White Yeti
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Attaining perfection.
I would like to pose some simple questions for all those interested.
How many cases of "perfect" or "ideal" behaviour are there in the real world?
I can only think of two; superconductivity and superfluidity (there may be others). The electrical conductivity of plasma is up there as well, but
it's not a perfect conductor...
Which leads to my second question. Are these true cases of perfection? Or de we not have equipment sensitive enough to measure the resistivity of a
superconductor below its critical temperature, or the viscosity of a superfluid?
Third question, is it possible to make other materials with perfect physical properties?
For example, is it possible to have a material with 0 or infinite thermal conductivity? By this, I mean true perfection, not “close to” or
“almost”. We can get very close to perfection in the lab, but perfection is something that supposedly cannot be attained in the real world, and
yet we have superconductors and superfluids anyway.
As far as I know, you can't have a coefficient of friction of 0, although you can get pretty darn close. Same goes for 0K and a bunch of other things.
Any thoughts?
"Ja, Kalzium, das ist alles!" -Otto Loewi
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Wizzard
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A single crystal of some substances can be exactly pure, like Lego bricks 
Stacked so perfectly unit by unit, thats' why I enjoy them.
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GreenD
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I guess I could give you the hippie answer and say everything is perfect.
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Pulverulescent
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Or . . . Lou Reed's day?
P
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"
A Einstein
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Endimion17
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In a practical sense, no, there aren't perfect things/phenomena in the world. Concepts are perfect, realizations aren't. Not even superconductivity.
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DougTheMapper
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Perfection itself is perfect, rhetorically speaking.
Victor Grignard is a methylated spirit.
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AirCowPeaCock
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I dis-agree. The universe is perfectly imperfect. Black holes are "perfectly perfect" though, perfectly dense!
BOLD
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GreenD
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Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17  | | In a practical sense, no, there aren't perfect things/phenomena in the world. Concepts are perfect, realizations aren't. Not even superconductivity.
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Man your glass is so perfectly half empty!
[Edited on 27-2-2012 by GreenD]
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dann2
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Perfection is the enemy of good.
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bahamuth
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Perfection is as most things, relative. To be defined in the eyes of the beholder.
The genetic code; its transcripts, their translated products. Even the partially degraded products of transcription may sometimes have a function too,
the intergenic bases (junk DNA) have a function of regulating transcription amongst other things. In essence the genetic code is a perfect being,
selfish and immortal with the ability to perfect itself again if the need should arise through random and non-random processes. It's even the reason
we all are here, because our ancestral genetic code was successful in replicating and transforming itself for almost 4000 million years...
That's pretty damn close to perfection if you ask me..
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
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White Yeti
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| Quote: Originally posted by bahamuth | Perfection is as most things, relative. To be defined in the eyes of the beholder.
The genetic code; its transcripts, their translated products. Even the partially degraded products of transcription may sometimes have a function too,
the intergenic bases (junk DNA) have a function of regulating transcription amongst other things. In essence the genetic code is a perfect being,
selfish and immortal with the ability to perfect itself again if the need should arise through random and non-random processes. It's even the reason
we all are here, because our ancestral genetic code was successful in replicating and transforming itself for almost 4000 million years...
That's pretty damn close to perfection if you ask me.. |
Good point, I wasn't thinking of biological systems when I posted this, but DNA could be perfect in that respect.
In response, I will ask a semi-philisophical question. Do you think DNA mutates because of genuine errors in replication? Or is it a deliberate way of
introducing new instructions over geological time scales? Do you think that if nature had to come up with a polymer that could carry instructions and
replicate without any error of any kind, that it would be able to pull it off?
Speaking of biological systems, I read of resonant energy transfer in photosystems which harnesses quantum-mechanical phenomena (with which I am not completely familiar) to boost the
efficiency of energy transfer to 95% and above.
That's pretty darn efficient for a biological system. This would be the highest efficiency in the biosphere, except for thermogenisis, but cmon
thermogenisis is cheating 
"Ja, Kalzium, das ist alles!" -Otto Loewi
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peach
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The conservation of energy / mass.
Re: Superconductors / fluids;
| Quote: | In a conventional superconductor, the electronic fluid cannot be resolved into individual electrons. Instead, it consists of bound pairs of electrons
known as Cooper pairs. This pairing is caused by an attractive force between electrons from the exchange of phonons. Due to quantum mechanics, the
energy spectrum of this Cooper pair fluid possesses an energy gap, meaning there is a minimum amount of energy ΔE that must be supplied in order
to excite the fluid. Therefore, if ΔE is larger than the thermal energy of the lattice, given by kT, where k is Boltzmann's constant and T is the
temperature, the fluid will not be scattered by the lattice. The Cooper pair fluid is thus a superfluid, meaning it can flow without energy
dissipation.
In a class of superconductors known as type II superconductors, including all known high-temperature superconductors, an extremely small amount of
resistivity appears at temperatures not too far below the nominal superconducting transition when an electric current is applied in conjunction with a
strong magnetic field, which may be caused by the electric current. This is due to the motion of vortices in the electronic superfluid, which
dissipates some of the energy carried by the current. If the current is sufficiently small, the vortices are stationary, and the resistivity vanishes.
The resistance due to this effect is tiny compared with that of non-superconducting materials, but must be taken into account in sensitive
experiments. However, as the temperature decreases far enough below the nominal superconducting transition, these vortices can become frozen into a
disordered but stationary phase known as a "vortex glass". Below this vortex glass transition temperature, the resistance of the material becomes
truly zero. |
They also have an interesting, unique, response to magnetic fields; the Meissner effect.
There are other things that can be considered perfect. E.g. to an incoming photon, a quantum well / dot may be considered to have 0 dimensions,
despite it being a physical artefact we can measure the dimensions of. The absorption and re-emission of photons from these wells can reach 100%
efficiency, although that is not the case in the practical implementation of them in semiconductors. To a current travelling down a monoatomic wire,
there is only 1 dimension. To a magnetic field impinging on a monoatomic layer laid down by molecular beam epitaxy, the conducting plane is 2
dimensional. To humans, the world is 3 dimensional. Or is that 4...? Or ten? Depends who you ask, since we may be viewing it in a similar manner to
the electrons in the monofilaments, in that we just can't see the higher dimensions that we accept ARE there for the filament, but the electrons do
not.
I seem to recall a brief flash in the news years ago regarding an empty test tube. Which supposedly held 0 gas molecules, making it a perfect vacuum
and thus a perfect insulator with regards to conduction and convection through the gas.
Particles in interstellar space can travel for billions of km before they bump off another, so they are effectively travelling 'perfectly' in regards
to their molecular interaction in this period.
As far as a computer is concerned, a signal is either there, or isn't; digital.
A perfectly unsolvable experiment: find the particle's exact momentum and exact position in space. Which points to the view of the world every single
human experiences (the idea of being sure and that dimensions and time are not incremental but infinitely choppable) being fundamentally flawed in
someway, as it's a necessary requirement to answer the black hole issue. A canonical problem, the particle has to move to measure it's momentum, but
can't be moving if it's in an exact position; the question defeats it's self.
Schrodinger's cat, in it's entangled state, neither alive or dead.
| Quote: | | Do you think that if nature had to come up with a polymer that could carry instructions and replicate without any error of any kind, that it would be
able to pull it off? |
Cells do actually have mechanisms built into them to check the quality of the copied DNA and even their own master by comparing it with the opposing
strand. And mechanisms for attempting to repair faults. When a number of critical, irreparable faults are found, the cell goes into apoptosis
(programmed cell death) to prevent the DNA being replicated again. When the system fails, we call that cancer and a big mutant blob of tumour may
appear in place of 'the correct' cells and tissues. DNA is essentially digital data storage. The body is quite capable of copying the entire strand
perfectly and more. The error rate is remarkably low. All of this makes it of interest to computer scientists as it's a kind of storage, retrieval,
alteration and disk checking tool kit rolled into one prebuilt system.
There is also a system built in that causes mutation. It's my brain, and it's making me do weird experiments with things that'll probably mutate some
of my own DNA. More seriously, the sharing of alleles during sperm or egg cell formation, whilst not purposefully mutating the DNA, does share out the
characteristics in such a way that the resulting cells will not be the same as the original (half of it is missing), to produce varying 'mutant'
clones (children with differing characteristics). The attraction of sex it's self, combining two differing sets of DNA, is an attempt to produce a
mutant result; e.g. not a clone of the original.
More results that appeared in my search for perfection;
Perfect chair:
Perfect ass:
Baby Amber, with perfect fingers, toes, ears and nose:
7 of 9 from Voyager on a Yeti quest for perfection in the form of a special molecule:
Said molecule, looking much like a bucky ball (I saw the episode. It exploded. Danger White Yeti! Danger!):
Perfect Exceeder - Mason Vs. Princess
<iframe sandbox width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FcgprV8A6GI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
[Edited on 3-3-2012 by peach]
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Hexavalent
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I think the words that spring to mind are 'interesting', peach!
"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill
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Bot0nist
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:-D Perfect!
U.T.F.S.E. and learn the joys of autodidacticism!
Don't judge each day only by the harvest you reap, but also by the seeds you sow.
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White Yeti
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Quantum wells, DNA and perfect vacuum were interesting. The rest was uncalled for, but no complaints.
Would gas particles in intergalactic space be considered close enough to an ideal gas?
"Ja, Kalzium, das ist alles!" -Otto Loewi
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