Fundamental physics advance or fantasy?

[TetsuoShima]

I came accross this newsarticle on Arstechnica, it's interesting, but still requires a lot more to make it ultimately acceptable. It's pretty advanced stuff (though the article doesn't go in to the details). Once they start about strings, it's out of my league... Nevertheless, it's still interesting, especially to scifi addicts as ourselves.

 

New materials, new states of matter, electrons not fundamental particles,...

 

Researchers find what may be a new state of matter

 

While this could have been relegated to wherever science puts the many other theories that have tried to explain the universe, this idea received a big boost from an unlikely source. In 1972 geologists unearthed a new type of mineral in Chile; this mineral, now known as herbertsmithite, has a very unusual property: its electrons are arranged in a triangular lattice. This is atypical since electrons usually line up in pairs so they can have the opposite spin as their nearest neighbor. In a triangle, two neighbors will be forced to have the same spin. According to Wen and Levin, this ternary electron system would be a string-net liquid, their new state of matter.

 

[GorunNova]

Question... how can a theory about an existing piece of material possibly be considered fantasy?  This could give superstring and later theories a serious shot in the arm, given that it's basically a material that can only be explained by these more recent theories AND doesn't require an immense uber-high temperature supercollider to examine.

 

Methinks that physics may be jumping along a bit over the next few years. ^^

[TetsuoShima]

Well, there's a long way between postulating a theory and getting it accepted as being true (ie. the best we've got to offer at that point). Hence the topic title.

(smarter men then me will be the judge of that ;D )