(ORDO NEWS) — A new study published Wednesday in the journal PNAS by scientists at the Flatiron and Cornell Institutes has found strange parallels between “strange metals” and black holes.
These unexpected similarities, they said, could help explore previously unexplored areas of quantum physics.
The electrical resistance of a metal, or how much it obstructs the flow of electricity, is determined by a number of factors.
But, according to a new study, if a superconducting metal – one that doesn’t interfere with electric currents at all – heats up above the temperature at which it can still have superconductivity, it becomes a strange metal (Planck metal). At this point, its resistance is determined only by temperature and two fundamental constants – the same three factors that determine many of the qualities of a black hole.
“The fact that we call them strange metals should tell you how well we understand them,” said Olivier Parcollet of the Center for Computational Quantum Physics at the Flatiron Institute in a press release . “Strange metals have similar properties to black holes, opening up exciting new avenues for theoretical physics.”
Some properties of black holes are determined by temperature and by the same two fundamental constants.
“The fact that the same scaling was found across all of these different systems,” said Parkolle, “from Planck metals to black holes, is amazing.”
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