicist describes still another fantastic form latent in nature’s fertile materiality by which participatory human beings can find, avail and begin a new intentional creation.

The book is an introduction to the science and possible applications of Graphene, the first one-atom-thick crystalline form of matter. Discovered in 2004 by now Nobelists Geim and Novoselov, the single layer of graphite, a hexagonal network of carbon atoms, has astonishing electrical and mechanical properties. It supports the highest electrical current density of any material, far exceeding metals copper and silver. Its absolute minimum thickness, 0.34 nanometers, provides an inherent advantage in possible forms of digital electronics past the era of Moore's Law. (Publisher)

Wu, Xiaoling, et al.. Dissipative time crystal in a strongly interacting Rydberg gas. Nature Physics.. July, 2024. We cite this entry by nine Tsinghua University, China, Aarhus University, Denmark, Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences and Technical University Wien, Germany researchers for its content and to convey the extent that our collaborative planetary sapience seems presently able to delve into any depth and aspect of physical/organic material substance and its properties. By our philoSophia view, it might well appear, be worth our notice, that our prodigious Earthica is meant to take up and over a new, second, intentional, informed cocreation.

The notion of spontaneous symmetry breaking defines classical and quantum phase transitions of matter, such as in condensation, crystallization or quantum magnetism. Generalizations to the time dimension can lead to a time crystal phase, which breaks its time translation symmetry. Here, we report the experimental observation of a dissipative time crystalline order in an atomic gas, where ground-state atoms are continuously driven to Rydberg states. The emergent time crystal is revealed by persistent oscillations of the photon transmission which arise from the coexistence and competition between distinct Rydberg components. The autocorrelation of the oscillation indicate a long-range temporal order and realization of a continuous time crystal. (Excerpt)

Yazdi, S. M. Hossein, et al. DNA-Based Storage. IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological and Multi-Scale Communications. 1/3, 2016. It seems, as evinced by new journals as this (search IEEE T-MBMC), that our sense of what constitutes a genome is steadily expanding. In typical entry, a team of University of Illinois theorists, who originally hail from Iran, Singapore, Spain, China, and Yugoslavia, study “chemical oligonucleotide” synthesis as if they were parsing literature with a mind to “edit” and improve. See also in issue 1/2, 2015, Coordinated Spatial Pattern Formation in Biomolecular Communications Networks by Yutaka Hori, et al for more potentials.

We provide an overview of current approaches to DNA-based storage system design and of accompanying synthesis, sequencing and editing methods. We also introduce and analyze a suite of new constrained coding schemes for both archival and random access DNA storage channels. The analytic contribution of our work is the construction and design of sequences over discrete alphabets that avoid pre-specified address patterns, have balanced base content, and exhibit other relevant substring constraints. These schemes adapt the stored signals to the DNA medium and thereby reduce the inherent error-rate of the system. (Yazdi Abstract)

This paper proposes a control theoretic framework to model and analyze the self-organized pattern formation of molecular concentrations in biomolecular communication networks, emerging applications in synthetic biology. In biomolecular communication networks, bionanomachines, or biological cells, communicate with each other using a cell-to-cell communication mechanism mediated by a diffusible signaling molecule, thereby the dynamics of molecular concentrations are approximately modeled as a reaction-diffusion system with a single diffuser. We first introduce a feedback model representation of the reaction- diffusion system and provide a systematic local stability/instability analysis tool using the root locus of the feedback system. The instability analysis then allows us to analytically derive the conditions for the self-organized spatial pattern formation, or Turing pattern formation, of the bionanomachines. (Hori Abstract)

Yeo, Jingjie, et al. Materials-by-Design: Computation, Synthesis, and Characterization from Atoms to Structures. Physica Scripta. 93/5, 2018. In a special Focus Issue on 21st Century Frontiers, MIT Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics scientists including Markus Buehler and Francisco Martin-Martinez (see below) post a wide-ranging survey of how deeper understandings of natural principles can initiate a new material and social creation for a much better future. A particular case is a use of block co-polymers of tandemly repeating units of elastin-like protein sequences to prepare “artificial” silk fabrics.

In the 50 years that succeeded Richard Feynman's exposition of the idea that there is 'plenty of room at the bottom' for manipulating individual atoms for the synthesis and manufacturing processing of materials, the materials-by-design paradigm is being developed gradually through synergistic integration of experimental material synthesis and characterization with predictive computational modeling and optimization. This paper reviews how this paradigm creates the possibility to develop materials according to specific, rational designs from the molecular to the macroscopic scale. These include recombinant protein technology to produce peptides and proteins with tailored sequences encoded by recombinant DNA, self-assembly processes induced by conformational transition of proteins, additive manufacturing for designing complex structures, and qualitative and quantitative characterization of materials at different length scales. (Abstract excerpt)

Some philosophical thoughts: surviving on a small planet with limited resources to support our increasing global population is probably one of the greatest challenges humanity has faced so far. A large part of the problem is that our economy is driven by many technologies that are not sustainable at all. Most of the greatest solutions to technological problems have been already solved by nature, which is a source of inspiration. My research contributes to a big picture that creatively integrates bio-inspiration, nanotechnology, multi-scale modeling, process engineering and additive manufacturing to address such challenges. (Fransisco Martin-Martinez website)

Yuan, H. Y., et al. Quantum Magnonics: When Magnon Spintronics meets Quantum Information Science. Physics Reports. April, 2022. We choose this entry by five researchers based in the Netherlands, China, and Spain as an example of how current frontier mind/matter studies of deep physical phenomena keep becoming more amenable and animate, The entry signifies the prowess of our Earthuman facilities to learn all about and move toward a grand integral uniVerse synthesis.

Spintronics and quantum information science are two promising candidates for innovating information processing technologies. Their combination can enable solid-state platforms for realizing multi-functional quantum tasks. Significant advances in the entanglement of quasi-particles and in designing high-quality qubits and photonic cavities for quantum information processing provide a physical basis to integrate magnons with quantum systems. From these endeavours, the interdisciplinary field of quantum magnonics emerges, which combines spintronics, quantum optics and quantum information science. s We discuss how magnonic systems can be integrated with quantum cavity photons, superconducting qubits, nitrogen-vacancy centers, and phonons for coherent information transfer and collaborative information processing. (Excerpt)

Yue, Kaihang, et al. Polyoxometalated metal-organic framework superstructure for stable water oxidation.. Science. 388/6745, 2025. We cite this advance by Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Auckland and Inner Mongolia University researchers on the other side of the globe as one more example of how often catalysts are used to enhance all manner of chemical reactivities. In regard, as a new worldwise cocreation may just now commence, might we rightly consider our Earthuman selves in some way as ecosmic catalysts?

Stable, nonprecious catalysts are vital for large-scale alkaline water electrolysis. Here, we report a superstructure formed by self-assembling a metal-organic framework (MOF) with polyoxometalate (POM). An anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer incorporating this catalyst achieves 3 amperes per square centimeter at room temperature. Electrochemical spectroscopy and theoretical studies reveal that the synergistic interactions between metal atoms create a fast electron-transfer channel from catalytic iron and cobalt sites, nickel, and tungsten in the polyoxometalate to the electrode. (Excerpt)

Zhang, Jing, et al. Quantum Feedback: Theory, Experiments, and Applications. Reports on Progress in Physics. Online March, 2017. A collaboration of Chinese and American computational physicists post a 60 page technical paper in this title regard. Our interest is the appearance of novel, seemingly limitless human capabilities which are proceeding to take over from here, as apparently intended because we can, these most fundamental depths of cosmic material creation.

The control of individual quantum systems is now a reality in a variety of physical settings. Feedback control is an important class of control methods because of its ability to reduce the effects of noise. In this review we give an introductory overview of the various ways in which feedback may be implemented in quantum systems, the theoretical methods that are currently used to treat it, the experiments in which it has been demonstrated to date, and its applications. In the last few years there has been rapid experimental progress in the ability to realize quantum measurement and control of mesoscopic systems. We expect that the next few years will see further rapid advances in the precision and sophistication of feedback control protocols realized in the laboratory. (Abstract)

Zhang, R. H., et al. An Informatics Guided Classification of Miscible and Immiscible Binary Alloy Systems. Nature Scientific Reports. 7/9577, 2017. We note this entry by a nine person international group from China, the Czech Republic and USA as an example of how a full avail of computational methods can serve the frontiers of programmable materials research and formulation.

The classification of miscible and immiscible systems of binary alloys plays a critical role in the design of multicomponent alloys. By mining data from hundreds of experimental phase diagrams, and thousands of thermodynamic data sets from experiments and high-throughput first-principles calculations, we have obtained a comprehensive classification of alloying behavior for 813 binary alloy systems consisting of transition and lanthanide metals. Among several physics-based descriptors, the slightly modified Pettifor chemical scale provides a unique two-dimensional map that divides the miscible and immiscible systems into distinctly clustered regions. Based on an artificial neural network algorithm and elemental similarity, the miscibility of the unknown systems is further predicted and a complete miscibility map is thus obtained. Our results demonstrate that a state-of-the-art physics-guided data mining can provide an efficient pathway for knowledge discovery in the next generation of materials design. (Abstract)

Zheludev, Nikolay. The Road Ahead for Metamaterials. Science. 328/582, 2010. The deputy director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre and Centre for Nanostructured Photonic Metamaterials, University of Southampton, acclaims this opening frontier vista whence human collaborative intellect, as regnant mind may begin to take over matter, might imagine a new, second, natural creation. At their website http://www.nanophotonics.org.uk/niz/publications/ can be found many typical, technical publications.

The next stage of this technological revolution will be the development of active, controllable, and nonlinear metamaterials surpassing natural media as platforms for optical data processing and quantum information applications. (582) Metamaterials enable us to design our own “atoms” and thus create materials with new properties and functions. Metamaterials are artificial media structured on a size scale smaller than the wavelength of external stimuli. Whereas conventional materials derive their electromagnetic characteristics from the properties of atoms and molecules, metamaterials enable us to design our own “atoms” and thus access new functionalities, such as invisibility and imaging, with unlimited resolution. (582)

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