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?"

Comments

This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Although a crystalline solid, the supersolid can flow much like a liquid."

If it flows, it's not a solid.

Re:This physicist says:

[Teknobob]

Mmmmmm frozen. Is there any kind of practical application for helium-4 in this state?

Re:This physicist says:

[sidney]

If it flows, it's not solid

Sure it could be. Here's the abstract from Eunsong Kim's talk about it two days ago at Penn State University, courtesy of our friend Google:

When liquid 4He is cooled below 2.176 K, it undergoes a phase transition--Bose-Einstein condensation--and becomes a superfluid with zero viscosity. Once in such a state, it can flow without dissipation even through pores of atomic dimensions. Although it is intuitive to associate superflow only with the liquid phase, it has been proposed theoretically that superflow can also occur in the solid phase of 4He. Owing to quantum mechanical fluctuations, delocalized vacancies and defects are expected to be present in crystalline solid 4He, even in the limit of zero temperature. These zero-point vacancies can in principle allow the appearance of superfluidity in the solid. However, in spite of many attempts, such a 'supersolid' phase has yet to be observed in bulk solid 4He. Here we report torsional oscillator measurements on solid helium confined in a porous medium, a configuration that is likely to be more heavily populated with vacancies than bulk helium. We find an abrupt drop in the rotational inertia of the confined solid below a certain critical temperature. The most likely interpretation of the inertia drop is entry into the supersolid phase. If confirmed, our results show that all three states of matter--gas, liquid and solid--can undergo Bose-Einstein condensation.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

These zero-point vacancies can in principle allow the

Spellt incorrectly. You mean "in principal"

Re:This physicist says:

[MachDelta]

Glass flows, and most people consider it a solid :)

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Glass flows when it's a liquid.

Hence, not when it's a solid.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like asking for an industrial application for LSD.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Check youre windows, you will find they are larger at the bottom as it drips.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the conductivity of it?

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Check google, you'll find that's a myth

Or check 2500 year old glass that hasn't puddled. Or actually check the windows yourself and find some panes of old glass are thicker at the bottom, but some are thicker at the top.

Google is probably more accessible. Obviously not as accessible as spouting your mouth off with incorrect beliefs.

Re:This physicist says:

[glenebob]

Are you the governer?

Re:This physicist says:

[Greeny Man]

wrong wrong wrong. not correct. go back to school. do not pass go, do not collect $200

Re:This physicist says:

[Graff]

Check youre windows, you will find they are larger at the bottom as it drips.

That's a fallacy. The flow rate of ordinary plate glass is so slow that it would take billions of years before there would be a measurable change in thickness. Here are some articles on the subject.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you're a troll, but I'm going to pretend you're not.

You mean "in principal"

Ok, apparently someone wasn't listening in 3rd grade. The principal is the guy that is in charge of the school, and he's our "pal" so we put "p-a-l" at the end of the word.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

I just checked them. Nope, they're identical.

And the picture in my 1977 National television is still clear, so that tube hasn't distorted from the oh so awesome pressure of the atmosphere on its 'liquid' tube.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

well studie's on ancient cathedral's in the middle ages show they have thicker glass on the bottom side of all of the window's so only flowing could cause that.

Re:This physicist says:

[Graff]

ancient cathedral's in the middle ages show they have thicker glass on the bottom side of all of the window's

You obviously did not read any of the 3 articles I linked to.

Plate glass used to be made by dipping a tube into molten glass (1000 degrees Fahrenheit or so), gathering up a blob, blowing that blob into a bubble, poking a hole in the bubble, and spinning the tube so that the bubble's hole opens up. Done correctly it makes a flat circle of glass with the end of the tube in the center. This glass is relatively even in thickness but it is still thicker in the middle then at the sides.

They let the glass cool and then cut it into squares with one side closer to the middle. This side is thicker than the rest of the piece and was usually placed toward the bottom of the window because it was reasoned that the heaviest part and strongest part should be at the base. It was not until the Float Glass process was invented in 1959 that truly flat glass was available. Up until then there would almost always be some parts of plate glass that were thicker or wavy, giving rise to the flowing glass myth.

Re:This physicist says:

[Peeet]

Technically, room temperature glass is always flowing, just reeeeeeeally slowly, but we still call it "solid glass"

-P

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, apparently someone wasn't listening in 3rd grade. The principal is the guy that is in charge of the school, and he's our "pal" so we put "p-a-l" at the end of the word.

True. People won't listen though, and continue making simple errors. This and 99 other often mispeld words at http://yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

courtesy of our friend Google

...or courtesy of the link which is right there at the bottom the story's article...

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that's amazing! This means that the buildings down the street with the bottom-heavy panes are billions of years old! I'm calling Guinness..

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I can understand you wanting to believe that, though. What with being a moron and all.

Re:This physicist says:

[lokedhs]

If it flows, it's not a solid.

Then you have never heard about pyroclastic flows then? They consist of solid material (rocks, mostly) and behave like a liquid. If you look at a video of a pyroclastic flow it looks just like a river flowing, but it's all solid.

Re:This physicist says:

[Trejkaz]

it would take billions of years before there would be a measurable change in thickness.

So what you're saying is that they actually do flow. In reality they flow faster than "billions of years", but either way, it's a liquid.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

You stupid troll.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

It is you who is stupid, fool.

Re:This physicist says:

[radaway]

I followed your link and look what I found on that site, curious... As glass in neither liquid nor solid, because its molecules are motionless (like a solid) but random in configuration (like a liquid), glass exists in a solid yet transparent state. So what is it :)

Re:This physicist says:

[martinX]

My layman's observation of things physical is that our models and ideas of the world tend to break down at extremes, e.g. Newtonian physics doesn't work with high speeds (close to c ) or enormous masses. This helium is cooled to an extreme, so I wouldn't be surprised if our idea of solid-liquid doesn't apply and a new model must be formulated. I could be wrong.

Re:This physicist says:

[opus18]

And along those lines.... if we peer closer and closer, say observing a single atom, there's no possible way to define it as a solid or a liquid without reference to interactions.

Re:This physicist says:

[hplasm]

So what is it :)

A supercooled liquid.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Abstract: Sand is a solid and some people
refer to it as flowing at times.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Glass is an amorphous solid, you nitwits.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had actually read the definition of pyroclastic flows on the page you've linked to, you would have noticed that they consist of solid material and gasses. So much for "all solid".

You won't get a hovercraft by removing the wheels of a car, but try adding a layer of compressed gas instead and it might just work ...

Re:This physicist says:

[rgamage]

Anyone who has worked with stained glass knows that glass definitely does flow. You normally score a line with the cutter, then break it. If you take a coffee break, or go home for the day and come back and try to break it, most likeley it will not break, because the scored line has flowed back together. It comes down to a matter of degree. I remember that some colors were more sensitive than others, and I don't doubt that modern plate glass flows at an incredibly slow rate, but it probably still flows.

sometimes i likes to sits and thinks, and sometimes i just likes to sits

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking retarded chimpanzee. READ the fucking links the other guy provided!

Re:This physicist says:

[meta-monkey]

But I've seen cathedral windows that weren't just a different thickness at the bottom, they were sagging open at the top! The top part of the window actually bowed down. Sure looked like it flowed to me...otherwise, they installed all the windows with unevenly distributed arched holes at the top.

Re:This physicist says:

[lokedhs]

Well, I've seen actual footage of a pyroclastic flow which was the result of a landslide (i.e. no volcanoes or anything involved). It's just rock, and nothing else. It still behaves like a liquid.

If I had a link to the video I'd give it to you, but it was on Discovery channel. If you still won't believe me I could tape it for you in case it airs again.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

>This is like asking for an industrial application for LSD.
You mean for, eh, like, water treatment?

Whatdoyoumean, you can actually drink water?

Re:This physicist says:

[hplasm]

Strange, all my glass objects have shapes. Try laying off the weed, AC.

Re:This physicist says:

[RobertB-DC]

But I've seen cathedral windows that weren't just a different thickness at the bottom, they were sagging open at the top!

On the other hand, as one of the links points out, you can disprove the theory by simple mathematics.

Cathedral window age = 500 years
Cathedral window sag = 1 cm
Theoretical sag rate = 500 years/cm

Egyptian/Greek/Whatever glass vessel age = 3000 years
Theoretical sag rate = 500 years/cm
Expected sag of 300 year old glass = 6 cm

As the link notes, if glass flowed over time, all the old glassware in museums would show definite signs of puddling -- even taking into account differences in formulae. At the very least, the broken edges would have smoothed themselves like ripped-apart Silly Putty.

I wasn't convinced until I read the link. I had completely bought into the sagging glass idea!

Here's an alternate theory for the cathedral glass. When the window was made, using old-school techniques, they ended up with some imperfect pieces. Do you put those at the bottom, where the bishop will see them... or put them at the top, and let God decide if He cares?

Re:This physicist says:

[Loconut1389]

Remove head from sphincter, then post. Did you completely miss the sarcasm or what?

Re:This physicist says:

[Slashamatic]

Pyroclastic flows are like an avalanche and require a fluid to lubricate the solid. This is typically air or a gas. A pyroclastic flow, if anything most resembles an avalanche, albeit, a very hot one.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

The apparent healing of the crack that you witness is not due to flow of the material, but rather chemical attack. When you score the glass you get 2 free surfaces with unsatified bonds. These bonds are rapidly satisfied by atmospheric molecules; mostly, water or hydroxyls. These molecules have a corrosive effect of the glass surface. Over time, the once atomically sharp crack-tip is blunted by this corrosion mechanism and the glass is effectively strengthened.

Re:This physicist says:

[Graff]

Strange, all my glass objects have shapes.

The AC is totally right, glass is not a liquid it is an amorphous solid. Glass is not a supercooled liquid, it is just a solid that has some give in it due to the lack of much of a crystalline structure. Look at it this way, sand is a solid and yet it flows because each particle is weakly linked to the particles around it.

Re:This physicist says:

[Graff]

As glass in neither liquid nor solid, because its molecules are motionless (like a solid) but random in configuration (like a liquid), glass exists in a solid yet transparent state. So what is it

Glass is is an amorphous solid, a solid that has some give in it due to the lack of much of a crystalline structure. Look at it this way, sand is a solid and yet it flows because each particle is weakly linked to the particles around it. Glass is similar to this but on a molecular scale.

Imagine a solid as being a bunch of blocks that represent the molecules in that solid. If you cool that solid down slowly with a gentle vibration (due to thermal effects) the blocks have time for the natural attractions between themselves to manifest and stick themselves together in layers forming a very tight and ordered solid. On the other hand cool a substance down quickly and each brick just locks in place without packing neatly to the bricks near it. The resulting solid has a jumble of molecules that stuck every which way and whose attractive surfaces are not well aligned. Thus this disordered solid has less attraction between each molecule and it can settle and "flow", but it is not a liquid.

Try this experiment. Take a bucket of those small rectangular building bricks that kids use (not Legos). Put a bunch in a bucket and gently vibrate the bucket for a while. The parts will settle and will form a packed structure that won't move much. In fact if the bucket is full and you gently overturn the bucket you might be able to get a tower of pieces that will hardly move. Next try just randomly toss those pieces into the bucket and give it one rough shake. The pieces will settle some but will still have a lot of slip between them, if you overturn this bucketful the pieces will probably end in a pile which will slump down as loose pieces slide off of it.

Re:This physicist says:

[Graff]

So what you're saying is that they actually do flow. In reality they flow faster than "billions of years", but either way, it's a liquid.

Just because something flows slowly does not mean that it is a liquid. As I have stated elsewhere glass flows because it is an amorphous solid and the individual molecules of glass are weakly linked enough that they can rearrange to some extent. If there is a force acting upon these molecules then they will tend to be influenced by that force. This even happens in crystalline structures but to a much smaller extent.

To put it another way, a pile of sand is a solid and yet it can flow. A steel wire is a solid and yet if you put a weight on it it will begin to stretch and deform.

Re:This physicist says:

[Guipo]

YOU GO GLASS MASTER!

Re:This physicist says:

[lokedhs]

Even in those cases, there are no liquid substances involved, but the behaviour is still liquid. Hence, the argument against the great-grandparent post still stands.

Re:This physicist says:

[stonecypher]

For what it's worth, though you're mostly correct, it's a falsehood, not a fallacy. A falsehood is a piece of incorrect information - a myth, a popular misconception, a lie. A fallacy is a conclusion reached from information (whether or not the information is correct is unimportant) where the reasoning suffers a flaw.

Examples:

"Rubenstein's paper shows that white men named
Tim have three arms." Falsehood: there is no
such paper.

"John Q. Scientist agrees with me, so I'm
right." Fallacy: appeal to authority
(argumentum ad verecundiam.)

"4=5." Falsehood.

"Because 4=5, and because in a=b a*c=b*c, then
8=10." Falsehood. The reasoning is correct,
but the underlying information is in error.

"Because a*c=b*c and a+c=b+c, then for any
operator ?, a?c=b?c" Fallacy: operators do
not have the same rules, so you may not infer
rules by commonality (Accident, Hasty
Generalization)

"Because 4=5, and because a?c=b?c,
then 4*2=5*2, so 8=10." Both a fallacy and a
falsehood. I duplicated the above example to
demonstrate that a fallacy can lead to
seemingly correct reasoning. I stuck with the
falsehood to show that fallacious reasoning
which leads to correct reasoning isn't
therefore somehow absolved; it's still a
falsehood.

"Because 1=1, and because a?c=b?c, then
1*2=1*2, or 2=2." A fallacy can in fact lead
to both seemingly good reasoning and seemingly
correct results. Frequently, someone will
attempt a bait and switch, using a cursory
example like this which fails to display a
flaw in reasoning to try to establish said
reasoning as correct, and then lead into the
incorrect results. How many times have you
heard, in moral rather than mathematical
context, something like "you wouldn't
challenge that 2=2, would you? or that
1*2+3*2=4*2? or that 3*2=1*2+2*2? so then
if 3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2, then clearly 3+4=5. how
can you challenge that?" That is argument by
generalization, and frequently includes
unrepresentative samples, false analogies,
and fallacies of exclusion.

Sorry about the pedantry; I just hate to see people call things fallacies or falsehoods which aren't.

Re:This physicist says:

[stonecypher]

In reality, they do not flow faster than billions of years. It's relatively easy to find someone who's done the math on teh intarweb; I suggest you look for it.

However, the parent post wasn't challenging that, or even that glass was a liquid. The parent post was challenging that in 200-2000 years (average holy building age) the flow of glass would cause a variance in thickness between the top and bottom, and in that he was correct.

It's very hard to misunderstand this, since the remainder of his post was about why the variance in thickness was there. I think you're just trying to feel right.

Re:This physicist says:

[pastafazou]

Glaciers flow, and they're considered solid, being made of ice (ice being the solid state of water for those non-physics-trained readers out there).

Re:This physicist says:

[Slashamatic]

No liquid but a fluid, i.e. a gas, either air or the SO2/superheated steam mix that comes out of a volcano. This is not the same as piling a powder up until it becomes unstable.

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

No, instead I'll just tell you to FUCK OFF MORON!

Re:This physicist says:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a Vulcan aren't you?

Re:This physicist says:

[Graff]

For what it's worth, though you're mostly correct, it's a falsehood, not a fallacy. A falsehood is a piece of incorrect information - a myth, a popular misconception, a lie. A fallacy is a conclusion reached from information (whether or not the information is correct is unimportant) where the reasoning suffers a flaw.

Cool, always worth knowing EXACTLY what you are saying! :-)

I'll have to keep this in mind in the future. But by the examples you have given isn't this still a fallacy? Someone is taking evidence (glass is thicker on the bottom) and the knowledge that glass is similar to a liquid in the fact that it is disordered and coming to the conclusion that glass is a slow-flowing liquid. That sounds like a flaw in reasoning rather than a lie.

Re:This physicist says:

[Trejkaz]

So much for university.

Re:This physicist says:

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

of course it sagged, solids bend, everything bends.

Nothing is not flexible. If you walk on a bridge that can hold hundreds of semi-trucks, and you are the only thing on it you have bent the brigde. Just a very small amount. Even the bridge sitting there will bend some over time. Look at beams and pretty much any solid, they bend. They have to. If nothing bent everything would shatter. Dimonds don't bend very well, they just shatter.

Re:This physicist says:

[flewp]

That depends. What state are you in? California? Wisconsin?

Re:This physicist says:

[hplasm]

Not totally right, just correct.

amorphous P Pronunciation Key (-morfs) adj. 1.Lacking definite form; shapeless. 2.Of no particular type; anomalous. 3.Lacking organization; formless. 4.Lacking distinct crystalline structure.

I guess definition 4. is invoked here.

however, I invoke definition 1. in the previous post.

It's all about definitions. I concede.

Re:This physicist says:

[stonecypher]

No. I suppose I could have been clearer on the point. Fallacy isn't error in deduction, which is always suspect. Fallacy is applying rules which are known to be in error. What you're suggesting is an interesting and subtle misinterpretation of what I said, and something I'm going to need to be a lot more careful about specifying in the future.

Induction and deduction are implicitly guesses, and therefore suspect. More specifically, they're best guesses; you go with the available evidence, and if something new crops up that replaces it, well, great, let's all jump ship. Common sense was replaced by classical physics was replaced by newtonian physics was replaced by relativistic physics was replaced by quantuum mechanics; we'll probably be adding something to that list in the next 30 years or so (strings and branes are the horse i'm putting my money on.) Herbalism to Alchemy to Phlogiston to Oxidation to Modern Chemistry to Materials Science. The list for math is obscene. Computer science is already doing pretty well for lists itself, but that's my field, so that may just reflect my better understanding of its history than the other topics.

None of that is fallacy. It's falsehood. Granted, history of science is /also/ peppered with fallacy, but on the whole, that list represents a revealing of and refinement of knowledge, not (in any real sense) the undoing of bad logic. We weren't cavement because we believed quantuum mechanics due to the teachings of our parents/elders (argumentum ad verecundiam,) out of appeal to furce (ad baculum,) or because all the other cavemen believed in QM (ad populum;) it was simply because we didn't know not only about QM, but about physics, or in most cases fire.

The issue here is that they've been given a good explanation, and facts which support it. At that point, no amount of re-explanation is a fallacy; if it were the case that the glass had been flat and then that the glass after N years was thicker at the bottom, then the explanation they were giving would in fact be both logical and sound. The issue is that their supporting facts are false - the glass was never univorm, and therefore there is a question of whether significant flow has in fact occurred, which it has not.

Arguments topple due to both fallacies and falsehoods. The germane difference is whether it's the initial facts or the logic which led to a result which is in error. This would be fallacy if this guy had said "it's true because Bill Nye said so," or "It's obviously true because everybody knows it," or "It's been known since such-and-such ancient book, so clearly it's true" (This kills me - one of my favorite comics, Lewis Black, indulged in argumentum ad lazarum when mocking the Atkins Diet, questioning whether we'd in fact been eating exactly the wrong thing since the dawn of civilization. Though it left me in tears laughing, which is probably the important part, that is in fact fallacy.)

I should point out that making a misstep during reasoning is not the same thing as a fallacy. A fallacy is using one of a concrete series of logical errors; an error in reasoning is an error in reasoning. If you neglect to take an issue into account, or go through a complex series of reasoning and accidentally swap two individuals leading to error, or if you make a judgement based on a misimpression regarding an individual or situation, that's not a fallacy; that's an error, which leads to a falsehood. Fallacies are using mechanisms which are in error in justification. Whereas this list isn't complete, there's a good primer at each of these links.

Therefore:
- I killed the queen because she was an alien, so she'll ruin us all.
Action on false

fp

[Anonymous Coward]

FP!

Helium is a great chemical

[ObviousGuy]

Not only is it lighter than air, it can be condensed into this condensate which can in turn be used as a coolant for modern PC CPUs.

Also, since it is inflammable, helium is safer than trying to use something like liquid hydrogen or liquid peroxide as an intercooler fluid.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Anonymous Coward]

Tom's hardware had an article several years ago that pointed to a group of Finns who used Liquid Helium to cool PIII cpus. Unfortunately while it's a fine, supercold well flowing liquid, it also doesn't take up all that much heat from what it's in contact with, and trying to seal liquid helium is well nigh impossible. It manages to leak quickly out gaps that wouldn't let any other substance through.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, since it is inflammable

I think you mean nonflammable. Inflammable is the same as flammable.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Ignorant Aardvark]

Liquid hydrogen and liquid peroxide certainly aren't flammable. In fact, water at room temperature is more flammable than liquid hydrogen. It's all a matter of temperature: something at hundreds of degrees below zero certainly isn't going to burn. You're right, if the hydrogen heated up and turned gaseous, then it would be flammable ... but then it also wouldn't still be liquid hydrogen.

Not that this really matters, because who would use liquid hydrogen as a coolant, when liquid nitrogen is so much better?!

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[cybermace5]

Ummm...no. Troll. You aren't going to get liquid or supersolid helium in a PC, what with the 60 atmosphere pressures, and temperatures hovering a hair away from 0 Kelvin.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't remember how low we went with the Transputers but they ran damn fast dunked in liquid helium. The processors did not reach the level of the helium because it was constantly evaporating.

The limit to overclocking is highly processor dependent. Some designs will simply end up in a race condition because some parts of the chip will work much faster than others and you end up missing the right edge of a pulse. Basically you give yourself a whole new region to discover timing errors in the design.

I don't think that the physical process is going to be a fixed limit, clearly this will be very dependent on the physical packaging. Chips are sent into space to face some pretty unpleasant temperature ranges.

Depending on your material there is a point when your band gap goes all wonky and things start breaking down. Most times what you are worried about is the effect in the high temperature region, but there are equally wierd things in the low temperature region.

This is definitely not something that is recommended for most applications. There are a couple of oddball ones, like cryptanalysis where it is really hard to get a result but once you get one it is trivial to check. I would not be surprised if GCHQ has a swimingpool sized machine for brute force key cracking dunked in some type of cooling liquid. The NSA would just chuck money at the problem.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[LastToKnow]

"Don't worry! Its inflammable!"

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Anonymous Coward]

Four (4) compressors cooling one PC! Yes its big, yes its heavy, yes its loud and YES IT DOES GET YOUR CPU AND GPU COLD - VERY COLD - EVEN DAMN COLD! Is -100C cold enough for you?

Intro

If you are an overclocker you know that keeping things cool is the key for big clockspeeds. The cooler that comes with the CPU ain't going to get you very far. It must be replaced with better cooling if you want to get really high clocks out of your hardware. But what is good enough? Even the biggest and baddest heatsinks won't get your temps much colder - in other words they wont give you much extra in terms of MHz. Watercooling is a nice option cos it has huge cooling capacity but does it really give you a big gain in CPU speed? Usually no because it can't get colder than the air cooling the water. So what can you do if you really need to get more speed out of your system??

Vaporphase cooling is the answer here. Vaporphase cooling is what keeps your freezer and ice cream cold. Vaporphase cooling is what 'all the xtreme-overclockers' are using nowadays. Several people have noticed that going from +40C to -40C makes quite a difference in CPU overclocking potential (talking about 200-600MHz here). There are even commercial solutions that go all the way down to -40C and even a bit colder. If you feel that you must get one of these just go to nVentiv website, check who is your local reseller and get one

But what if you are a real speedfreak and -40C ain't cold enough for you?? Well there is always dryice (-79C) or Liquid Nitrogen (-196C) or even liquid Helium (-268.6 C) for you but the problem is that its not really possible to get constant CPU cooling with these. LN2 and helium are actually too cold for your little CPU - it just wont operate properly at such low temps.

But you know those low-temp freezers they use in labs? Those that go down to like -80..-100C and can maintain the temperature. Good temps for CPU cooling eh?
These are cascade vaporphase coolers. They are called cascades because of multiple cooling stages (normally two). First stage uses 'normal' refrigerant like R404 or R507 and cools down to around -40C. The second stage uses a special low temp refrigerant like R23 or SUVA95 or R1150 and can get the temperature down to -100C level. The first stage evaporator is cooling down the condenser of the 2nd stage - this makes it possible to use a refrigerant with very low boiling point in the 2nd stage. Normal cascade design uses two compressors - one per stage. This also means that it is not a very compact cooler.

Here is a picture of such a freezer (the door has been ripped off):

Cascade cooling is yet another chapter in my neverending quest for optimal PC performance. I've tried quite a few cooling solutions already (waterchillers, peltiers, R404 vaporphase, dryice, ln2 etc.) but cascade vaporphase was something new to me.
This time I was lucky enough to locate not only one but TWO cryofreezers - both were supposed to be broken - so I got them for free.
The first one (the one in the picture on page 1) had problems with the system fan and because of that the owners decided to send it to the junkyard. True, there really was a problem with the fan. It didn't blow any air at all - but then again no power was coming to the fan powerconnector. I made external power input for the fan and it started to work nicely. With the freezer door closed it would get the inside temp down to -91C.
Obviously it would do nothing for PC cooling in its original form so I had to convert it to a CPU cooler.

Testing cascade stage 1 - its charged with R404 refrigerant and it went down to -40C.

2nd stage parts installed - CPU cooler is ready for a test run.

Its working! First test run got it down to almost -100C with no heatload. Pretty good with R23 refrigerant (boiling point @1bar = -82C).

Here is a picture of the evaporator installed on P4 motherboard. I was using a 3GHz P4 CPU here and it would clock to around 3.6-3.7GHz with good heatsink. With a single s

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[dedazo]

It's all a matter of temperature: something at hundreds of degrees below zero certainly isn't going to burn

Depends on how you define "burn". There's weird stuff out there. For example, some people are confused by the idea that water can boil at near-freezing temperature... provided you remove enough atmospheric pressure so that it reaches its vapor pressure point quickly enough.

Well but sublimation != combustion and all that *cough*

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, nonsense!

Drop a lit match in a bucket of liquid hydrogen, some hydrogen will burn, heating the hydrogen around it, which in turn will burn, etc. Do you really want to try?

And water at room temperature is flammable? I'm curious, which chemical reaction do you have in mind? x*H2O + y*O2 = ??

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[ramk13]

I'm delving deep into a nitpick, but this is /., so it's ok...

From a practical perspective liquid hydrogen and liquid peroxide *are* pretty dangerous. While it's true technically that 'liquid hydrogen' isn't going to react with gaseous oxygen readily, it sure doesn't take very much to turn liquid hydrogen into gaseous hydrogen (i.e not very much heat). In other words if you hold a burning match over an open container of liquid hydrogen it's probably going to start a serious explosion well before the match gets down to the liquid. Once the vapor above the liquid is combusting, you can guess what's going to happen to the remaining liquid...

The same goes for a spark, which is reason the parent said it wasn't good for an intercooler. Not that there's sparking going on all over the place, but you don't want to have the potential for an explosion if there happened to be a leak and an ignition source near each other.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, chief. I'll test this out at school tomorrow by opening a container of liquid hydrogen and tossing in a match!

But I heard it on slashdot, where everybody is an expert.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[wheany]

Water is already an oxide. In fact it is an oxide of hydrogen. So I doubt water being more flammable than even liquid hydrogen.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[mikkom]

I think you are referring to this little project (contains some nice photos), the substance was however nitrogen, not helium.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[troon]

Or, of course, non-inflammable, which means it doesn't go up in flames. and means the same as non-flammable, except it's a proper English word.

I could never watch Duel without getting annoyed by the large "FLAMMABLE" on the back of the truck.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[tengwar]

Not that this really matters, because who would use liquid hydrogen as a coolant, when liquid nitrogen is so much better?!

When I worked in the field, it was common to have nested dewars containing nitrogen, hydrogen and helium. LH2 liquifies at a temperature intermediate between N2 and He, and this arrangement reduced thermal losses.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[francium de neobie]

I have no idea how any mods could mod this +3 Interesting. It takes only an elementary chemistry student to tell you that H2O has a higher oxidation state than H2, so it's less likely to be oxidized further. If someone could burn H2O with oxygen and create something even more stable I figure he'd get a Nobel Prize.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[evilsmith]

Yeah, learned that one the hard way!

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Loconut1389]

Funny enough inflammable means flammable. Haven't you seen the Simpsons?

Trilogy Of Errors episode, Dr Nick's office burns down due to ether catching on fire and Dr Nick Says: "Flammable means inflammable?! What a country!"

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Loconut1389]

oops, i should read the rest of the nested comments before replying =)

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Anonymous Coward]

profit

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Tin Foil Hat]

Fear not gentle troon, you can watch Duel without trepidation for flammable is a perfectly cromulent word.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[darkmeridian]

Who would use liquid hydrogen as a coolant? Well, people who design space planes have proposed running liquid hydrogen through leading-edge surfaces to warm up the liquid hydrogen, cool the wing, and then burn the gaseous hydrogen in the rocket engine.

An aside, but hopefully an interesting one.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Anonymous Coward]

Must suck when you run out of coolant. I mean, a shuttle could still be expected to glide to the ground (oops, maybe not), but an actively cooled leading edge would probably fail.

Re:Helium is a great chemical

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how the rockets of the past have, in fact, done it. Look at an old booster rocket from an Apollo mission. The exterior of the cone should be covered in a small tube (maybe a half inch in diameter). The Hydrogen fuel was pumped though there to warm it up and cool the material, then back up to the mixing point for combustion. Pretty spiffy.

wee

[Anonymous Coward]

wee

Haiku

[Ignorant Aardvark]

Joyous helium
Becomes a supersolid
At low Celcius

But seriously, this stuff is really cool. What with the properties they described, I wonder if it could be useful in conducting electricity or forming a shock-absorbing barrier?

Re:Haiku

[Flingles]

Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me...

What happens when it's overcast?

Re:Haiku

[camrdale]

I think conducting electricity is out of the question. Conduction requires electrons or ions or something with charge. As Helium is a noble gas, it reacts with almost nothing and so almost never has a charge.

At these low temperatures, getting an electron to ionize so it can then conduct is impossible, it won't even do it by a random fluke.

Re:Haiku

[Gabrill]

How about using a superfluid as zero-loss momentum storage? Like a perfect flywheel?

Re:Haiku

[Photar]

You probably don't want to be shaking things that are at 2.7mK.

Re:Haiku

[Walles]

But seriously, this stuff is really cool.

Thanks, but that was kind of obvious. It was the other parts that needed explaining.

Re:Haiku

[b-baggins]

Actually, conducting electricity simply requires a flow of electrons. Gold is incredibly inert chemically, and is a superb conductor of electricity.

Helium as a gas conducts electricity poorly for two reasons: 1) The electrons are in a very stable configuration, and, 2) as a gas, the atoms are too far apart for electrons to move from atom to atom, which is required for an electrical current.

Re:Haiku

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have to keep it cold...

Slightly OT

[CracktownHts]

My dad did his PhD thesis on liquid helium 3. Apparently it's pretty difficult to contain the stuff, since even the tiniest opening in a container is enough for everything to escape at once (no viscosity)...

Re:Slightly OT

[Ignorant Aardvark]

My dad did his PhD thesis on liquid helium 3. Apparently it's pretty difficult to contain the stuff, since even the tiniest opening in a container is enough for everything to escape at once (no viscosity)...

Then I have a good idea for an infinite motion machine. Put the liquid helium, as well a turbine, inside of a Klein bottle. As the helium tries to escape out of the hole it will only lead back into the bottle - meanwhile producing electricity through the turbine! Brilliant! I think I've just solved the Earth's energy crisis!

Re:Slightly OT

[cybermace5]

My brain now feels like it has no inside...or maybe no outside....

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I have a good idea for an infinite motion machine. Put the liquid helium, as well a turbine, inside of a Klein bottle. As the helium tries to escape out of the hole it will only lead back into the bottle - meanwhile producing electricity through the turbine!

And if the whole "perpetual motion" thing doesn't work out, at least you've got one hell of a killer bong...

Re:Slightly OT

[Gabrill]

How can a fluid with no viscosity turn a turbine?

Re:Slightly OT

[chgros]

even the tiniest opening in a container is enough for everything to escape at once (no viscosity)...
Actually I heard that it can even go through solid material if it's not dense enough.

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

It still has weight.

Re:Slightly OT

[Gabrill]

Mass and momentum?

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

thats fuckin hilarious, mod parent up!

Re:Slightly OT

[MO-411]

I suspect one could turn it because the material "acts as one molecule".

Perhaps, I also suspect, there are magnetic properties, the magnetic flux from the "fluid" motion should be more then enough to turn the turbine. Consider placing an existing magnetic to encompass the turbine (like a magnetic pickup for stringed musical instruments).

I know... one can dream can't they?

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I know gaseous Helium-4 will permeate through glass... only a little at a time, but if you are trying to maintain a sealed vacuum environement, better make sure no one starts leaking helium near your apparatus...

Re:Slightly OT

[lewp]

Man, that would be such a funny prank!

Leaking helium... classic!

Re:Slightly OT

[G-funk]

How zen.

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

Why Do you think, rhere is an energy crisis on the earth. If there is an energy crisis in USA. That doesnt mean there is one all over the earth.

Re:Slightly OT

[jsebrech]

I think what the parent was meaning was that it would just "slip off" the surface of the turbine, and pass it without moving it any. A superfluid loses no energy through friction, so it can't transfer energy through friction either.

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

To ruin the joke, the Klein bottle does have an exit (it's there underneath). What you're looking after is plain old boring torus.

Re:Slightly OT

[buttahead]

I think you mean, on the surface of the klein bottle. A surface, has no "inside". But hey... you can buy your own and put the turbine any where you want :).

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh...I wonder, anyone know where I can get a Klein bottle bong? That would work, right?

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter how it slips off, it the angle of incidence differs from that of the exit, a net momentum has to be imparted on the turbine blade/foil/cup.

A minor correction to my anonymous colleague: weight is a property of gravity and mass, what you probably meant was that it had mass, which indeed is the reason why you can get momentum transfer.

Re:Slightly OT

[Hatta]

So? There's still the normal force.

Re:Slightly OT

[Havokmon]

How can a fluid with no viscosity turn a turbine?

No No No.. The fluid IS the inside of the turbine, the part that gets spun.. Isn't it magnetic or something?

Keep in mind that my knowledge about turbines is restricted to the superguy turning the handle on SchoolHouse Rock :)

Granted, Helium isn't magnetic - so superfluid something else ;)

Re:Slightly OT

[zelphior]

I know the parent is a joke and all, but seriously, will it generate enough energy to power whatever is used to keep the helium at such a low temperature? I would rather doubt that you'd get much energy out of such a system, with the amount of energy proportional to the amount of Helium. However, the energy needed to keep the system cold is also proportional to the amount of Helium. Could such a device work if the ambiant temperature was sufficiently cold (Maybe in an orbit perpetually in the earth's shadow or something). We could use this in conjunction with a microwave beam to send cheap power wherever we want.

Re:Slightly OT

[SilkBD]

I'm assuming that the liquid can still create force. If the turbine blade completely covered the tube, wouldn't the liquid exert a force to push through it, thereby moving it?

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is how it would work... You shoot a jet of superfluid helium at a propellor blade. The blade acts as a quantum barrier to the flow of helium, so some of it tunnels through and some of it gets reflected. The momentum doesn't change for the part that gets through, but the part that gets reflected undergoes a momentum change, and so must exert a force on the blade. The force is the average speed of the impinging particles times the rate of mass flow reflected off the surface, just like in first year.

Re:Slightly OT

[stonecypher]

Good job attacking the joke.

Oh, right, and by the way, you don't need viscosity to push a turbine, you need pressure. As the original post shows with its anecdote about pressure and leaks causing loss, pressure works perfectly fine in a zero viscosity situation.

Now, admittedly, you need one of two things for this to continue to work: a set of paddles that are very accurately machined to the flow tube, so that there's no point at which there's flow despite them, or paddles with enough momentum to bridge that gap before the flow negates it. Neither of those seem out of reason to me, and the both together would make this quite doable, if you happen to have a long term pressurized vat of zero viscosity material x.

But in the meantime, shut up. It was funny before you said that.

Re:Slightly OT

[Ancient Devices King]

Actually, one of the nice things about He3 is that it's hard to turn it into a superfluid. He4 becomes superfluid at a couple degrees K (2 or so, I think), but He3 requires VERY low temperatures (a few millikelvi) to become superfluid. That's because He4 is a Boson (spin 3) but He3 is a Fermion (spin 2.5).

Re:Slightly OT

[Crazy Eight]

...which would match the force exerted on the backside of the turbine blades by the helium that has crept right through thinking the blade is no different than the walls of the container. This stuff might flow up the walls of a test tube, but that doesn't mean it's going to levitate if you cap the tube with a rubber stopper.

Re:Slightly OT

[Anonymous Coward]

Except there's no way to get the smoke out

Re:Slightly OT

[hicksw]

If you have a reliable supplier of Klein bottles at modest prices, you have a serious room temperature business opportunity.

Re:Slightly OT

[Mac Degger]

Great plan! Now all we need is a real Klein bottle in this 3D+1 world...damn!

Re:Slightly OT

[Mac Degger]

Still, ya gotta love preservation of impuls (or is that momentum? Damn, the diffence between dutch and english jargon sucks...and now I'm confused :( ;P)!

Re:Slightly OT

[Wah]

would there be a way to generate a force using the same concept as an airplane's wings? i.e. make one side of the flow move faster than the other causing a change in presssue require an addtional force (lift in planes, 'spin' is atoms) to balance?

cool story. wierd stuff happens when you get close to stopping the flow of time.

Re:Slightly OT

[nomel]

momentum...as long as you are changing the direction of the liquids flow, you should be able to turn the turbine blades.

Once yuo pop...

[Anonymous Coward]

teh fun doesn't stop!!1

Supersolid?

[Anonymous Coward]

Next generation viagra additive?

Re:Supersolid?

[glenebob]

Hmmm you'd likely be called a cold fish. Or maybe your GF would claim to have been "cold cocked". The only thing going up would be the temperature!

Re:Supersolid?

[ntsucks]

I have already received half a dozen spam offering to enhance my performance with supersolid Helium-4.

Goatse is dead!!!!

[DrInequality]

See here for the news.

For the time being you can get your fix here.

Re:Goatse is dead!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The text of the link:
ALERT
The CX Registry has shut off the goatse.cx domain suddenly and without warning.
They have cowardly cited a section of their AUP with allows them to remove sites at their discretion.
Please e-mail info@nic.cx with your opinion of this matter.

legitimate question

[hamoe]

This is definitley intriguing, but I can't gather frmo the article if there are any uses that have been thought of for a super fluid like this. Although its inconvenient to make (have to cool it to near absolute zero then pressurize it quite a bit), I don't doubt some of you out there have some ideas about what any of this means besides "hey isn't that cool it swirls forever". Anyone?

Re:legitimate question

[Anonymous Coward]

You also have to *keep* it frozen...

It's useful as a scientific tool to teach us more about the properties of matter.

Re:legitimate question

[fuzzdawg]

I don't think most of the research that goes on in universities and science laboritories necessarily has any "practical" application; it's research for the sake of science and expanding human knowledge, not necessarily for an "application" aka profit.
=)
My 2 cents, for what its worth.

Re:legitimate question

[hamoe]

True, although another poster mentioned the potential for a few things (although they seemed unrealistic considering the difficult-to-create environment that's required)

Re:legitimate question

[Anonymous Coward]

Well we've given Superman, something to drink, ie superfluid, something to fart ir supergas....now he has something to eat supersolid?

Re:legitimate question

[CracktownHts]

One definite area of interest is the link between superfluid helium and superconductivity.

IANAP but from what I gathered googling for the term "Bose Einstein condensate", superconductivity and superfluidity occur under similar conditions due to the "shared quantum state" that occurs between the atoms (I will confess to only having a vague feeling of understanding when I read that phrase, analogous to the vague feeling of piety I got as a kid in church back before I became an atheist).

So if I understand correctly, the shared quantum state makes it possible for electrons to "tunnel" through a low-temperature mash of helium atoms with zero electrical resistance. At this point I will step aside and beg a physicist to come to my rescue. Anyone want to clarify this?

Re:legitimate question

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:legitimate question

[The_Dougster]

This is definitley intriguing, but I can't gather frmo the article if there are any uses

I suspect that this may be a prescursor discovery which is related to the quest for producing a stable form of metallic hydrogen. Metallic hydrogen, which if found to be stable at temperatures higher than near absolute-zero, would have some excellent properties as a compact delivery form for hydrogen. Hydrogen, which I am sure you all know, is a promising clean chemical energy source but is hampered by its low energy density per volume compared with other conventional fuels.

Re:legitimate question

[lafiel]

A shared quantum state is one where every electron shares a similar wave equation. This allows for the escape of many so called 'rules' of quantum physics, most importantly, the principle that prevents more than one electron from sharing the same energy state.

Since 4He allows for superfluid behaviour, the only possible explanation for 0-viscosity (or so we believe) is that every particle within the condensate is actually sharing the same wave equation.

Given that particles are sharing the exact same wave equation, they are, in fact, the same particle. Since particle positioning cannot be determined without sacrificing determination of movement, then such particles could (and do) tunnel through solid matter.

I find it difficult to understand your last words... "through a low-temperature mash of helium atoms with zero electrical resistance". Resistivity is a property of electron collisions... although I do believe it makes sense if you mean that the helium mesh is -already- a superconductive state. This might theoretically be possible, for it to be both superconductive and superfluid, but I do not think such criteria are actually proven as facts... yet.

I hope I managed to explain some of the facts for you.

Re:legitimate question

[ExportGuru]

OK for Helium. Now, can we do this with Hydrogen and if we can, how do we make practical use of it for fuel cells and other power generation applications? Presumably as a stored energy source that is warehoused, shipped and sold in this form and converted by the user in their car or home or factory?

Re:legitimate question

[forgotmypassword]

This allows for the escape of many so called 'rules' of quantum physics, most importantly, the principle that prevents more than one electron from sharing the same energy state.

The electrons, which are fermions, join up to make cooper pairs, which are bosons and thus not constrained to the pauli exclusion principle. But this happens in superconductors?? In a superfluid it would be the fermionic atom, like Helium-3 that would form the cooper pairs.

But Heluim-4 is a boson, so why does this even matter for a superfluid??

the principle that prevents more than one electron from sharing the same energy state

The energy states are nondegenerate???? I highly doubt that.

Since 4He allows for superfluid behaviour, the only possible explanation for 0-viscosity (or so we believe) is that every particle within the condensate is actually sharing the same wave equation.

Given that particles are sharing the exact same wave equation, they are, in fact, the same particle. Since particle positioning cannot be determined without sacrificing determination of movement, then such particles could (and do) tunnel through solid matter.

I can't parse the logic here. Suffice to say, The condensate has a single, macroscopic wave function.

I find it difficult to understand your last words... "through a low-temperature mash of helium atoms with zero electrical resistance". Resistivity is a property of electron collisions... although I do believe it makes sense if you mean that the helium mesh is -already- a superconductive state. This might theoretically be possible, for it to be both superconductive and superfluid, but I do not think such criteria are actually proven as facts... yet.

A superfluid superconductor sounds like a strange animal indeed. I could imagine having a superconductor with the electrons paired up, but then the entire thing can't be a superfluid? You would have to make the cooper pairs of electrons a superfluid and the positrons a superfluid. But it seems that the 2 superfluids would have to interact and not be one big superfluid?? IDK, this ain't my field.

Anyhow, I don't think that the poster implied any of this.

Re:legitimate question

[lafiel]

The electrons, which are fermions, join up to make cooper pairs, which are bosons and thus not constrained to the pauli exclusion principle. But this happens in superconductors?? In a superfluid it would be the fermionic atom, like Helium-3 that would form the cooper pairs. But Heluim-4 is a boson, so why does this even matter for a superfluid??

I was attempting to use laymen terms in order to explain superconductivity. Cooper-pairs are the basis of superconductivity, as at that point they have an 'overall' spin of 0, which allows them to share similar energy states. Last I remember, bosons are a way of organizing a type of subatomic particle, not the basis for superconductivity or superfluid...ity. (Ugh, what a crappy word)

The energy states are nondegenerate???? I highly doubt that.

You sound highly annoyed, almost like a troll. You also sound quite intellectual, which leads me to question why you would not realize that the principle behind superconductivity is that cooper-pairs can share similar quantum states. In fact, iirc, all the electron pairs in superconductors will be sharing both the same wave function and the same quantum numbers.

I can't parse the logic here. Suffice to say, The condensate has a single, macroscopic wave function.

Basically, yes. And if the wave function is inclined to tunnel through solid matter, everything (with the same function) will tunnel through solid matter. See Electron Tunneling. ^_^

As for your final points, the poster didn't imply anything like that. I just tried to parse what he said and came up with my own opinions. As you quoted, and as I wrote, "This might theoretically be possible, for it to be both superconductive and superfluid, but I do not think such criteria are actually proven as facts...". This implies I was adding my own opinion, just like you added yours. This isn't my field either, I was just having fun and thinking about the possibilities.

Finally, my question to you. Why would positrons have anything to do with this? Seriously, I don't see why they're important at all in a superconduct/fluid.

Sweet!

[Dolemite_the_Wiz]

I can soon expect 'Chunk-o-helium' for my high-pitched voice needs. Is this something I'm going to see next to 'Kit-Kat's in the store?

Dolemite
_________________

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's DOLEMITE baby!

Re:Sweet!

[Trejkaz]

I suspect if you inhaled a chunk of solid helium it would be a bit more uncomfortable than inhaling most things.

Re:Sweet!

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

Well, not most things. In fact, I can think of many things that'd be more uncomfortable to inhale. A cat for example. Or a small car.

Excuse me, I think it's time for my medication..

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that inhaling pure helium would be fatal.

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up (Funny)... I almost snorted coffee out my nose!

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that! I can't stop laughing.

Is this really new?

[Max Romantschuk]

I heard about something like this a few years back, as I understood it then the thing is that at low enough temperatures atoms break down into a "soup" of protons, neutrons and electrons all behaving like a liquid.

It was a (Swedish) magazine article, so no links I'm afraid. Is this the same thing or entierly different?

Re:Is this really new?

[Ignorant Aardvark]

I heard about something like this a few years back, as I understood it then the thing is that at low enough temperatures atoms break down into a "soup" of protons, neutrons and electrons all behaving like a liquid.

I think what you're describing is a Bose-Einstein condensate, which is something entirely different.

Re:Is this really new?

[Max Romantschuk]

I think what you're describing is a Bose-Einstein condensate, which is something entirely different.

Yep, the Wikipedia entry confirmed your suspicions, I was indeed referring to a Bose-Einstein condensate, in my own crude manner ;)

Thanks!

Re:Is this really new?

[lommer]

No actually, this does have something to do with Bose-Einstein Condensation. Now, IANATheoretical Physicist, but as I understand it, at the quantum level these results may be a manifestation of b-e condenstation in the solid phase (to date, b-e condensation has only been observed in the liquid and gas phases). Now, the original poster was a little bit out to lunch with respect to his description of what a b-e condensate is, do I still highly reccomend reading the wikipedia article. There's still a lot of work to be done before we really figure out exactly what's going on in this experiment, but it looks to have some pretty cool implications at the moment.

Re:Is this really new?

[MillionthMonkey]

I think what you're describing is a Bose-Einstein condensate, which is something entirely different.

Not really. Helium-4 is a boson. Frozen helium-4 may not be a Bose-Einstein condensate per se but it derives its properties from Bose-Einstein statistics.

Note that these tricks will not work if all you have at home is liquid helium-3, which is made of fermions.

Re:Is this really new?

[maysonl]

I think what you're describing is a Bose-Einstein condensate, which is something entirely different.

Actually, as I read the article (which may be incorrectly), what they believe they've achieved is a solid Bose-Einstein condensate, which has many properties in common with the gaseous B-E-c's which have been achieved previously.

Re:Is this really new?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, its the same thing you imbicile.

Re:Is this really new?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what you're describing is a Bose-Einstein condensate, which is something entirely different.

How the hell is this "+5 Informative"? Their very abstract precisely claims that it's not different at all: " our results show that all three states of matter--gas, liquid and solid--can undergo Bose-Einstein condensation ."

Re:Is this really new?

[Dua]

But helium-3 *can* behave like a Bose-Einstein condensate, as the helium nuclei can loosely bind together, forming bosons from the two fermions. Which is why we get superfluid helium-3 as well. Of course, that doesn't happen til about 100mK (or similar), so you're unlikely to find some superfluid helium 3 in your kitchen.

Re:Is this really new?

[misterpies]

Actually what the poster is describing is nothing whatsoever to do with a bose-einstein condensate.

BECs occur at low temperatures when atoms (or molecules) join together in a way that allows them to all enter the same quantum state. This means that every atom (or molecule) within the BEC is indistinguishable from every other, which gives rise to all sorts of wierd quantum effects, but within each atom/molecule all the constituent electrons, neutrons and protons are in the usual places. Far from being made of of atoms disentigrating into pieces, BECs result from atoms linking up in a wierd quantum way.

It's only at very HIGH temperatures that atoms break down into the "soup" you're describing - we're talking beginning-of-the-universe conditions.

Re:Is this really new?

[stonecypher]

I think what you're describing is a Bose-Einstein condensate, which is something entirely different.

No, the entire purpose of this experiment was to show that solids can become Bose-Einstein condensates, just like gasses and liquids.

Read the article, the post, maybe a book. In general, don't contradict people that are paying attention.

Re:Is this really new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probable observation of a supersolid helium phase

E. KIM AND M. H. W. CHAN

Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.H.W.C. (chan@phys.psu.edu).

When liquid 4He is cooled below 2.176 K, it undergoes a phase transition--Bose-Einstein condensation--and becomes a superfluid with zero viscosity. Once in such a state, it can flow without dissipation even through pores of atomic dimensions. Although it is intuitive to associate superflow only with the liquid phase, it has been proposed theoretically that superflow can also occur in the solid phase of 4He. Owing to quantum mechanical fluctuations, delocalized vacancies and defects are expected to be present in crystalline solid 4He, even in the limit of zero temperature. These zero-point vacancies can in principle allow the appearance of superfluidity in the solid. However, in spite of many attempts, such a 'supersolid' phase has yet to be observed in bulk solid 4He. Here we report torsional oscillator measurements on solid helium confined in a porous medium, a configuration that is likely to be more heavily populated with vacancies than bulk helium. We find an abrupt drop in the rotational inertia of the confined solid below a certain critical temperature. The most likely interpretation of the inertia drop is entry into the supersolid phase. If confirmed, our results show that all three states of matter--gas, liquid and solid--can undergo Bose-Einstein condensation.

Re:Is this really new?

[MillionthMonkey]

That's more analogous to superconductivity since it involves a Cooper pair mechanism. Except the fermions are ppn nuclei, not electrons.

Oh man

[Anonymous Coward]

I just laid a supersolid one. Yeah I posted anon.

Re:Oh man

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I just laid your mom. She's pretty solid too.

Hmmmm....

[graveyardduckx]

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.

Re:Hmmmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Go ahead and mod me down for being an idiot

Hmm... I've got mod points, but can find the "this guy's an idiot" selection.

I can't seem to find the "mod me down because they asked me too" selection, either. There really ought to be one.

Re:Hmmmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this insightful???? You WANT viscosity in motor LUBRICATION...

Re:Hmmmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well no actually. Higher viscosity oils are better for engines. Imagine two metal surfaces pushing into each other. You want something that isn't immediately dissipated.

Re:Hmmmm....

[graveyardduckx]

But back to the supersolids... instead of two metal surfaces, what if it were two supersolids? No friction, no heat. It sounds pretty impossible at the time, but it might have some kind of benefit if someone can figure out a way. I just hope they don't try to make brakepads out of the stuff...

Re:Hmmmm....

[Trejkaz]

Why not just use liquid hydrogen, and burn it?

Re:Hmmmm....

[B4RSK]

Actually, that isn't totally right.

Oils lose their viscosity as the engine temperature (and therefore oil temperature) increase. This is why multi-weight oils were invented.

5W-50 for example. 5W when it is cold (very low viscosity), but 50W when hot (high viscosity).

Also, as oils are exposed to high temperatures over time they lose their viscosity. This is why engines that make a lot of heat (ie turbos) need oil changes more often than regular engines.

Re:Hmmmm....

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

but wouldn't it be great to use some kind of superliquids or supersolids in car engines and other mechanical devices?

Okay, Professor Z. Urgulbunger tries to keep it simple:

You know in Terminator II where Arnie says words to the effect of "it cannot form complex machines or explosives; only simple things like stabing weapons" well, thats why.

Any other physics problems you need solving, I'll be in the louge -- just ask! ;)
Z.

Re:Hmmmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the airship Hindenburg.

Simpsons Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

"Inflammable means the same as flammable??? What a country!" Doctor Nick Riviera

MANY more states of matter

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not the first new state of matter announced this week.

The New York Times reported a "color gass condensate" when gold ions were bombarded with relativistic deuterons. In this condition, nucleons and quarks blur into a jello of gluons.

There are MANY more states of matter than solid, liquid, and gas. There's plasma, 2-dimensional fluids, 1-dimensional crystals, ambiplasma of partcies and antiparticles, photon crystals, and lots of others.

This is the golden age of physics!

Professor Jonathan Vos Post
Woodbury University
have an accounton /. but keep forgetting password...

BTW, check out my "Periodic Table of Mystery Writers" at

http://magicdragon.com/UltimateMystery/periodic. ht ml

rollovers and click to 100+ pages...

Re:MANY more states of matter

[bravehamster]

Professor Jonathan Vos Post
Woodbury University
have an accounton /. but keep forgetting password...

and here I thought "absent-minded professor" was just a cliche ;)

Re:MANY more states of matter

[KjetilK]

Hm, there are no publications by anybody by that name in cond-mat on Arxiv.org and no hits for color gas(s) condensate. I don't know much of the research in that field, but I had the impression from friends in the quark-gluon field that they had enough to work on before understanding condensates... I'd like some links before I take anything in the parent post at face value...

Re:MANY more states of matter

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

Professor Jonathan Vos Post
Woodbury University
have an accounton /. but keep forgetting password...

No problem. Just post your username, along with your commonly-used passwords. I'll have your /. pass within a day.

uhh... which I'll then send to you, yeah, that's it.

Re:MANY more states of matter

[Anonymous Coward]

color GLASS condensate, actually

Re:MANY more states of matter

[Moogaboo]

Here he is.

Re:MANY more states of matter

[Marvin_OScribbley]

There are MANY more states of matter than solid, liquid, and gas. There's plasma, 2-dimensional fluids, 1-dimensional crystals, ambiplasma of partcies and antiparticles, photon crystals, and lots of others.

I thought the states of matter were a function of temperature (energy level). From that I've come up with my list of states of matter:

1. Super-solid: includes BEC (Bose-Einstein Condensate), this new discovery, neutron star stuff, etc.
2. Solid
3. Liquid
4. Gas
5. Plasma - ionized gas; too hot for electrons to remain around nucleii
6. Electroweak - matter above the energy state at which electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces unify
7. Electrostrong - matter above the energy state at which electromagnetic, weak and strong nuclear forces unify.
8. GUT matter - above the energy state at which all forces are unified.

I believe that state 6 and maybe (???) state 7 is achievable in a particle accelerator. State 8 only exists early in the universe, maybe before the plank time?

The other "states" you mentioned would see to me to be more analogous to fractal (or partial) dimensions and not directly considered states.
Just my 2 cents.

Re:MANY more states of matter

[SilkBD]

Wouldn't it be funny if all these scientists were trying to figure reality out via physics and formulas... when in fact our reality is manifested by our thoughts and intent. I would laugh my ass off and spawn a few purple aliens.

Re:MANY more states of matter

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT HAND

Re:MANY more states of matter

[stonecypher]

and here I thought "absent-minded professor" was just a cliche ;)

So what you're saying is, you've never taken a Philosophy course?

Re:MANY more states of matter

[sean.peters]

have an accounton

This would be a new elementary particle - the smallest piece into which an accountant can be divided?

Sean

Re:MANY more states of matter

[Some Clown]

The New York Times reported a "color gass condensate" when gold ions were bombarded with relativistic deuterons. In this condition, nucleons and quarks blur into a jello of gluons.

... to which promptly became stuck a large group of peons...

Re:MANY more states of matter

[KjetilK]

OK, after reading up a bit, it seems that there may be something in this. However, Jonathan, I hope you realize that my skepticism is healthy with all the trolls running around slashdot... :-)

Re:MANY more states of matter

[Mac Degger]

Not to mention 2D atoms :) There's a whole periodic table of 'em, too :)

Re:MANY more states of matter

[Thuktun]

Quoting:

Ph.D. (All But Degree), Molecular Cybernetics (now called "Nanotechnology), University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1977

"All But Degree"? Does that mean "I don't really have the degree, but I worked towards it at one point"?

Re:MANY more states of matter

[Wah]

it there any chance of those states aligning somewhere along with the way with string theory and the number of dimensions?

I just got the elegant universe book for christmas and haven't been through it all yet, but that pattern, 3 obvious ones, a bunch of others, but really not as popular or easily identified, 'curled-up', if you will.

$.02 mas.

Learn how to use a dictionary...

[WIAKywbfatw]

...or at least how to google.

Why is it that otherwise intelligent people can't get their heads round spelling simple words? Or are unable to differentiate between two similarly spelt (yes, spelt, not spelled) words that have different meanings?

If you don't know the difference between a "principle" and a "principal" then go find out. On principle, I won't spoonfeed you with relevant links; you can go do the legwork yourself for once.

You know your tired

[Anonymous Coward]

when you misread the title as "Scientist creare supersolid human"

Kind of a nice idea though...

I'm going to sleep now.

Re:You know your tired

[Anonymous Coward]

"Scientist creare supersolid human"

You mean like CowboyNeal?

Re:You know your tired

[740916]

Kind of a nice idea though...

Speak for yourself, I for one do not have a petrified Natalie Portman fetish. Although if the headline was "Scientists Create Supersolid Human in Soviet Russia" I'd have yet another tired joke to beat.

Re:You know your tired

[740916]

Doh! That should read "Supersolid HELIUM" not "Human." Your tiredness has infected me!

Re:You know your tired

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention his gayness

Re:You know your tired

[user no. 590291]

How did I get my UID to be my username? Magic!

Heh. I know how you did it :).

Re:You know your tired

[740916]

Now you know my secret! I am a terrorist, and this is an ancient terrorist burial training camp.

Liquid Metal

[Blaskowicz]

Great news. Now we can understand how the T1000 works!
I hope they'll build one soon; it could be a great war machine AND sex toy

Re:Liquid Metal

[OverlordQ]

I hope to god you mean T-X and NOT The T-1000.

Re:Liquid Metal

[woohoodonuts]

it could be a great war machine AND sex toy

unfortunately... it probably wouldn't be the best P.R. move to have arnold come back in time and annhialate you every time during climax.

Re:Liquid Metal

[qualico]

OOpps I had a flash back to the less glamorous Timex Sinclair 1000 I first started programming on. :-)

Re:Liquid Metal

[bendude]

Hey - there are possibilities.

I don't think either option would be inherantly bad. (Until the unit goes bad - like all AI eventually must - I'd rather try outrun a knife than a plasma gun)

Re:Liquid Metal

[G-funk]

Ok, you can have robert patrick, I call shotgun on kristanna loken.

Re:Liquid Metal

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you enjoy having your genitals in close contact with something close to absolute zero in temperature...

I think I'll pass.

Re:Liquid Metal

[adrianbaugh]

Jeez... you know how skin can get stuck to frozen lamp posts at -30{\deg}C or so? Now just think for a minute about using a sex toy that's been cooled to 2.7mK... *wince* :-)

Re:Liquid Metal

[Anonymous Coward]

you call shotgun? great.

I'm drivin.

Re:Liquid Metal

[orac2]

Yes, because people who find members of the same sex attractive are Abominations Unto God.

Keep your homophobia to yourself.

Re:Liquid Metal

[Suppafly]

I call shotgun on kristanna loken.

Ill have to remember that use for shotgun..I've only ever heard it in reference to cars.

Re:Liquid Metal

[G-funk]

Ah, that's cos over here, we don't really call riding in the passenger seat "riding shotgun" but we still yell "SHOTGUN!" when we call dibs on the front seat... so it's kinda become just a way of calling dibs on something.

Re:Liquid Metal

[Grey Tomorrow]

Let me be the first to point out a crystalline metal structure would chaffe like a bitch.

Quantums vs. Pressure

[tgt]

At very low temperatures, the behaviour of helium atoms is dictated by quantum mechanics, and this prevents helium from freezing at all, no matter how cold it is, unless it is pressurized to at least 25 atmospheres.

Just wondering, what does pressure do then, nullify quantum mechanics laws ?

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[ObviousGuy]

It causes the atoms to grow up into bitter adults who are overachievers in their particular area of expertise but can't manage to maintain steady personal relationships.

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[condensate]

No, it just overrules Quantum Mechanics in that it keeps the atoms too close together for swirling around as they do in normal Helium. The Helium atom being very light has a tremendous amount of swirling in it, even at absolute zero. But if you pack the stuff together, they begin to feel each other and are trying to make a living with the others present, which you can only achieve by obeying some generally accepted rules: In a way, by pressurizing you grow a community of atoms, that begin to move together.

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[camrdale]

It's more like quantum mechanics takes over at a combination of low temperature AND pressure. It should really read "At very low temperatures and at 1 atmosphere, the behaviour ..."

This effect is similar to the changing of the freezing/boiling points of water at different altitudes (and therefore pressures).

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

How can it have still have a tremendous amount of swirling in it at absolute zero? I thought that matter could have no energy at absolute zero, and no motion of particles, but perhaps I'm mistaken, not having taken physics since high school.

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[condensate]

Classically (and that is what is usually teached at high school), you are perfectly right. All motion freezes out. Quantum Mechanically however, there is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which in short prevents particles from being at any fixed position in space; you cannot measure position with infinite accuracy, therefore, you have some uncertainty as to where the particle actually is. This contrasts with the view of a non-moving particle. There, you would know just where it is, which contradicts the above stated principle. Therefore, just by this (very powerful) principle, there is some motion even at absolute zero, still depending on the mass of the particle, which is not much with 4He.

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

Pressure is pretty much the momentum of the material in question, and the temperature is pretty much the kinetic energy. Increase the momentum, and they bump into one another and are lots of little atoms hating on each other. Where in superfluid, and appearently supersolid, states they all behave with a hive mind when deciding whether or not to kill cats.

I propose we create a business plan to bottle it, and unseat astroglide. By the time the venture capitalists have figured out body temperature is significantly higher than -273C, we'll be in the cabanas next to Alan Rickman earning 20%. Who's with me!

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[skifreak87]

The state of matter in the traditional sense of solid, liquid, gas (I am not up to date on all the knew states) has to do with how far apart atoms are and how fast they are moving. In a gas, atoms are the furthest apart and move the most, liquid - closer together and slower, and solid - closest and slowest. This is why liquids have no shape - they take the shape of whatever container they are in. Pressure pushes atoms closer together making it possible for Helium to "freeze" (become a solid) even though it can not under normal atmospheric pressure. -- Brad

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[Ckwop]

No.. If you examine shroedingers equation you'll see that there is a term for the constraining potential, U(x,y,z).

While it is difficult to solve this equation for any complicated systems, we can see that the constraining potential is dependant on the pressure of the gas since the atoms in the fluid would be closer and that would mean the strength of the van de walls force between them would be increased.

At some critical pressure and tempreture, these forces would change the shape of the constraining potential enough to make forming a liquid energetically favourable.So, far from quantum mechanics being nullified the result is expected by it.

Simon.

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[stonecypher]

Just wondering, what does pressure do then, nullify quantum mechanics laws ?

Well, that's the point at which the forces involved in the pressure are greater than those imposed by quantuum mechanics. Unfortunately, I can't say technically yes, because quantuum effects are random, and considered as an average, so there isn't a fine line to refer to. :(

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks very much. A very clear explanation!

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a typical misunderstanding of the Heisenberg principle. The problem with Heisenberg is that it is a technologically predicated principle; that is, the only reason it works is because we don't have the technology to actually look at subatomic particles as closely as we'd like to. In fact, it may always be impossible to do so(since our equipment is made out of subatomic particles, it's hard to get equipment small than them) but this doesn't change the fact that Heisenberg is fundamentally conditional; there isn't some magical force that will blink a particle someplace else just because you happen to know where it is and are about to find out what its velocity is, which alot of people seem to think there is.

Re:Quantums vs. Pressure

[tgt]

Thank you for the relevant answer.

hot steamy sex

[Tirel]

right here

Re:hot steamy sex

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, I couldn't see anything with lynx. What's the deal?

Re:hot steamy sex

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, do you know of an ascii goatse online that we can redirect all the lynx users too, depending on the refeer tags?

Re:hot steamy sex

[Lord Bitman]

redirect? Bah!
You should use well-defined web standards such as CSS!

cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey isn't that cool it swirls forever!

Supersolids

[condensate]

A superfluid is a fluid that flows without viscosity, meaning that if you were to stir a spoon in a superfluid soup, you could take out the spoon and the soup would keep swirling forever on, since there is no mechanism there (i. e. no friction) to make the vortex you just made disappear. Now if you were to cool a 4He crystal, there would be eventually be no more movement of atoms and the whole thing froze out. But in quantum mechanics, there is the Heisenberg uncertainty Principle which basically states that you are not to now the position of any particle along with its velocity with the same accuracy. There will always be a trade off. The better you know the position, the worse you know the velocity. This accounts for the fact that even at absolute zero, there are some fluctuations of particles, called quantum fluctuations wich do never freeze out. When a superfluid appears this means that the atoms in it move all together. As the Nature article suggests, you can compare this to soldiers on a parade. They all move alike. In a supersolid then, you have vacancies, places where atoms are absent. Think of holes in a semiconductor if you like. There, holes are just non-electrons. Here we deal with non-atoms, and they are the ones behaving like soldiers in the case of a supersolid. Meaning the propagate through the whole thing as if they were on a parade, which makes them great for sending any wave (electromagnetic or other) through the crystal, and since these vacancies move in order, they propagate the wave without damping it. This would make a hell of an amplifier. Compare the situation to a superconductor, where you can propagate electric current without damping (i. e. having no resistance at all). To electric current, a superconductor behaves like a supersolid to waves of any kind.

Re:Supersolids

[camrdale]

If you have trouble thinking of moving holes or vacancies, think of one of those puzzles that is all jumbled and has one square missing. You have to rearrange the puzzle by moving peices into that vacancy, which makes the vacancy move around.

Re:Supersolids

[An Anonymous Hero]

the Heisenberg uncertainty Principle (...) accounts for the fact that even at absolute zero, there are some fluctuations of particles, called quantum fluctuations wich do never freeze out. When a superfluid appears this means that the atoms in it move all together.

Heisenberg implies that they (still) move, but has nothing to do with the fact they move all together. This latter fact is because helium atoms can all fall into the "same" lowest-energy state, because they are bosons and so do not obey the Pauli exclusion principle.

Re:Supersolids

[misterpies]

Surely if you stirred a spoon in a superfluid soup it would not swirl at all, because there's no friction for the spoon to set up a vortex.

Re:Supersolids

[condensate]

Non-vicious hydrodynamics does not mean that you cannot push a fluid. Think of Bernoullis' principle. The spoon acts as a means of conveying energy into the system. No friction just means that you do not need additional force to get the thing going...

Re:Supersolids

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Non-vicious hydrodynamics

It might not be vicious to start with, but poke it with a spoon and you'll see if it doesn't bite back.

Re:Supersolids

[Anonymous Coward]

But in quantum mechanics, there is the Heisenberg uncertainty Principle which basically states that you are not to now the position of any particle along with its velocity with the same accuracy. There will always be a trade off. The better you know the position, the worse you know the velocity.

So, what if you supercool your soup and then put your soupbowl on an obscure place, and forget where you put it, will it then be completely solid ?

Re:Supersolids

[Porthos]

A superfluid is a fluid that flows without viscosity, meaning that if you were to stir a spoon in a superfluid soup, you could take out the spoon and the soup would keep swirling forever on, since there is no mechanism there (i. e. no friction) to make the vortex you just made disappear.

How exactly does the spoon start the soup swirling? If a superfluid has no viscosity, the spoon isn't able to disturb it, right?

Re:Supersolids

[condensate]

No because when you put it there you'd have the exact information. Nature does not care if you choose to forget it afterwards.

Re:Supersolids

[Lord Bitman]

You are cool :)

Re:Supersolids

[Suidae]

Thanks to Alice in Quantumland I actually understood exactly what you said. Cool.

Re:Supersolids

[Psychic Burrito]

That was a very simple explanation, thank you.

Could you tell me one thing, because I still don't understand this supersolid thing perfectly: If I had a cubic block of supersolid matter, and I would put it on a table... would it flow away or stay in cubic form?

I guess your example means that if somebody would blow a bit of air to one side of this cube, there would be "bubbles" forming that would move through, right? And if I would tap on one side, the shockwave of that tap would go through the whole cube like a little earthquake, right? Strange stuff indeed.

However, if you say that it would not stay in cubic form, then me as a layman would just say "well it might be solid for scientists, but for me it's liquid".

Hope you can reply on that one, thanks :-)

Re:Supersolids

[condensate]

Gee I had to reread the article there... Anyways. Supersolid is not to be depicted as some solid stuff, and you might be more close with the notion of a liquid. Yet as far as I got from reading the nature paper, the thing would flow away. Supersolid is the name for the thing, as you correctly assumed. Yet for anything to flow, you have to put energy in it. There you could have a chance to hold the thing together. I am sorry if I cannot further clarify this on you. I first heard of supersolids about two months ago, so the thing is new to me (and to a lot of other physicists), even the authors are not sure of whether the thing they found (supercooled He in some kind of glass rotating and reducing its moment of inertia because of superfluidity) qualifies as a supersolid. From the way it is done however I would still say that a supersolid flows. Hope that helps

Re:Supersolids

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Re:Supersolids

[ryanvm]

How could you stir it if it has no viscosity?

Re:Supersolids

[T3kno]

Because there is no spoon!

Re:Supersolids

[charlieo88]

A superfluid is a fluid that flows without viscosity, meaning that if you were to stir a spoon in a superfluid soup, you could take out the spoon and the soup would keep swirling forever on

Wait a minute! Swirling on forever? That sounds suspiciously like SCO's business plan. Are you saying that SCO's lawsuits are made with liquid helium?

Re:Supersolids

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if I'm following all the discussion I've read here, and imagine in a couple of hundred years time...

there is this big massive (kilometer long) crystal of He4 in supersolid form. Now if I bang on one end with a stick, the other end will feel that vibration without any loss of signal?

Or am I thinking about this incorrectly?

Re:Supersolids

[forgotmypassword]

You can stir it with a laser.

Re:Supersolids

[condensate]

Perhaps they have a claim on supercoolin He as well. If you are not ready for a huge lawsuit, you better cool your PC with air or water till all this is settled...

Re:Supersolids

[Mac Degger]

Entirely wrong, I think (but in such an interesting way that I had to look it up...which is good since I have an exam on this very subject in about a months time :)).

First off, electrons have integral spin, which makes them fermions...which means that Pauli does apply.

Second, Pauli only applies to the electrons etc in a small system where the probability waves as per Schrodinger overlap. This happens in close proximity, ie only in the system of the (single) helium atom. That's where the electrons can't inhabit the same energy level whilst having the same spin(/quantum numbers).

Pauli says nothing about the energy states of teh atoms in a system of multiple helium atoms, because the probability functions don't overlap. He couldn't care a rats ass what state the electrons in the other atoms are, in this case.

Or so I'm led to beleive from my textbooks :)

Re:Supersolids

[An Anonymous Hero]

Ouch! :)

The misunderstanding comes from the fact that you are reasoning in terms of electrons, which indeed are fermions. They are the appropriate objects to consider when computing energy levels in atoms or energy bands in solids, which is the traditional subject that your textbooks are talking about.

But here the relevant objects are bosons, namely, the Helium atoms in a 4He crystal -- or more precisely the gaps in this crystal, which you may formally regard as 'anti' Helium atoms. (Cf. the article: "the regular crystal lattice of atoms is full of gaps, called vacancies, that move about.")

The anti-object of a boson is again a boson, so these vacancies are bosons. Technically this means that an assembly of them doesn't obey Fermi-Dirac statistics (like electrons do), but Bose-Einstein statistics. My point above was that it is this brand of statistics, and not at all the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which explains that the vacancies tend to move "all together".

(From the article: in "a superfluid, the laws of quantum mechanics make all the atoms move coherently, like a regiment of soldiers. In supersolid helium, all of the vacancies in the crystal likewise start to move coherently, which means that waves can progress through the lattice. The onset of this coherent motion is called Bose-Einstein condensation.")

Hope that clears it up for you. Best of luck on the exam :)

Re:Supersolids

[An Anonymous Hero]

No the helium crystal doesn't flow, it is solid. It's the vacancies in it that can flow or move in waves.

Re:Supersolids

[An Anonymous Hero]

Yes, you are correct.

Re:Supersolids

[Anonymous Coward]

they aren't quite the same as anti-helium atoms, as they have negative mass.

Re:Supersolids

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pauli Exclusion principle holds for any two fermions in the universe. However two electrons in different atoms cannot be in the same state, since they are in different atoms, and thus the potential energy, and therefore shroedinger's equation is different

I CLICKED ON THIS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO

[drinkypoo]

It has some nasty scat, AND the goatse man. Avoid at all costs unless you're into those things.

Re:I CLICKED ON THIS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, that got past my firewall anti-popup and I also disabled pop-ups in mozilla... how'd they do that?

Re:I CLICKED ON THIS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO

[Anonymous Coward]

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Some thoughts on superfluids

[shunterman]

In actuality, superfluids do NOT have zero viscosity at all points. They have very complex properties, depending on a combination of the container, exact conditions, etc, etc. Typically, some parts of superfluids exhibit zero viscosity (truly zero), leading to some fascinating fluid mechanics. For example, the Stokes singular problem actually has NO boundary layer, so drag goes to zero. There are plenty of other really interesting phenomenon - some that might be utilized in future technology.

Other interesting properties of superfluids include rather odd magnetic fields (Helium-3 or 4 is odd to start with, and then chilling it down and spinning it does some interesting stuff), VERY odd conduction, etc, etc. I imagine that there will be future Nobel prizes given out for research in this area (I believe one already has been, a few years back). Studying how superfluids act can give us some very interesting insights into what actually happens in various media at tiny sizes. One example would be looking at fluid/solid interfaces, and trying to determine what precisely goes on there. The possibilities are endless...

That being said, isn't the official definition of a fluid "something that deforms continuously under shear stress"? As such, does this indicate that these supersolids do NOT flow continuously?

Re:Some thoughts on superfluids

[Compuser]

Dude, this year's Nobel in Physics went to Leggett
(among others) for work on superfluid helium.

Re:Some thoughts on superfluids

[forgotmypassword]

additionally Osheroff got a Nobel for superfluid Helium too.

And when they put him on the committee, I believe that he said he kept nominating other budding superfluid scientists because it was the field he was familiar with and excited about.

Honestly if a nother Nobel goes to this subject ...

Re:Some thoughts on superfluids

[Compuser]

Well, noone put him on a committee. It's just that
when you get a Nobel you automatically get a right
to nominate others. They also ask simply prominent
figures in the field.
This year's prize was sort of like a sweep of the
last few prominent guys who had done stuff in the
sc/sf fields. Had they not done it this year,
Ginzburg might not have lived to get a Nobel which
would have been "just not right". Of course, once
they give it to Ginzburg, it makes sense to give
it to the one other giant from Landau school:
Abricosov. Leggett is about as accomplished as
Abricosov and has done somewhat related work so
his selection also makes sense. So it's inlikely
this was Osheroff pulling any strings.

Re:Some thoughts on superfluids

[forgotmypassword]

I didn't mean to imply that Osheroff was pulling strings.

Not all Science needs is of direct practical use

[MountainMan101]

A lot of people have been asking what the uses of a supersolid are. In general chemists/physicists to not investigate for practical purposes, but to further the understanding on the nature of materials. The discovery of superfluids and supersolids is important in testing our understanding of quantum effects. Much like observing the movement of Mercury during a solar ecclipse was necessary to justify General Relativity.

Swiss Cheese

[VoidEngineer]

"Perhaps a condensed matter physicist can dumb the article down for layfolk such as myself?"

Imagine a big block of swiss cheese (the kind of cheese that's got all the holes in it). Now those holes are basically "vacancies" of cheese. Now, imagine if the holes moved around.

Similarly, think of one of those pictures underwater videos of SCUBA divers... You know when they release a breath, and all the bubbles start moving up to the surface of the water... Those are likes 'holes' in the water. More specifically, they are "vacancies" and they move in a somewhat orderly manner (up). Of course, it makes more common sense that vacancies would move around in a liquid than in solids....

So, basically, they've found a state of matter where the vacancies move around in a solid. In a sense, they're claiming that they found a block of cheese in the refridgerator where the holes keep moving. And this is why there's going to be controversy over this claim: they're alot of people who are going to say "no way - cheese doesn't work that way..."

It would make for a crazy club sandwich... Yum.

FYI: I'm not a condenced matter physicist, although I do happen to have a degree in the History and Philosophy of Science...

Re:Swiss Cheese

[jmv]

Just a question: if all the holes are free to move, how is it different from a liquid?

Re:Swiss Cheese

[Anonymous Coward]

> "Perhaps a condensed matter physicist can dumb the article down for layfolk such as myself?"

Imagine a big block of swiss cheese (the kind of cheese that's got all the holes in it).

OK, that's dumbing it down a little too much! The cheese with the holes - really??

Re:Swiss Cheese

[741763]

when they drop the liquid on your head, you get wet... when they drop the solid on your head, you die.

Re:Swiss Cheese

[Dua]

A liquid is when the atoms are all free to move with respect to each other - they can slip and slide over each other. So in a liquid it's the atoms that are moving.

The notion of a vacancy only really holds for a crystalline solid, because in that case there's a regular lattice. The vacancy is when you'd expect an atom, but there isn't one.

What these people are saying is that somehow these holes are free to move, even though they're in a solid where, in general, the atoms and therefore the holes are fixed in position. I don't know the theory behind it, but I assume it's possible, otherwise Nature would have been fairly unlikely to have published it.

Re:Swiss Cheese

[buttahead]

when you squirt liquids out your nose, people will laugh with you... when you squirt solids out your nose, they will laugh at you.

Re:Swiss Cheese

[Anonymous Coward]

When you drop any form of super cooled helium on someone, they will die.

Re:Swiss Cheese

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not the first solid in which vacancies move around. Conduction in ionic crystals like NaCl is dominated by ion movement, which in turn is enhanced by vacancies. As the ions move, the vacancies move opposite to the flow. I think the point is that in supersolid He the vacancies are themselves a condensate (but it's probably much more subtle than that.)

Here's the simple answer

[bstoneaz]

Any solid will flow. There are various mechanisms for this, but people usually refer to diffusion. Given sufficient time and temperature you can see any solid flow, and it doesn't have to melt into a liquid state for this to happen. The big thing here is that this supersolid is not liquid and that's because it retains a crystalline structure. Unlike a liquid, supersolid He has a structure that is ordered.

Re:Here's the simple answer

[bo-eric]

Are you sure? I have a feeling that a really well-defined crystal would have trouble flowing... On the other hand, feelings are often wrong on weird subjects like this. Do the atoms tunnel to lower energy states, leading to some minuscule degree of flow, or what is the main mechanism for the flow of a crystal?

Re:Here's the simple answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be disappointed; this is Slashdot where obvious mistakes like the one you question is easily modded up. People knowing the difference between elastic and plastic flow seem ineligble.

Supersoldier

[WernerStormcrow]

Did anyone else read "Scientists create supersoldier" at first?


Maybe I'm just a bit jumpy, because I've just had my morning coffee... BTW, do you people also hear a clicking sound every time you phone your left-wing journalist friend? Strange...

Re:Supersoldier

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with these dozens of faggots posting "did anyone else read" comments to every fucking article?

Re:Supersoldier

[Cruciform]

Not since I went digital. Now the LEDs on my tinfoil hat just go dim.
I'm glad I had a spare. If you turn them upside down you can collect your supersolid helium and smarties in them.

Anecdotal evidence to the contrary, maybe.

[chadjg]

I helped move some furniture from the 1880s that included some thick mirrors. There was noticeable distortion at the bottom of the mirrors that wasn't perceptable, if present, at the top. The bottom of the mirrors looked wavy.

I can say for sure, but it looked like the glass had flowed in only 100 years or so. Maybe glass technology has changed. Maybe I misunderstood what was happening.

Re:Anecdotal evidence to the contrary, maybe.

[ZigMonty]

Dude, how about you actually read the linked articles?

Specifically this:

Practically all plate glass made before 1959 had some degree of waviness in it. It was uneven in thickness. When the glaziers would install it in a window, they would normally do it like you build a building - with the bigger bits at the bottom and the thinner bits at the top. But, Stephen Hawkes from Oregon, who has dedicated his life to dismantling and repairing medieval glass windows, says that while most of the glass that he has seen was bottom-heavy, he has seen hundreds of pieces of old plate glass that were thicker at the top.

Re:Anecdotal evidence to the contrary, maybe.

[RedWizzard]

Read the three articles in the post you replied to. Before 1959 all glass was of uneven thickness and often wavy. It was a common (but not exclusive) practice to have the thicker end of the glass at the bottom.

The "glass flows" myth appeared because people saw the uneven thickness of old glass and assumed that it had started out of regular thickness and changed over time. That assumption is false.

hmm, it sounds cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

but it could be whack.

Re:You will need a Hemholtz resonator???

[MO-411]

There is a cool thermal acoustic refrigeration technique that employs hemholtz principals described in American Scientist a few moons ago. There is also a means of using a Hemholtz filter to create a kind of check valve (I have to look for that reference... if you need it ask) hence providing a "one-way" flow.

Helmholtz?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Hertz, you fucking Nazi.

I'm so confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything from GNAA, to Linux to SCO and fp. There's 2 sides to every story, but they forgot to mention fp's GNAA's, off-topic comments, etc. Thanks for Driving me nuts. (Somebody please say your welcome)

"myself"

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps a condensed matter physicist can dumb the article down for layfolk such as myself?"

When are you doofuses going to figure out that "myself" is only an appropriate pronoun for an referent of "I" or "me"? That's why it's called reflexive. For comparison, consider how stupid this sounds: "Audrey can speak to myself on the telephone."

People who can't figure out whether to use "I" or "me" would do well to avoid falling back on "myself". At least if you stick with "me" or "I" you have a chance of being correct. This "myself" nonsense has become plague of bad usage in the last year or so.

BTW, you could have avoided the I/me confusion entirely by simply writing "Perhaps a condensed matter physicist can dumb the article down for us layfolk."

Re:"myself"

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you mind not pointing out language errors without answering the question given first?

Photos or Videos

[t_allardyce]

The most impressive story i will read today, and whats the picture in the article of? some bloody marching! why cant we see it?

aut0tr0ll is teh sp0kE!?

[CHECKTHEGOATS]

Hello master.

sid=92918
formkey=hMnjIoFqGL

This is a joint venture that will be mutually advantageous to both parties involved.

Old news...

[woohoodonuts]

What's the big friggin deal? I've been using this stuff in the flux capacitor of my DeLorean for like twenty years...

~Doc

Is glass liquid or solid?

[JS_RIDDLER]

Is glass liquid or solid? says:
There is no clear answer to the question "Is glass solid or liquid?"...
...glass is a supercooled liquid... is also a popualar belief...
more of this also here another page

I personal think of it as a supercooled liquid. Just think about how glass is blown into its shape.

Re:Is glass liquid or solid?

[The_Dougster]

I believe that it is properly classified as an amorphous solid; i.e. there is no ordered crystalline structure present. Contrast this with quartz which is composed of the same molecules but does in fact have a crystal structure. Technically, a supercooled liquid is probably also an appropriate description because when heated to redness to where it will flow, glass does not undergo a phase transition. Also, given a seed crystal and enough time, molten glass will eventually crystallize into quartz, forming a proper crystalline solid. So amorphous solid or supercooled liquid are both good terms to describe the molecular state of common glass.

Practical Application = ??

[Zack Evergreen]

This is all interesting, it realy is, BUT what can you apply this to? Better sliced bread? Clean fuel? Cure for cancer? I know my expectations are a little high, but can't this be applied to anything?

Maybe I just lack the imagination.

Wait, if it constantly moves when enery is applied without stopping... perpetual motion device, anyone? But the conditions are just so hard to maintain that this could be a problem, maybe the energy used to freeze would be inadequate compared to the energy it produced.

However in space, viscosity might not be as big of a deal in the first place, though I might not understand how it works.

Okay /.ers tear this post to shreads and enlighten me on the subject.

Re:Practical Application = ??

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Practical Application = ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, you can use it to make some sort of weapon. Ultimately, that's the point of all science: To make weapons. Unless you're not human, in which case you're probably not into science.

Re:Practical Application = ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Really cool party tricks. Imagine the look on the faces of the crowd when you make spaces in a crowd of helium dorks move!

Re:Practical Application = ??

[ErroneousBee]

Cure for cancer?

The not entirely unrelated science of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging found its way into medical imaging devices, leading to early detection and cure of many cancers.

Its possible that this technology could end up in some very sensitive detectors (see previous threads for the possiblility of perfect amplifiers) that allow Doctors to view biochemical processes as they happen in a living organism. This would lead to a complete revolution in medicine, understanding protein folding, alzheimers, MS, etc would happen almost overnight.

Re:Practical Application = ??

[WegianWarrior]

When scientist first discovered that you could split some atoms under certain conditions, they didn't know what it could be used for... but today we know we can use it for a lot of things (including, sadly enought, weapons that can kill a city in a single instant).

Sometimes science has no other intended purpose than to push back the borders of ignorance, but the eventiall fallout from it is enourmous. Who would have thought that a few entusiasts playing with liquidfueled rockets in the 20's would - eventually and via a lot of backroads - lead to the invention of velcro?

Ask again in a few decades, I'm sure people will be surpriced by all the things we didn't realise you can use supersolids for.

Re:Practical Application = ??

[Lord Bitman]

Everyone knows that velcro was invented by the Vulcans. Geez, somebody was asleep in history class.

Re:Practical Application = ??

[InternationalCow]

When Faraday demonstrated his quaint finding of electricity to the Prince of Wales (even then, princes of Wales were not sure what to do with their lives), this royal twit wanted to know what it was good for. Faraday's answer was (I paraphrase) something like: "Well, your Highness, perhaps you can tax it someday". "Nuff said I think.

Re:Practical Application = ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think the Danes or somebody were working on a hydroelectric storage system. I think they've been done before, but theirs was going to be underground and really big. Not sure what happened to it. In any case, there are ways of storing massive amounts of energy in a fairly lossless manner, without resorting to exotic technologies. Flywheels have been proposed as one possibility; in fact, they're currently in use on the NYC subway system's electrical grid, to retain power otherwise lost when a train brakes.

a liquid solid

[IAR80]

I quote for the article: " Although it is a crystalline solid, it can 'flow' like the most slippery liquid imaginable - in fact, like a liquid with no viscosity." Then how can you tell it is really solid. Also from what I remember from my highschool physiscs helium does not have a solid agregation state and if it was so trivial to obtain it by just compressing it to 60 atm I wonder why nobody figure it out until 2004. ;)

Re:a liquid solid

[Dua]

No, helium does turn into a crystalline solid, and people have known this for a while. And you only need 25atm for it to do so :-)

See my comment here for the solid/liquid thing.

Re:a liquid solid

[Jan-Pascal]

You can see a nice small movie of actual 3He crystal growth at Leiden University.

Re:Hmm Type-o's and cowards reply...Now the facts!

[MO-411]

Nazi: A member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, founded in Germany in 1919 and brought to power in 1933 under Adolf Hitler.

Helmholtz was born on 8/31/1821 in Potsdam, Germany. He ended his breathing on 9/8/1894 in Berlin, Germany.

Hence, he could not have been a Nazi...

PS, some info Helmholtz .

Hmmm

[BuffPuff]

All these complicated terms sound like ICE-9 to me anyway...

However...

[xiox]

Glass does flow to some extent. I've done the experiment where you hang a weight off a glass thread and watch it flow. Whether or not this has anything to do to with windows is another matter.

Re:However...

[Graff]

Glass does flow to some extent. I've done the experiment where you hang a weight off a glass thread and watch it flow.

All solids flow to some extent. A thin thread of steel will flow under the same circumstances. The question is whether or not that means the substance is a liquid or not. The answer to that is no, glass and steel are not liquids at room temperature - no matter if they do flow slowly or not.

Re:However...

[xiox]

True, but glasses don't exhibit a 1st order phase transition, meaning they aren't exactly a "solid" (depending on definitions, etc...), so there's something in the "supercooled liquid" description.

Re:However...

[Graff]

True, but glasses don't exhibit a 1st order phase transition, meaning they aren't exactly a "solid"

Eutectic mixtures also do not exhibit a first order phase transition, yet when they are taken to a low enough temperature they are considered a solid. Glass does undergo a phase transition from liquid to solid, the fact that it is not first order does not mean that it isn't a liquid-solid phase transition.

Re:However...

[xiox]

Fair enough. It's a while since I did any materials science...

aut0tr0ll is teh sp0kE!?

[Jack Froidalbungle]

Hello master.

sid=92918
formkey=5aSMQSlvJ8

This is a joint venture that will be mutually advantageous to both parties involved.

I'm in!

[qualico]

Just put my chip on superfluids.com and sent an email off to our local University to see if I can get in on the action. It would be great to document this finding in detail. I promise better graphics compared to the marching soldiers. :-> As for an application...I'm hoeing for an "Energy Revolution". Wonder how fast the US pulls out of the Middle East?

I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if it's possible for anybody who knows this much to get laid.

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Physicists get laid frequently.

Re:I wonder...

[thorgil]

laid off that is...

Re:I wonder...

[meta-monkey]

Heisenberg was never sure whether he did it or not.

I have silly putty too

[Soporific]

Is that a supercrystallinesolidliquid?

~S

In other news...

[slightly99]

...expect to see the next generation of Apple PowerBooks constructed from Helium-4, "the world's strongest metal".

Here you go

[Trejkaz]

http://www.glandscape.com/ascii.html HTH.

Re:Here you go

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn you, you haven't even TRIED that with lynx.

First of all you're using colours. That's a no-no.
Second, your ASCII art doesn't fit a 80x24 display at all.

Just because it's text, doesn't mean it's Lynx friendly.

And for those of you who are curious what he linked to, that's an ASCII conversion of goatse.

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

....and the grandparent down.

kj,

[POds]

As far as i remember, a solid is matter that has particles (what are particles? groups of atoms?) tightly together. Liquid has its particle's not so tlightly together and ...

Infact i dont know wtf im talking about. Could someone explain this?

Hello Everybody! Hiiiiiiii Doctor Nick!

[jettoblack]

"Who would've thought inflammable meant flammable?"

-Dr. Nick

Inflammable, the obligatory Simpsons quote

[Aggrajag]

Dr. Nick: Inflammable means flammable? What a country!

PARENT IS A STOLEN POST

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try.

scientists 'create' nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

everything's already here/there. the most we can do is discover, & put to good use, what the creators have provided.

any other notion (& there are many), is totally false.

va lairIE/robbIE answer yOUR questions interview (Score:mynuts won, no credit to be given to actual creators?)
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 15, @06:04AM (#7983896)
postponed/delayed?

that's right. you're having a little trouble coming up with questions that match the ?pr firm? scriptdead 'answers' we've already herd. & then there's the thing with the won-eyed girl's health paypers, & proposed co-location with the illegal aliens on the georgewellian fuddite corepirate nazi felon moon/mars/bars shot, & time machine projects.

keep trying. remember, keep it simple.

consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... no questions/doubts/fears will remain unaddressed. see you there?

No , sorry , flowing = liquid.

[Viol8]

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.

Re:No , sorry , flowing = liquid.

[Jesus 2.0]

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.

Re:No , sorry , flowing = liquid.

[SirLantos]

Ok, ummm.....a whale has fins AND swims through the water....whales are mammals.

You musn't be so narrow minded. Science is a lot more complicated than that.

Just My Humble Opinion,
SirLantos

Re:No , sorry , flowing = liquid.

[CuriHP]

You completely missed the sarcasm. That was his point.

Re:No , sorry , flowing = liquid.

[SirLantos]

You are right, my apologies.

Re:No , sorry , flowing = liquid.

[dot niet]

If I throw a bunch of tiny ball bearings in a bucket and shake it around, it may look like they are flowing, when in fact they are a bunch of solid objects moving in unison. These Helium-4 crystals work the same way, they're just a lot smaller than ball bearings so the line between flowing and just plain moving is blurred.

Re:No , sorry , flowing = liquid.

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

" 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."

I think your missing the point. The point is it defies the definition. If they said they created a fluid that flows that would be a big who cares. Also if they created a solid that doesn't flow no one would care. The whole fact it defies the definition is what makes this interesting. It means we have to change the definition of a fluid now.

But then again it really isn't differant. I can dump a load of gravel with a dumptruck, the gravel is flowing, but it's still a solid and not a liquid. It's more of which the level it defies the definition.

Re:No , sorry , flowing = liquid.

[Mac Degger]

Which kinda shows that your command of the english language isn't up to scratch. Liquid/solid refers to an organisational structure of the atoms which form it, not to anything else.

At room temperature, this manifests itself as something which flows and something which stays the same shape...but room temperature isn't the only temperature there is (boy, I wish I coulda heard you when Einstein replaced Newton :)).

Phase Diagram

[opus18]

Anyone got an inspiring phase diagram?

Classic number puzzle

[TuringTest]

A better example than cheese may be the classic nine puzzle. It is solid but has clearly movable holes.

Supersolid == Crystal with Zero Shear Strength

[G4from128k]

Although supersolid He4 does not seem like a solid, by some definitions it is. At any given instant, the atoms in the material appear to be in a crystalline lattice (not bouncing around like the atoms in a liquid). But if you exert any force on that supersolid, the vacancies and defects in the lattice instantly shift to let the solid move. This gives the "solid" a shear strength of zero even if the atoms seem like they are arranged in what appears to be a rigid crystal structure.

The problem with commonsense notions of "solid" vs. "liquid" is that they don't reflect all the possible states of matter, only the ones that occur at room temperatures. Science usually finds these counterintuitive phenomena outside the usual conditions of everyday life (like when physicists proved that Newton's centuries old laws only work for "slow" speeds, so we need Eistein's equations to understand higher speeds).

Re:Supersolid == Crystal with Zero Shear Strength

[Anonymous Coward]

Any force? What about gravity, does that count?

Re:Supersolid == Crystal with Zero Shear Strength

[Garridan]

Yup. Gravity causes all sorts of phenomena that we just take for granted. Flame, for instance, is spherical in space. Flexible materials like plastics, liquids, and particle board sag. This stuff is no different.

Future of Supersolid Reseach

[Anonymous Coward]

Will PSU funding for Supersolid reseach be cut to fund the Napster service? Maybe the free music inspired this research! Off to the 'Skellar...

However

[quintessent]

IANAP, but we already have almost frictionless gyroscopes that don't extreme temperatures. I don't see any advantage the fluid offers over these--only added difficulties.

Re:However

[Anonymous Coward]

Now my only question is, which is harder/less efficient? Using electricity to maintain the frictionless state of magnetic bearings on a gyro, or keeping helium in a superfluid state?

non-sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Every solid have by definition a surface that is
either liquid or "glassy". Thus, the solid He has
a thin layer of super-fluid He, and this allows the
disk to rotate as if it was immersed in super-fluid He.

Case closed.

F.

New Wikipedia Entry

[Morosoph]

It doesn't say very much yet!

Ever hear of "pitch"?

[replay TV Guy]

Sounds like it works the same way but without having to super cool it.

hungry

[f00duvoodu]

jello anyone?

Re:hungry

[Anonymous Coward]

coulda been a good joke about rubbery solids and you messed it up

Here goes with an explanation...

[Richard Kirk]

This effect is a bit like superconductivity, and that is a bit easier to explain that, so I'll start with that...

Suppose you have a metal. This has positive nucleii, bound electrons which screen most of the nuclear charge, and conduction band electrons which can move thorughout the lattice, but also help to screen the nuclear charge. The whole thing is electrically neutral.

Suppose then you have some cloud of negative charge. This charge will repel the local electrons, and will attract the local nucleii. The nuclear lattice will bend a bit towards the center of the charge cloud, generating a local region of increased positive charge density that is screened out by the cloud of charge, and the other electrons.

Now, suppose this charge cloud moves. You have the same attractions and repulsions, but the nucleii have more mass per unit charge than the electrons in the cloud, so they will take a bit of time to react. The induced positive charge region will then lag behind the negative cloud, and will tend to drag it back. If you had a second negative cloud following some way behind the first one, it might be attracted towards this positive region.

If you had two conduction band electrons with long deBroglie wavelengths, with the same sorts of velocities and at the right distance apart, then you can get this sort of action. Over a limited range, you can get electrons to apparently attract each other, via electron-phonon iteraction.

This pairing up of electrons is pretty weak. If this was the only thing holding them together then you would not get superconductivity in ordinary materials above a few millikelvin. However, one they start organizing like that, then they can all tend towards a lowest energy state, where they are all moving like a single enormous particle, with a wavelength that is so much larger than most of the usual things that scatter electrons. A more electrons join this single state, an energy gap opens up betweeen the electrons that are in the state, and the ones that aren't, and it becomes more energetically tempting for other electrons to go with the flow. This energy gap stabilizes the superelectron state, and lets superconductivity happen at kelvin rather than millikelvin.

We have lots of particles giving off heat, but it isn't solidification. We don't have electrons standing shoulder to shoulder like soldiers. One superelectron's wave will significantly overlap hundreds or thousands of other superelectrons. If they had rigid orientations, then a supercurrent could not flow down a wire that got thinner, any more than your cheese with holes in it could flow down a funnel. Also, the electron-phonon coupling only binds if the electrons move. So, forget marching soldiers, unless you have soldiers that can see what is happening a hundred ranks ahead, and automatically calculate a path that will give zero jostling with their neighbours. It is not really a state that exist in the macroscopic world, but you can sort of guess what it might be like: everyone been cool and mellow and getting along with their neighbour, until one guy borrows the lawnmower without asking, or drinks the last beer in the fridge, and then it all suddenly collapses.

Okay, now if I get the article, you can get the same sort of thing with holes in a superfluid. The helium atoms can form a similar cooperating superfluid. The forces that balance to keep the atoms flowing in a coordianted fashion are different, but the principle is the same. If the particules are moving, and enough of their fields overlap, then there will be a lowest energy state, and one enough of them have discovered it, and particles can find it faster than random thermal fluctions can chuck them out, then everhting moves smoothly.

Helium atoms as lots of little round fuzzy things. Normally they overlap with lots of their neighbours. As you squish two of them together, the repulsive nuclear forces starts to rise sharply. The strong repulsive forces from the nearest neighbours will be bigger than the others, and wil

Re:Here goes with an explanation...

[Skavookie]

"...any more than your cheese with holes in it could flow down a funnel."

I bet it could flow down this funnel!

Consider the Pitch Drop Experiment

[Alien54]

As seen at this page

The first Professor of Physics at the University of Queensland, Professor Thomas Parnell, began an experiment in 1927 to illustrate that everyday materials can exhibit quite surprising properties. The experiment demonstrates the fluidity and high viscosity of pitch, a derivative of tar once used for waterproofing boats. At room temperature pitch feels solid - even brittle - and can easily be shattered with a blow from a hammer. It's quite amazing then, to see that pitch at room temperature is actually fluid!

In 1927 Professor Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into glass funnel with a sealed stem. Three years were allowed for the pitch to settle, and in 1930 the sealed stem was cut. From that date on the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel - so slowly that now, 72 years later [1998], the eighth drop is only just about to fall.

Helium cooled computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Helium has very low heat capacity and is not useful for high wattage cooling. Moreover, when you cool with liquid He you are talking about 4.2K which is way past the limit for carrier freezeout. That is, a Si-based computer would cease to work. GaAs might still work though. The Japanese made a superconducting computer running in liquid He, Google for ETL-JC1 and you will even find the pictures. They clocked it at more than 1GHz about 15 years ago. Hmmm, I also checked Google Groups and found an article in news:alt.cyberpunk on this too.

who?

[Anonymous Coward]

who would use liquid hydrogen as a coolant, when liquid nitrogen is so much better?!

People building rockets. Why carry liquid nitrogen, when the fuel can cool that nozzle just fine!

Terminator

[uzhappali]

This was invented now?
I thought they used it in Terminator movies. :-)
For those who find "vacancies" troubling, think of the Terminator character who flows.

Re:Terminator

[zeath]

But if he were made of this supercooled Helium junk (0.175 K, or -272.825C), wouldn't he have melted when he was soaked in the significantly warmer liquid Nitrogen (77 K, or -196C)?

Incidentally, the name of the Terminator you're looking for is the T-1000.

Re:Terminator

[hesiod]

> But if he were made of this supercooled Helium [...] wouldn't he have melted when he was soaked in the significantly warmer liquid Nitrogen

Yep. Not only that, but he would melt as soon as he was outside the freezer. I guess technically, he might sublimate, but the end result is the same - particalized terminator.

Re:Terminator

[Anonymous Coward]

ugh. if you want actual science dont think about the terminator at all.

no! not even a little.

Re:Terminator

[zelphior]

Especially the way they use time travel. Don't even get me started on those.

Lousy analogy

[Viol8]

Something can swim in water and not be a fish because the definition of a fish is NOT just
something that lives in water. However a solid DOES NOT FLOW. Ok? If it even flows a tiny amount like pitch then its STILL a liquid.

Re:Lousy analogy

[Loconut1389]

its not a solid, its a super-solid. and not super like super man, but super like the root from supervisor, sort of like above-solid.

Re:Lousy analogy

[Jesus 2.0]

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.

Re:Lousy analogy

[WillAdams]

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

Re:Lousy analogy

[rwise2112]

This is true.

Another example is ice, such as in glaciers, which definitely do flow as well.

Re:Lousy analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, glass in one of those things which struggles to be easily defined.

It's supposedly something of a sea-of-solids. As a whole, it behaves like an extremely viscous liquid, but if you take a small group of SiO2 molecules in glass, they're a perfectly normal solid.

Or something like that. It's been a few years since I did research on this, and I'm forgetting a lot of what I found out.

Re:Lousy analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this: NOTHING is perfectly solid.

I define solid as a state of condition of which things cannot easily pass through.

In otherwords, it's relative.

Are you solid to a bullet traveling at high speeds?

NO.

Are you solid to a spit-wad? YES.

Is a sheet paper solid to Aplha radiation? YES Is it solid to photonic radiation? To a degree.

Even certian particles are thought to shoot straight through the Earth, with little change in energy. Does that mean the earth is indeed not solid? No. It is indeed quite solid, to us.

But like all things, solidity is relative. ALL things that appear solid to us indeed seem to be fluid on larger time scales. It's a matter of time and perspective.

Re:Lousy analogy

[Razor Blades are Not]

A persistent Myth.

Glass does not flow _incredibly_ slowly. The ripple effect in old windows is due to the inadequate process of making the glass in the first place. Those ripples were always there.

For a counter example, there are telescope lenses 150 years old that still provide a crisp image. There are roman glass artifacts of incredible delicacy that survive to this day with no discernible perturbations due to "flow".

Glass is not a liquid.

Re:Lousy analogy

[sunajanus]

Nope. Glass is a supercooled amorphous solid. The effects you mention are NOT due to hundreds of years of slow-flow. The glass was manufactured with ripples in place.

Re:Lousy analogy

[WillAdams]

After doing a bit more research, I'm leaning towards agreeing with the myth interpretation above, w/ a slight modification for temperature variations and _incredibly_ _slight_ melting brought on by high temperatures (say it's 105 degrees in the shade, a window is going to warm up somewhat right? Perhaps enough to have a small bit almost sorta kinda begin to melt / flow just a eensy teensy little bit?

William

Re:Lousy analogy

[gumbi west]

This ripple effect is actualy a result of an imperfect process while the glass was being cooled. Glass does flow, just so slow that no glass that is intact could be ovserved to have flowed. here is a summary of an excelent article on the topic (the article is in a journal that does not publish free on line).

How about in terms of elephants...

[Solo-Malee]

Maybe that nice reporter lady who told us all about the weight of clouds in terms of elephants could have a go at dumbing it down for us?

Solid smoke?

[gandy909]

I know it's a different topic, but this reminds me of something I saw a few years back on Discovery channel or the Learning channel. They made what was, or at least looked like, solid smoke. It looked as if someone froze time, whent in a heavily cigarette smoke filled room, and simply cut a cube of it out Completely transparent other that looking like a cube of wispy smoke.
Although I can't recall what they called it or exactly what it was composed of, they went through the process of making it. They also has a sheet of the stuff and a guy stood on one side of it while they used a blowtorch on the other side of it aimed at him. Dissapated the heat instantly, and almost no wieght to it either.
Anyway, my question is, does anyone else here know what I am referring to? I'd like to look into it more.

Re:Solid smoke?

[Jogar the Barbarian]

It's called aerogel.

Re:Solid smoke?

[insensitive_clod]

I believe you are talking about aerogel. Very nifty stuff.

Re:Solid smoke?

[FauxReal]

Sounds like you're describing Aerogel it was mentioned on slashdot a few times, I believe this was the first.

Wow, I wish I had cable TV now.. that musta been a neat show. I just can't see myself paying for TV though.

Re:Solid smoke?

[gandy909]

Geez, I feel stupid now. Google 'solid smoke' and get good links from
here,
here, or
here among a bazillion others.
Technically, the stuff is is called aerogel. Even more amazing, it was invented in the 1930's!

Re:Solid smoke?

[hesiod]

> Wow, I wish I had cable TV now

What you should want is cable access with a choice. I want Discovery channel and I want Comedy Central, but I don't want to pay for 100 other channels I don't want. C'est la vie...

Re:Solid smoke?

[madstork2000]

The stuff is Aerogel, as already reported. It gained a little more publicity recently as the stuff used to capture particles in the comets tail...

Re:Solid smoke?

[Zurk]

get it from :
http://www.aerogel.com/index.htm
$20/square foot blanket.

Re:Solid smoke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like aerogel. A very low density solid which is an excellent heat insolator.

Re:Solid smoke?

[Jeremy Singer]

Its called an "aerogel"

One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

[Anonymous Coward]

One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

Re:One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

[bar-agent]

Aww, I was hoping "one-dimensional" really meant "one-dimensional". Damn.

Helium 3? Pffft.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Helium 4 we're talking about. It is obviously better than Helium 3. Your dad needs to get with the times.

Re:Helium 3? Pffft.

[Wah]

bah, I liked the old interface better.

This new one is too clunky.

Re:Slightly [Now Very] OT

[mr.mack]

forget that! I want a chinese spouting bowl..

http://www.kleinbottle.com/Spouting Bowls.htm

It amazes me that people think of this

[cr@ckwhore]

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.

Re:It amazes me that people think of this

[mikech@rbsgi]

Not really that amazing... Like all "discoveries" this one was likely built on top of knowledge / experiences of earlier work. "Shoulders of giants" and all that. With maple syrup, someone with experience in cane sugar processing likely noticed that maple sap was sweet and decided to apply the same techniques to it.

Re:It amazes me that people think of this

[Anonymous Coward]

I was always under the impression that Native Americans had maple syrup way before anyone came over on a big boat.

Re:It amazes me that people think of this

[Idarubicin]

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.

Actually, maple syrup's a pretty easy one to stumble on by accident. First, you notice that damaged sugar maples release sweet sap if they're damaged around the spring thaw. This might actually be the least likely step to occur spontaneously, but it's not totally ridiculous.

Heck, there's an appreciable quantity of sap flowing in a lot of different tree species in spring, so it might be recognized fairly readily as a general property of certain classes of trees. From there, people could recognize certain trees produce a sap with a more pleasant or sweeter taste than others.

From that point, someone just has to accidentally leave a container of it out overnight to concentrate by evaporation, and you're on the road to maple syrup.

The discovery of maple syrup probably didn't happen all at once, it was likely an iterative process where each step is not too unlikely nor implausible. If at any point a highly unpleasant intermediate product was formed, then maple syrup would have had to wait for modern food chemistry. It's rather like the arguments for and against evolution. Full-blown human beings are tremendously complex and utterly impossible to create from scratch by random interactions of simple molecules--but there is a strong argument that we arose through small changes and interative improvements to simpler organisms.

Frictionless Solid?

[jedi_gras]

So does the mass itself flow or is it the wave propagation within the mass that flows?

If the former, than what happens to this mass under constant acceleration? I would surmise that without friction, there would be no heat buildup thus we could get this thing "flowing" pretty darn fast. If the latter, well, we can accelerate a wave through this matter maybe even faster than the speed of light. But then again, there was already an article on that kind of stuff.

solids and fluids ( liquids and gas)

[dangil]

the main difference is that solids have a cristaline formation, while fluids do not...

thats why people say glass is not a solid, because it doesnt have a cristaline formation..

perhaps this concept is too simple to be right, but I think it can explain why this is a supersolid, and not a superfluid... it still has cristaline formation...

cristaline formation is when all the atoms are aligned, like a perfect 3d matrix (sometimes not so perfect.. ) where each vertex is an atom

but don't listen to me... I dropped out of phisics university after 1 year...

Yup.

[chadjg]

No doubt about it, I'm a moron. Should have been thorough.

The effect on those mirrors was striking. It seems hard to believe that they couldn't build a flatter plate of glass. I'll find out more about this.

Another bit just came to mind. I seem to remember theat some astronomer types are still going back to the old telescopes with lenses that aren't all that large. An article said something about them being able to get information otherwise not available because the same stars had been observed with the same optics for so long. Dang, should have remembered this.

Sorry for taking up space guys. I'll do better.

Re:Yup.

[ZigMonty]

I was uncharacteristically harsh. To be honest, I didn't read the linked articles either. I had already read the first and that's why it was the only one I quoted. Let's face it, we have better things to do than follow every link.

Moses Chan stories

[mph]

When I was an undergrad at Penn State, Moses Chan was one of my favorite professors. In addition to his obvious brilliance, he was a friendly and animated guy.

On the first day of therodynamics, he looked around and noticed that there were no women enrolled in the class. He announced: "I see there are only men here. Good. That means I can swear a lot."

He once assigned a difficult problem set over a holiday weekend. The physics wasn't that hard, but one of the problems required some terrible algebraic manipulation. At the start of the lecture when the assignment was due, some students approached him to ask for more time. Before they could explain the problem, he granted the extension, complaining "I spend my whole fucking weekend on this goddamn fucking algebra!" (He wasn't kidding when he said he'd swear a lot...)

A couple of semesters later, we saw him in the elevator and asked how things were going. He said that a student filed a "fucking complaint" because of his language. He asked us, "Do you think I fucking swear a lot in class?"

Another day, a friend of mine, "A", was wearing a sweatshirt with a football player on it. Moses talked to him after class:
M: You play football?
A: I was a linebacker in high school.
M: You suffer... brain damage?
A: You grade my problem sets... what do you think?

Another time, we were in the basement of the physics building, in a lab for another class. Moses found us, and enlisted our help: The safety inspectors were in the building, and we needed to remove his ping-pong table from the stairwell before they found it.

Finally, a few choice quotes from his lectures:

"You are not truly relaxed until you are dead."

"He was a consummated theorist."

"We call the partition function 'Z' because Boltzmann spoke German."

Helium

[Mark of THE CITY]

Helium...almost never has a charge

On earth, that is. In stars, helium is always ionized, as is everything else!

But what about inertia...

[Wardish]

If you introduce a swirl wouldn't the end result be a layer flowing around the outer edge of the container with an empty center?

Unless you've a constant force (like the container boundary) to hold the atoms in a circular path it seems to me that they will migrate as far in the initial direction they can until the wall of the container forces them to modify their direction.

Mmmmmm Thorazine....

They ought to call it

[A55M0NKEY]

A 'Barelysolid'. Supersolid sounds like it is only vulnerable to Kryptonite or something.

elasticity?

[Amyloid]

sounds like possible elasticity to me...

sure normal elasticity theory doesn't involve quantum mechanics (it's a continuum theory), but maybe those two theories collide here.

I'm imagining this material, the supersolid, but with no external force applied, yet it bends on its own, and possibly recoils, driven by quantum fluctuations.

Surely at some point some argument in favor of keeping the object "crystalline" would keep the fluid together, and give the appearance of being elastic.

maybe someone here would comment on this...

is this supersolid theory bordering on quantum elasticity?

and...

[MoFoQ]

"Jack in the Crack" (Jack in the Box) has had supersolid like milkshakes for years.....hard as hell to use a straw.

O...btw, this is meant to be a funny.

Last Post!

[judicar]

OMG !!!!!!1111111111

Inventions?

[Lord_Dweomer]

So this sounds very interesting, but IANAP (I am not a physicist). So as a non-scientific person, what sorts of cool inventions could we see out of this?

How could it improve current technology?

Are there any bad things that could happen as a result of its use?

What I don't understand is:

[Jeremy Singer]

How can they tell that it is solid? (not a super fluid liquid?) My high school definition of solid is that it maintains its shape. Has that been observed? Did they use Raman scattering or something to probe its structure?

Where is that clue train...

[Genda]

Hey folks...

This is not mysterious. Whenever you take things to extreme conditions... one should expect to see behavior inconsistent with day to day life as we know it.

You put a diamond in an ultra high pressure anvil and jack the pressure up to greater than that found at the center of the earth and you discover, that the diamond is still solid, but it begins to flow... that's the nature of insanely high force on matter.

You create weird states of matter (like a Bose-Eistein condensate), and you can pretty much expect weird behavior. Very counterintutive. Liquids that flow uphill, have weird viscocity, are superconductors (which means electrically and thermally.)

That said, we keep pushing the limits of matter, energy, space, and time... expect to hear weirder and weirder stuff as we proceed... Rod Serling has nothing on what's coming up next!

Maple Syrup

[Bob_Robertson]

I've lived in the North East of the United States, so I have a clue here to share with you.

During winter, ice and wind can break tree branches. This should be obvious, and some of the trees are of a type called "Sugar Maple".

When spring comes, the sap flows up into the trees to supply the growing leaf buds.

Sap, reaching the broken branches, leaks out. Sometimes, actually most years, it's still cold enough to make litteral "sap icecles" hanging from the broken tree branches.

Guess what? That frozen sap tastes great! Bring some in, put it in a pot on the wood stove to warm up. ...and what happenes when it's forgotten? It boils down a bit and becomes thicker. A curious person, with lots of time on their hands due to the snow on the ground, and wa-la. Maple Syrup.

You might as well ask yourself who invented lye-soap. Boil-down water that has leached through wood ash, take the resulting residue and mix it with lard, and wa-la! Soap!

By saying it "[s]eems like a lot of random crap", you under estimate the curiousity of billions of human beings who have lived before you. Minds as fantastic as Einstein, Liebnitz, Von Savant, have happened before, sometimes in the bodies of poor farmers with nothing to do but look at what was going on around them in tree sap, wood ash, and left-over animal fat.

No one told Firestone to mix sulphur with the rubber and fry it, he just tried it one day for the heck of it. And I thank Cromm for such curiosity, for we would all be pounding rocks without it.

Bob-