Hacker News Reader

Comment by BizarroLand | Hacker News Reader

After reading that article I now understand what my boomer parents felt like watching star trek for the first time.

"In condensed matter physics, altermagnetism is a type of persistent magnetic state in ideal crystals. Altermagnetic structures are collinear and crystal-symmetry compensated, resulting in zero net magnetisation. Unlike in an ordinary collinear antiferromagnet, another magnetic state with zero net magnetization, the electronic bands in an altermagnet are not Kramers degenerate, but instead depend on the wavevector in a spin-dependent way due to the intrinsic crystal symmetry connecting different magnetic sublattices."

View on HN

> "In condensed matter physics, altermagnetism is a type of persistent magnetic state in ideal crystals.

Real crystals have impurities so they are harder to reason about. An ideal crystal is just one where we pretend it's perfect.

> Altermagnetic structures are collinear

The structure is lined up, like the diagrams in the article

> and crystal-symmetry compensated, resulting in zero net magnetisation.

And the alternating lines are symmetrical so they "compensate" for each other and cancel out.

> the electronic bands in an altermagnet are not Kramers degenerate... (etc.)

The spin is different like in the diagram. Ok, that's a bit lame. Anyone else can give a simple but mostly accurate explanation?

Can it be used to supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors while also being capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters?

Well of course, that's why it needs Glyptal-impregnated, cyanoethylated kraft paper bushings. But use caution. The replenerative flow characteristics of positive ions in unilateral phase detractors may require the use of a quasistatic regeneration oscillator in some situations.

That would be TNG. The original Star Trek didn't use <insert technobabble here> in the scripts.

Reminds me of this quote from the esteemed Leslie Claret

> Sell them on the structure. You can talk about it with confidence. Keep it simple. A little something like this, John. Hey. Let me walk you through the Donnelly nut spacing and crack system rim-riding rip configuration. Using a field of half-C sprats, and brass-fitted nickel slits, our bracketed caps, and splay-flexed brace columns vent dampers to dampening hatch depths of one half meter from the damper crown to the spurve plinths. How? Well, we bolster twelve husk nuts to each girldle-jerry, while flex tandems press a task apparatus of ten vertically composited patch-hamplers. Then, pin-flam-fastened pan traps at both maiden-apexes of the jim-joist. A little something like that, Lakeman.

Reads like Turbo Encabulator... maybe on purpose?

As somebody with a professional interest in spin lattices: no, it doesn't. (Also: I'm unfamiliar with the term "Kramers degenerate" and am reading up now)

Honestly I feel it should read "Kramers-degenerate" if it doesn't already

This makes me want to write a conference talk "Towards a turbo encabulator"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_encabulator

Thanks for sharing this piece!

The writing on Wikipedia science and math articles tends to be absolutely indecipherable trash.

Trecknobabble often makes more sense than Wikipedia, at least within the context of the show.

As someone formerly in the sciences, I can't suspend my disbelief long enough to make it through a treknobabble explanation, it's just cheesy enough where it's painful. Though I think trash to describe a lot of science and math wiki articles is a bit of a strong word. A lot of them are written by the practitioners or people with intimate knowledge so I'd 100% expect jargon so it can be impenetrable at times, that's where the references come in handy: textbooks, articles and whatnot. A bit opaque yes, but not trash.

Not trash as in wrong but trash in utterly useless.

If you have enough knowledge to understand the article then you don't need it because you understand the field. If you don't it's impenetrable.

Perhaps I'm wrong: are there people out there who learnt something from a Wikipedia page on maths because you fell between the two?

I have the same experience. I've got enough math and enough interest that I can follow concepts taught to math undergrads, if it's explained well and I play with it a bit. Wikipedia math articles may as well be line noise to me. Fortunately, there are plenty of other sources I can turn to.

"the crystal structure results in zero magnetisation."

The crystal emits no magnetism as a whole, despite the different internal states it can take, because adjacent atoms cancel each other out.

Because each half of the net-zero magnet is arranged differently inside the crystal there's still a good way to measure what state it's in. Or something like that, I can see the pretty graph but I don't know what measurement you'd do.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com