Fractals: The Strange State of Matter that Guide Physicists to Solve Problems, Origins of the Universe

Nature is composed of complex figures that could not be described in Euclidean shapes, which are planes and solid figures. According to the website Teach-Nology, clouds and organic structures resemble fractals that can capture complex structures. Fractals are used to predict or analyze many biological processes and phenomena, like bacterial growth, patterns of nerve dendrites, and many others.

When scientists were first introduced to fractals, a new theoretical state of matter, many of them refused to believe in its existence. But these features stubbornly exist on all scales.

Theoretical physicist, Nathan Seberg from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, said that he could not believe in fractals at first as it violates his prejudice against how things behave. But then he realized that he was wrong.

Theoretical Possibilities of Fractals

Physicists started to see theoretical possibilities of fractals in 2011 as described in Jeonghwan Haah's study, titled "Local Stabilizer Codes in Three Dimensions Without String Logical Operators," published in Physical Review A.

According to Quebec News Tribune, scientists have been using this strange state of matter to guide them into new theoretical frameworks that help solve some of the most difficult problems in physics and in their attempt to understand the origins of the universe. But their movements affect the long-distance behavior of fractals.

Fractals are a never-ending pattern that develops from the intricate interactions between a material's basic components. On the other hand, fractons are even compatible with other strange quasi-particles because they could only move in limited ways and sometimes even immobile, so nothing in their environment can prevent fractal movement.

"This is totally shocking. For me, this is the strangest phase of matter," says condensed matter theorist Xie Chen from the California Institute of Technology as quoted by the news outlet.

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Understanding the Special Features of Fractal Phase

In 2011, CalTech graduate student Zheng Wanxia discovered a new theoretical stage called Haah code when looking for an unusually stable phase that can be used to protect quantum memory even at room temperature.

Physicists looked at a small part of the particle that eventually led them to discover more theoretical phases that have similar characteristics. In 2015, Hahh and other scientists coined the term fractons to describe these strange parts of quasi-particles that is discovered due to the initial discovery of fractal behavior.

According to a paper uploaded in Research Gate, fractons are created at the corners of fractal operators in Haah's code. They are found in a variety of physical settings and display unusual phenomenology.

In Haah's code, Quebec News Tribune reported that particles could only move when new ones are summoned to create an endless and repetitive pattern known as fractals. Looking at them closer will reveal the same pattern over again. To achieve such structure in a vacuum, it requires so much energy to move, which allows very stable qubits to be stored in the system that the environment cannot destroy.