Perfectly accurate clocks may be impossible
London: The ideal clock is a myth, according to researchers who have shown that in systems with very large accelerations no clock will actually be able to show the real passage of time, known as “proper time”.
Researchers from the University of Warsaw in Poland and University of Nottingham in UK showed that in systems moving with enormous accelerations, building a clock that would precisely measure the passage of time is impossible for fundamental reasons.
“In both theories of relativity, special and general, it is tacitly assumed that it is always possible to construct an ideal clock – one that will accurately measure the time elapsed in the system, regardless of whether the system is at rest, moving at a uniform speed, or accelerating,” said Andrzej Dragan from the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw.
“It turns out, however, that when we talk about really fast accelerations, this postulate simply cannot apply,” said Dragan. The simplest clocks are unstable elementary particles, for example muons (particles with similar properties to electrons but 200 times more massive).
By measuring the decay times and averaging the results for muons moving slowly and those moving at nearly the speed of light, we can observe slowing down of the passage of time.
The faster the muons are moving, the less likely the experimenter is to see them decay. Velocity therefore affects the clocks’ observed tempo. Researchers were looking at the description of unstable particles moving in accelerating motion in a straight line.
According to an effect predicted in 1976 by physicist William Unruh, the number of particles visible within a quantum field varies depending on the acceleration experienced by an observer – the greater the acceleration, the more of them there are.
The unstable particles which the researchers treated as fundamental clocks in their analysis decay as a result of interactions with other quantum fields. The theory says that if such a particle remains in a space filled with a vacuum it decays at a different pace than when in the vicinity of many other particles interacting with it.
Thus if in a system of extreme acceleration more particles can be seen as a result of the Unruh effect, the average decay times of particles such as muons should change.
“Our calculations showed that above certain very large accelerations there simply must be time disorders in the decay of elementary particles,” said Dragan. If the disturbances affect fundamental clocks such as muons, then any other device built on the principles of quantum field theory will also be disrupted, he said. (PTI)
2 mn lottery goes unclaimed in China; to be used for welfare
Beijing: A whopping two million yuan (USD 3,15,126) lottery prize in China, which has gone unclaimed, will be utilised for social welfare services, a media report said on Sunday.
Someone bought the winning ticket from sports lottery management centre on Hainan Island worth more than two million yuan but never stepped forward to claim the money and let it go to the lottery fund.
The fund will be utilised for social welfare services including education, health care as well as subsidies for the disabled, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
Employees at the sports lottery management centre at Hainan Island said it was the largest unclaimed prize in the province’s history, according to the report.
The winning ticket was bought for 10 yuan (USD 1.58) from an outlet in Haikou city, the Hinews.cn website reported. The draw for the prize of 2.07 million yuan (USD 326,156) was done on August 11, and under mainland lottery rules, prize-winners have 60 days to collect the money.
Lottery officials began posting notices and banners at outlets, in an attempt to alert the punter as no one came to claim the money in the succeeding weeks. Staff reminded people to check their tickets through newspapers, TVs or websites.
The deadline passed yesterday and the unclaimed prize has gone into the lottery fund. The tickets are printed on special paper so that the writing won’t fade in the humid climate of the southern province. Last year, unclaimed lottery prizes nationwide hit 1.68 billion yuan. (PTI)
Turbaned Sikh survives bottle hit on head
London: A British man was awarded 16-week jail term for hitting a bottle of whiskey on a Sikh shopkeeper’s head who survived the attack with minor injuries due to the turban.
On June 9, 42-year-old Gurpal Singh was sprayed with the alcohol when a shoplifter, Ronald Richardson, clubbed a 19-pound ($29) bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey on Singh’s head after he asked Richardson to pay for the chocolates he lifted from the shop, The Mirror reported on Saturday.
Other customers grappled the shoplifter and he was later handed over to police.
The attack left Singh with hearing problems and a bump on the side of the head.
“It was fortunate I had my black turban on as always. It saved me from more damage as the bottle broke. I could have been badly cut without it,” Singh was quoted as saying. “It was very odd — he had paid for the whiskey but tried to take a few bars of Dairy Milk worth 7 pounds ($10),” added Singh, who runs the Family Shopper store in The Meadows, Nottingham.
Richardson, 49, appeared in court on Friday and was ordered to pay 200 pounds ($306) as compensation to Singh.
Richardson got a 16-week suspended jail term and was ordered to obey a curfew for 12 weeks.
Richardson suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder because of family problems and was an alcoholic, the report said. (IANS)
Chinese man cremated with life savings of USD 33,000
Beijing: A Chinese man was cremated along with his entire life savings of USD 33,000 as per his last wish that the money should be burnt along with him instead of giving it to his two sons who neglected him.
Angry and frustrated over his sons unwillingness to take care of him, the farmer surnamed Tao from east China’s Jiangsu province had stated in his Will that his entire life savings be burned with his body upon his death.
The story came to light on Thursday after Yang Lin, an employee at a local crematory, informed the local media that he saw a bizarre spectacle of cremating a body months ago with “thousands in cash burning inside the furnace along with the body”, state-run CCTV reported.
Ten years ago, Tao gave his farm to his two sons and moved away from the countryside to rent a small house and make a living by picking up waste in the city.
Due to his age, Tao felt that he could not handle the heavy workload anymore and sought his sons’ help, hoping that he could spend the rest of his life with either one of them. But both of his sons turned down his request with different excuses, the report said.
Knowing that his days were numbered, Tao had even dressed in traditional mourning clothes in his final days, his neighbours said.
Tao died in his rented home. After his death, his sons transferred the body to the crematory. As they were waiting outside, a mysterious man fulfilled Tao’s last wish by burning his entire savings of 210,000 yuan (USD 33,052), along with his body. (PTI)
