Amerika

We are leaving behind the Age of Symbolism and moving into the Era of Patterns in which we pay attention not simply to linear causality but to the many objects that must be in existence in order for patterns to come through.

In the old age, based on moral and political fictions of equality, we operated in a moralistic sense of the world where objects did things to other objects and therefore, were the “cause” of the resulting changes. Actual agency that allowed patterns to be set up and then go off like chemical reactions was ignored.

In our new time, we look at actual agency: if you allow fuel, wood, and fireworks to pile up under your stairs, you are one spark away from having your house burn down, and have effectively created that results because sparks occur and therefore can be assumed to be present over time.

Part of our new view comes from technology, which is discovering that textures at an atomic level provide a new frontier for technology. Consider the hidden orders found in “organizational patterns in materials,” as if nanostructuring Platonism:

The discovery of “hidden orders,” organization patterns in materials that cannot be detected using conventional measurement tools, can yield valuable insight, which can in turn support the design of new materials with advantageous properties and characteristics. The hidden orders that condensed matter physicists hope to uncover lie within so-called charge density waves (CDWs).

CDWs are periodic wave-like modulations of the electronic charge inside a crystal. CDWs in rare-earth tellurides, compounds containing tellurium and other rare-earth elements, have been found to sometimes give rise to unusual physical phenomena that are not observed in the absence of these wave-like states of matter.

Not only do these new materials offer great potential, but they are re-shaping how we think about technology, emphasizing algorithmic interpretation over raw data:

With the design shifted to incorporating several metalens layers, the team approached the problem with an inverse design algorithm based on shape optimization, with parameterization that meant a lot of degrees of freedom.

They guided the software to search for metasurface shapes that, for a single wavelength, created simple resonances in both the electric and magnetic dipole, known as Huygens resonances. By employing resonances, the team were able to improve on previous designs by other groups, and develop metalens designs that were polarization independent, and had greater tolerances in manufacturing specifications – crucial in the quest to scale fabrication to industrial quantities.

Humanity is seeing its thinking shift once again. This will apply to every area of life, including our reliance on symbols and categories.

Tags: hidden orders, nanostructures, pattern language