Haidar oyó decir a un discípulo:‘Estoy contento de no haber comprado tal libro, ya que ahora he llegado a la fuente de su conocimiento y me he ahorrado un esfuerzo y un gasto innecesario.’Luego de un año, Haidar le dio un libro, diciendo:‘Me has servido durante doce meses. El valor de tu labor ha sido de cien dírhams: ese es el precio de este libro.‘Tú no habrías pagado cien monedas de plata por un objeto inanimado como un libro, y poca gente lo haría. Pero yo te he hecho pagar por él, y aquí lo tienes. ‘Un camello es caro por una moneda si no necesitas un camello. ‘Una sola palabra es barata por mil monedas de oro, si es esencial para ti. ‘Si deseas regresar a la Fuente del Ser, siempre tendrás que dar el primer paso, incluso aunque estés pidiendo permiso para dar el paso número cien.
Could photons, light particles, really condense? And how will this «liquid light» behave? Condensed light is an example of a Bose-Einstein condensate: The theory has been there for 100 years, but University of Twente researchers have now demonstrated the effect even at room temperature. For this, they created a micro-size mirror with channels in which photons actually flow like a liquid. In these channels, the photons try to stay together as group by choosing the path that leads to the lowest losses, and thus, in a way, demonstrate «social behavior.» The results are published in Nature Communications.
A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is typically a sort of wave in which the separate particles can not be seen anymore: There is a wave of matter, a superfluid that typically is formed at temperatures close to absolute zero. Helium, for example, becomes a superfluid at those temperatures, with remarkable properties. The phenomenon was predicted by Albert Einstein almost 100 years ago, based on the work of Satyendra Nath Bose; this state of matter was named for the researchers. One type of elementary particle that can form a Bose-Einstein condensate is the photon, the light particle. UT researcher Jan Klärs and his team developed a mirror structure with channels. Light traveling through the channels behaves like a superfluid and also moves in a preferred direction. Extremely low temperatures are not required in this case, and it works at room temperature.
The structure is the well-known Mach-Zehnder interferometer, in which a channel splits into two channels, and then rejoins again. In such interferometers, the wave nature of photons manifests, in which a photon can be in both channels at the same time. At the reunification point, there are now two options: The light can either take a channel with a closed end, or a channel with an open end. Jan Klärs and his team found that the liquid decides for itself which path to take by adjusting its frequency of oscillation. In this case, the photons try to stay together by choosing the path that leads to the lowest losses—the channel with the closed end. You could call it «social behavior,» according to researcher Klärs. Other types of bosons, like fermions, prefer staying separate.
The mirror structure somewhat resembles that of a laser, in which light is reflected back and forth between two mirrors. The major difference is in the extremely high reflection of the mirrors: 99.9985 percent. This value is so high that photons don’t get the chance to escape; they will be absorbed again. It is in this stadium that the photon gas starts taking the same temperature as room temperature via thermalization. Technically speaking, it then resembles the radiation of a black body: Radiation is in equilibrium with matter. This thermalization is the crucial difference between a normal laser and a Bose-Einstein condensate of photons. In superconductive devices at which the electrical resistance becomes zero, Bose-Einstein condensates play a major role. The photonic microstructures now presented could be used as basic units in a system that solves mathematical problems like the Traveling Salesman problem. But primarily, the paper shows insight into yet another remarkable property of light.
New research by a City College of New York team has uncovered a novel way to combine two different states of matter. For one of the first times, topological photons—light—has been combined with lattice vibrations, also known as phonons, to manipulate their propagation in a robust and controllable way.
The study utilized topological photonics, an emergent direction in photonics which leverages fundamental ideas of the mathematical field of topology about conserved quantities—topological invariants—that remain constant when altering parts of a geometric object under continuous deformations. One of the simplest examples of such invariants is number of holes, which, for instance, makes donut and mug equivalent from the topological point of view. The topological properties endow photons with helicity, when photons spin as they propagate, leading to unique and unexpected characteristics, such as robustness to defects and unidirectional propagation along interfaces between topologically distinct materials. Thanks to interactions with vibrations in crystals, these helical photons can then be used to channel infrared light along with vibrations.
The implications of this work are broad, in particular allowing researchers to advance Raman spectroscopy, which is used to determine vibrational modes of molecules. The research also holds promise for vibrational spectroscopy—also known as infrared spectroscopy—which measures the interaction of infrared radiation with matter through absorption, emission, or reflection. This can then be utilized to study and identify and characterize chemical substances.
«We coupled helical photons with lattice vibrations in hexagonal boron nitride, creating a new hybrid matter referred to as phonon-polaritons,» said Alexander Khanikaev, lead author and physicist with affiliation in CCNY’s Grove School of Engineering. «It is half light and half vibrations. Since infrared light and lattice vibrations are associated with heat, we created new channels for propagation of light and heat together. Typically, lattice vibrations are very hard to control, and guiding them around defects and sharp corners was impossible before.»
The new methodology can also implement directional radiative heat transfer, a form of energy transfer during which heat is dissipated through electromagnetic waves.
«We can create channels of arbitrary shape for this form of hybrid light and matter excitations to be guided along within a two-dimensional material we created,» added Dr. Sriram Guddala, postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Khanikaev’s group and the first author of the manuscript. «This method also allows us to switch the direction of propagation of vibrations along these channels, forward or backward, simply by switching polarizations handedness of the incident laser beam. Interestingly, as the phonon-polaritons propagate, the vibrations also rotate along with the electric field. This is an entirely novel way of guiding and rotating lattice vibrations, which also makes them helical.»
Entitled «Topological phonon-polariton funneling in midinfrared metasurfaces,» the study appears in the journal Science.
Scientists have long known that light can behave as both a particle and a wave—Einstein first predicted it in 1909. But no experiment has been able to show light in both states simultaneously. Now, researchers at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have taken the first ever photograph of light as both a wave and a particle. The key was a new experimental technique that uses electrons to capture the light’s movement. The work was published today in the journal Nature Communications.
To get this snapshot, the researchers shot laser pulses at a nanowire. The wavelengths of light moved in two different directions along the metal. When the waves ran into each other, they look liked a wave standing still, which is effectively a particle.
In order to see how the waves were moving, the researchers shot a beam of electrons at the nanowire, like dropping dye in a river to see the currents. The particles in the light wave changed the speed at which the electrons moved. That enabled the researchers to capture an image just as the waves met.
“This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum mechanics – and its paradoxical nature – directly,” said Fabrizio Carbone, one of the authors of the study, in a press release. Carbone hopes that a better understanding of how light functions can jumpstart the field of quantum computing.
Theory and experiments have shown that future quantum computers will harness the peculiar properties of quantum mechanics to go above and beyond what is currently possible with even the most powerful supercomputers.
These quantum computers will communicate through the quantum internet, which is not as easy as plugging them into the phone line. One crucial requirement in quantum computing is that the particles that perform the calculations are entangled, a quantum mechanical phenomenon where they become part of a single state. A change to one of the particles creates instantaneous changes to the others no matter how far apart they are.
These entangled states are easily disrupted, unfortunately. So how can they be sent between computers to communicate? That’s where quantum teleportation comes in. The entangled state is transferred between two particles. This technique is not perfectly efficient, and scientists are working hard in trying to make the whole process more successful.
A team of researchers from multiple organizations has reported a record-breaking achievement in PRX Quantum. They were able to deliver sustained, long-distance teleportation of qubits (quantum bits) with a fidelity greater than 90% over a fiber-optic network distance of 44 kilometers (27 miles).
“We’re thrilled by these results,” co-author Panagiotis Spentzouris, head of the Fermilab quantum science program, said in a statement. “This is a key achievement on the way to building a technology that will redefine how we conduct global communication.”
Quantum teleportation doesn’t work like the science fiction popularization of teleportation. What you are teleporting is the state of particles via a quantum channel and a classical channel. The sender has the original qubit. This is made to interact with one particle in an entangled pair, producing “classical signal” information about the state of the original qubit. This signal and the other half of that entangled pair are sent to the receiver, and by putting it together, the receiver can recreate the original qubit.
This success is the result of a collaboration between Fermilab, AT&T, Caltech, Harvard University, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the University of Calgary. The systems on which this quantum teleportation was achieved were created by Caltech’s public-private research program on Intelligent Quantum Networks and Technologies, or IN-Q-NET.
“We are very proud to have achieved this milestone on sustainable, high-performing and scalable quantum teleportation systems,” explained Maria Spiropulu, the Shang-Yi Ch’en professor of physics at Caltech and director of the IN-Q-NET research program. “The results will be further improved with system upgrades we are expecting to complete by the second quarter of 2021.”
Quantum computers are not here yet, but having the infrastructure to make them work is crucial. The U.S. Department of Energy published its roadmap for a national quantum internet, last July.
You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.~
La nueva traducción ya está disponible en formato tradicional, tanto en tapa blanda y dura, y por primera vez como eBook. Pronto también estará disponible el audiolibro. Como siempre, puedes leerlo en nuestro sitio, gratis. https://idriesshahfoundation.org/…/the-way-of-the-sufi/
Los Sufis afirman que existe una forma de conocimiento que puede ser alcanzado por el ser humano: un conocimiento de tal naturaleza, que es a la erudición escolástica lo que la adultez es a la infancia. Por ejemplo, El-Ghazali compara: “Un niño no tiene conocimiento real de los logros de un adulto. Un adulto común no puede comprender los logros de un hombre instruido. De la misma manera el hombre instruido no puede comprender las experiencias de los santos iluminados o Sufis”. Este, para empezar, no es un concepto que podría recomendarse a sí mismo a un erudito: esto no es un problema nuevo. En el siglo XI, Muhammad el-Ghazali (Algazel), quien salvó a los teólogos musulmanes al interpretar el material islámico de tal manera que venció el ataque de la filosofía griega, informó a los escolásticos que su modalidad de conocimiento era inferior a aquel adquirido por medio de la práctica Sufi. Lo transformaron en su héroe, y sus sucesores aún enseñan sus interpretaciones como Islam ortodoxo, a pesar de haber afirmado que el método académico era insuficiente e inferior al conocimiento real.Luego vino Rumi, el gran místico y poeta, quien le decía a su público que, como buen anfitrión, les brindaba poesía porque se la solicitaban: proveía lo que era pedido. Pero, continuaba, la poesía es una tontería al ser comparada con cierto desarrollo superior del individuo. Casi siete siglos más tarde aún podía aguijonear a la gente con este tipo de comentario. No hace mucho tiempo, un crítico que trabajaba para un famoso diario británico se ofendió tanto por este pasaje (que encontró en una traducción), que en efecto dijo: “Rumi podrá pensar que la poesía es una tontería. Yo creo que su poesía lo es en esta traducción”.Pero las ideas Sufis, al ser expresadas de esta manera, nunca están destinadas a desafiar al hombre, sino a proporcionarle apenas una mira más elevada, a mantener su concepción de que quizá pueda existir cierta función de la mente que produjo, por ejemplo, a los gigantes del Sufismo. Es inevitable que los contenciosos colisionen con esta idea. Es debido a la prevalencia de esta reacción que los Sufis dicen que la gente de hecho no quiere el conocimiento que el Sufismo afirma ser capaz de impartir: realmente buscan solo sus propias satisfacciones dentro de su propio sistema de pensamiento. Pero el Sufi insiste: “Un instante en presencia de los Amigos (los Sufis) es mejor que cien años de dedicación sincera y obediente” (Rumi).
El camino del Sufi
La nueva traducción ya está disponible en formato tradicional, tanto en tapa blanda y dura, y por primera vez como eBook.
Everybody wants to be happy, right? Who doesn’t? Sure, you may not want to sacrifice everything for pleasure, but you certainly want to enjoy yourself. There are a slew of drugs on the market for solving the problems of depression, and the methods for achieving happiness are often sold and advertised as something you can get, and that which you desire above all else.
The pursuit of happiness is so integral to our idea of the good life that it was declared to be an inalienable right by Thomas Jefferson. It summarizes the American Dream like no other idea. For many people it is the meaning of life itself. It is difficult for some to fathom that there is a way of thinking that suggests you don’t want to at least try to be as happy as you can be.
Well, there is one philosopher who doesn’t think you want happiness in itself. Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche saw the mere pursuit of happiness, defined here as that which gives pleasure, as a dull waste of human life. Declaring: “Mankind does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does», referencing the English philosophy of Utilitarianism, and its focus on total happiness. A philosophy which he rejected with his parable of the “Last Man,» a pathetic being who lives in a time where mankind has “invented happiness».
The Last Men? In Nietzsche’s mind they were happy, but dull.
Nietzsche was instead dedicated to the idea of finding meaning in life. He suggested the Ubermensch, and his creation of meaning in life, as an alternative to the Last Man, and offered us the idea of people who were willing to undertake great suffering in the name of a goal they have set, as examples. Can we imagine that Michelangelo found painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel pleasant? Nikola Tesla declared that his celibacy was necessary to his work, but complained of his loneliness his entire life.
Is that happiness? If these great minds wanted happiness in itself, would they have done what they did?
No, says Nietzsche. They would not. Instead, they chose to pursue meaning, and found it. This is what people really want.
Psychology often agrees. Psychologist Victor Frankl suggested that the key to good living is to find meaning, going so far as to suggest positive meanings for the suffering of his patients to help them carry on. His ideas, published in the best-selling work Man’s Search for Meaning, were inspired by his time at a concentration camp and his notes on how people suffering unimaginable horrors were able to carry on through meaning, rather than happiness.
There is also a question of Utilitarian math here for Nietzsche. In his mind, those who do great things suffer greatly. Those who do small things suffer trivially. In this case, if one was to try to do Utilitarian calculations it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a scenario when the net happiness is very large. This is why the Last Man is so dull; the only things that grant him a large net payoff in happiness are rather dull affairs, not the suffering-inducing activities that we would find interesting.
This problem is called “the paradox of happiness.» Activities which are done to directly increase pleasure are unlikely to have a high payoff. Nietzsche grasped this problem and gave it voice when he said that “Joy accompanies, joy does not move.» A person who enjoys collecting stamps does not do it because it makes them happy, but because they find it interesting. The happiness is a side effect. A person who suffers for years making a masterpiece is not made happy by it, but rather finds joy in the beauty they create after the fact.
Of course, there is opposition to Nietzsche’s idea. The great English thinker Bertrand Russell condemned Nietzsche in his masterpiece A History of Western Philosophy. Chief among his criticisms of Nietzsche was what he saw as a brutality and openness to suffering, and he compared Nietzschean ideas against those of the compassionate Buddha, envisioning Nietzsche shouting:
Why go about sniveling because trivial people suffer? Or, for that matter, because great men suffer? Trivial people suffer trivially, great men suffer greatly, and great sufferings are not to be regretted, because they are noble. Your ideal is a purely negative one, absence of suffering, which can be completely secured by non-existence. I, on the other hand, have positive ideals: I admire Alcibiades, and the Emperor Frederick II, and Napoleon. For the sake of such men, any misery is worthwhile.
Against this Russell contrasts the ideas of the Buddha, and suggests an impartial observer would always side with him. Russell, whose interpretations of Nietzsche were less than accurate and who suffered from having poor translations to work with, saw his philosophy as the stepping stone to fascism, and as being focused on pain.
So, while you may value something above happiness, how much are you willing to suffer to get it? Nietzsche argues that you will give it all up for a higher value. Others still disagree. Are you even able to pursue happiness and receive it? Or is Nietzsche correct that you must focus elsewhere, on meaning, in order to even hope for satisfaction later?
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