Golden ratio discovered in a quantum world

I saw this story on Slashdot, and have read the article several times, and it's just not "going Klunk." I'm trying to imagine what this all means, but get lost at:

By tuning the system and artificially introducing more quantum uncertainty the researchers observed that the chain of atoms acts like a nanoscale guitar string.

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Well actually, I didn't quite understand the preceding paragraph either:

When applying a magnetic field at right angles to an aligned spin the magnetic chain will transform into a new state called quantum critical, which can be thought of as a quantum version of a fractal pattern. Prof. Alan Tennant, the leader of the Berlin group, explains "The system reaches a quantum uncertain – or a Schrödinger cat state.

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I know it is something really cool though. :laughing:

Schrodinger's cat was a zombie.

Once you really understand the golden ratio, things become a lot clearer. Same with quantum physics. There's a reason they go hand in hand. If you want to have some fun, check out the implications of the double slit experiment

I caught the first paragraph ok, but that next one is way over my head. Very interesting stuff though. This kind of research always amazes me.

JaguarDave-in-Oz said:

Schrodinger's cat was a zombie.

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It's the Umbrella corp. starting a real life Resident Evil.

:tinfoil:

That's insane. For those who don't know what the golden ratio is, it's a naturally occuring event..a ratio of 1.618---- to 1, that appears everywhere in the natural world, and now in the material world too.

check this out:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=...den ratio in nature&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

the song "lateralus" by tool is written in a sequence that is considered "fibonacci" or the same as the golden ratio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDlC7oG_2W4

It is kind of tough to figure out exactly what they're saying though, isn't it?

Ilikeshinythings said:

the song "lateralus" by tool is written in a sequence that is considered "fibonacci" or the same as the golden ratio.

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Artists of all forms, including music, use the ratio whether they are aware of it or not. When naturally occuring, the ratio is formed over multiple orders upon itself, rather than in continuing sequence. So the song could become much improved to feel much more enveloping if the note sequence were to extend over multiple orders rather than the repetition it has of the sequences. It's a difficult thing to contrive consciously, so it's often better for artists to just use their intuition.

Both the golden ratio and quantum mechanics evaluate to the same ultimately profound implications ever, so when I see the two in the same sentence, it's sure to be the most interesting discussion.

Very cool.
I can still remember, about 30 years ago, my Math teacher explaining the ratio to us. I was hooked.
I am still amazed when you see the ratio show up.

It's hard to say, though, whether the golden ratio is only golden because we know to look for it, and we tend to consider things involving it to be more important than things without it. Unfortunately, without being able to observe the universe without involving our own bias, there really isn't any way to be sure.

fyrstormer said:

It's hard to say, though, whether the golden ratio is only golden because we know to look for it, and we tend to consider things involving it to be more important than things without it. Unfortunately, without being able to observe the universe without involving our own bias, there really isn't any way to be sure.

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For that matter, that is true about everything, no matter how certain we are of being scientific and objective, we are always looking and "proving" from within the contraints of our own language and humanity.

Weird that somwthing so 'ordered' such as the golden ratio or Fibonacci sequence would show up in a place so 'unorderd' as the anything goes quantum world. Likely it's not so random after all. :shrug:

get-lit said:

Artists of all forms, including music, use the ratio whether they are aware of it or not. When naturally occuring, the ratio is formed over multiple orders upon itself, rather than in continuing sequence. So the song could become much improved to feel much more enveloping if the note sequence were to extend over multiple orders rather than the repetition it has of the sequences. It's a difficult thing to contrive consciously, so it's often better for artists to just use their intuition.

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Actually the whole album is written ingeniously. There is a lot of talk about it on the internet regarding the use of fibonacci in not only the individual songs, but in the timing of the songs collectively and also the album art. Leave it to Tool to take rock and roll and metal to a new level.