The spinning beetle, upon hitting a wall, flips its rotation and runs along it. This logic is embedded in a virtual model of micro-particles. Each acts like a tiny motor: spinning, and upon collision with an obstacle or neighbor, it switches its direction of rotation. Instead of the usual increase in disorder, the particles self-organize a superposition of motions, resembling plasma flows. Thus, stable wall-hugging currents – jets – arise, which remain intact regardless of the container's shape. Their nature is linked to wave-particle duality and is protected by topology, whose calculation required quantum theory, and whose observation needed interferometric methods. A collection of particles separates into dense droplets and a rarefied gas, and at their interface, equally indestructible flows emerge. The idea was confirmed with a toy vibrating beetle: upon hitting a wall, it indeed started running along it, switching rotation, as in the model. The discovery lays the groundwork for micro-transport in medicine and explains cell movement in tissues, continuing the reflections of Boltzmann on order from chaos, the phase transition theory of Landau, and the quantum computing ideas of von Neumann.
The authors tested the idea with a toy vibrating beetle: after hitting a wall, it indeed started running along it, flipping its rotation direction, just as in the model.
It's reminiscent of the liquid metal T-1000 robot from 'Terminator 2': it also flows around obstacles and creates directed currents.