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Scientists Create Supersolid From Helium
jabberjaw writes "Nature is reporting that Pennsylvania State University researchers Eun-Seong Kim and Moses Chan have created a 'supersolid' from helium-4. Although a crystalline solid, the supersolid can flow much like a liquid. This is due to the fact that the empty compartments in the crystal move coherently, thus waves can progress through the lattice. The supersolid state can be compared to the superfluid state. Perhaps a condensed matter physicist can dumb the article down for layfolk such as myself?"
Go ahead and mod me down for being an idiot, but wouldn't it be great to use some kind of superliquids or supersolids in car engines and other mechanical devices? I imagine a liquid with no viscocity would be better for an engine than standard synthetic motor oil. I guess that whole temperature thing would kill it though... just a thought.
How can a fluid with no viscosity turn a turbine?
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Technically, room temperature glass is always flowing, just reeeeeeeally slowly, but we still call it "solid glass"
-P
One of the big problems our power grid has is that electricity must be generated based on demand. There's no way to store electricity for use later during peak hours.
However, a fluid or solid that "once stirred would continue swirling forever" sounds like an interesting possibility for a storage device. Imagine causing the fluid to begin spinning at a high rate using electromagnetic fields. Then, at some later time (i.e., peak demand periods), converting the kinetic energy of the fluid back into electricity. In a sense, it's a frictionless gyro that acts as a kinetic battery.
...expect to see the next generation of Apple PowerBooks constructed from Helium-4, "the world's strongest metal".
A better example than cheese may be the classic nine puzzle. It is solid but has clearly movable holes.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
If something can flow then its liquid NOT a solid. I'm not arguing the physics, I'm arguing the definition of the english words.
If something swims in the water and has fins, then it's a fish, not a mammal. I'm not arguing the biology, I'm arguing the definition of English words.
Well, no, actually, something that flows is a "fluid", not a liquid. Liquids, generally, are fluids, but fluids are not necessarily liquids.
An example closer to home than this "supersolid" they're talking about is sand. Sand is a fluid (not individual grains of it, of course). It is not a liquid.
Okay then --- that glass which makes up the CRT / LCD you're looking at now --- solid or liquid?
Solid?
Hmm, take a walk down an old, established neighbourhood w/ buildings hundreds of years old w/ original glass --- hmm, what's that ripple effect in the old window glass? Could it be that over the course of 100 years glass flows down a little bit?
AIUI, the answer is that glass is really a liquid, only one which flows _incredibly_ slowly.
Definitions have to be redefined for the sort of descriptive precision outside of the normal world-view which modern physics requires.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
It really amazes me that people think of stuff like this...
They did this by filling the narrow channels of a porous form of glass (called Vycor) with helium, and freezing it by cooling it down and squeezing it to more than 60 times atmospheric pressure. A disk of the helium-filled glass was then set spinning. At about 0.175 C above absolute zero, the disk suddenly started to rotate more easily - precisely what would be expected if the helium became a supersolid.
Holy crap! Who comes up with stuff like this?!?! It reminds me of the great mystery of Maple Syrup, another "who the hell comes up with this stuff" example.
"Well Bob, if I suck the sap out of this here tree, but only at a certain time of year, and then save it up until I have a lot of it, I'm gonna boil it all for a couple of days until it turns into syrup."
Obviously, ancient peoples had a lot of time on their hands, to be able to devise maple syrup. Seems like a lot of random crap. Also seems like us modern peoples have a bit too much time on our hands too, with the supersolid helium and all.
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