Could the combination of general relativity and quantum mechanics lead to spintronics?
Thursday, March 3, 2011 - 08:30
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- In the early 20th century, two famous discoveries about spin were made. One of them, discovered by Albert Einstein and Wander Johannes de Haas, explains a relationship between the spin of elementary particles, for example, magnetism and angular momentum. (Around that time, Einstein also put forth his theory of general relativity.) A little more than a decade later, Paul Dirac unveiled his equation dealing with a relativistic quantum mechanical wave, providing an explanation of electrons as elementary spin-1/2 particles.