Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Create New Form of Matter
soren100 writes "Yahoo News has a story about scientists creating a sixth form of matter. They are calling their new state of matter a 'fermionic condensate.' Somehow they got potassium atoms to form pairs similar to the 'Cooper pairs' that make superconducting possible. Maybe any quantum physicists around can tell us more about this, but it certainly sounds pretty revolutionary. The scientists are predicting that this will lead to 'room temperature solid' superconductors, which in turn will enable us to have better electricity generators, more efficient electric motors, and (our favorite) cheaper maglev trains."
Maybe, but how will you tell the real quantum physicists from the myriad of armchair quantum physicists who think they know what it's all about.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
more efficient electric motors, and (our favorite) cheaper maglev trains.
Maglevs are cool, but the real slashdotter wants to know how it will help build space elevators.
"The new matter form is called a fermionic condensate and it is the sixth known form of matter -- after gases, solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in 1995." Come on people, RTFA already... :)
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
The article seems to highly stress the practical application of this new form of matter. Doesn't this seem too optimistic or unrealistic? If it's a new form of matter, surely there must be properties which even researchers are unsure about. What are the safety and health issues involved in using this in 'practical applications'?
Clinton took it.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
the 21st century's version of the 20th's "i was promised rocket cars!" will be "i was promised maglevs!"
maglevs always seem to be just around the corner... perpetually...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Lets see... ... ...
They cooled potassium gas to a billionth of a degree C above absolute zero or minus 459 degrees F -- which is the point at which matter stops moving.
Step 1. Freeze until cold cold cold (like a regular superconductor)
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Have a room temperature superconductor
Step 4. PROFIT!!!!
Ok, seriously... Whats to say that you can't get any kind of matter to act like superconductors at a low enough temperature?
And while I'm at it:
Imagine a beowulf clust.....
Presentation of this story suggests that this work is a step towards room temp superconductors. While this may be true, I suspect it is no more true of this that any other significant development of our understanding of that wierd stuff we call 'quantum'.
I really dont see superconductors becoming feasable at room temperatures anytime soon (i.e. 100 years) unless we all decide we actually like it when our rooms are well below freezing.
New forms of matter are interesting - but that they are found only at a billionth of a degree above absolute zero is no more interesting to me than the fact that we can build a fridge able to get stuff down to those temperatures in the first place. I'd be scared if we didn't find some spooky stuff going on!
I believe there's a monorail in Springfield, Illinois. It's well documented; I thought everyone knew about it?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
So... quantum whatever... can I touch it? Without massive pain? What's it feel like?
--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?
American Weblog in London
Its the Bose-Einstein condensate - and may I point out what a SHIT name this is for a form of matter.
.... etc... etc.... etc...
When you're naming a star, a hurricane, or a child you know you have a good chance of some more coming along later - so hell - John or Mary will do nicely.
But with forms of matter I think they missed a trick. Plasma is a pretty cool name after all. I would have thought a few minutes spent searching for the phone number for Douglas Adams and a quick "Hey - Doug - can I call you Doug - No? - Okay - Mr Adams - You were joking? - cool - very funny - ANyway - we have a new form of matter - and we can only think up really shit scientificy names for it - any chance of you coming up with some options we can present to the board? - None of your stupid numbers or shit - a proper kick ass name
You can order a maglev from Siemens, Germany, at any time. Provided you have a deep pocket.
Deborah Jin the team leader gives more of an idea of her work in this article. http://physicsweb.org/article/world/15/4/7
I'm not a Quantum Physicist by any stretch, just a Materials Engineer. But it seems to me that the condensates have a small issue about them. They seem to hold an extremely narrow definition of a material.
Considering solid, gases, liquids, and even plasmas, they all have a range of environmental factors within which they can exist and have some level of application/interaction to the rest of the newtonian universe. I'm not disputing that they are able to get all these little bits together, but at a billionth of a fraction above absolute zero? That's going to make for a pretty cold ride on the maglev
If you want the actual paper, and have access to the journal, it's published on the online version of Physics Review Letters Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 040403 (2004)
abstract here for those with access.
Croatian scientist Danijel Djurek discovered superconducting ceramic that works reliably at room temperature. Danijel says that current will flow without resistance through the material, which is a mixture of lead, lead carbonate, and silver oxides. Here is article in today's croatian daily paper (sorry, there is no translation). Old news on you.com.au.
While it's impossible to tell from this shitty article what was actually observed, it's clear that this super-low-temperature experiment has nothing to do with high-Tc superconductivity. At least not more than a million previous experiments; a more likely candidate would have been experiments done long ago on superfluid 3He.
Frankly, I wish they would stop claiming every phase transition to form 'the n-th state of matter'. There are literally hundreds of phase transitions in nature, especially at low temperatures. If you start calling every sector of the phase diagram 'a New State Of Matter (tm)' on an equal footing with gases, liquids and solids, you can't stop at Bose-Einstein condensates and these fermionic condensates. What about superconducting metals, vortex lattices, liquid crystals, flowing sand, and what have you. All New Forms Of Matter. That is to say, it's completely arbitrary. Sure it's cool what these guys have done, but they deliberately misrepresent their result to make a catchy headline. A scientist has a responsibility not to do that.
I think this is possibly a big step towards room temperature superconductivity. The point is that in normal (even high Tc) superconductors, the forces between the cooper pairs are rather weak, hence the need to cool to at least 70K or so to get the effect. In this fermionic stuff, the force is a little stronger (at least, this is claimed in the article). Thus it may be possible to design a material which uses the same principle as the fermionic gas but in the form of a solid material at say 300K (just as high Tc superconductors are essentially solid B-E condensates, more or less).
BTW, I'm a cosmologist, not a condensed matter person, so I could be talking out of my arse.
The world is everything that is the case
Okay, I'm all for more efficient generators and maglev trains, but I'd really like to see transporters, warp drive, photon torpedos or at the very least a good tricorder.
Any chance the *next* form of matter can help here?
Why, by making an observation of course! After that their quantum state collapses to just one state, either a real or an armchair quantum physicist.
The problem is that you'll either be able to read what they wrote, or determine how intelligent the post is -- but by knowing one, the other is forever lost. Quite the quantum quandry!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
It's interesting how all the big ideas of the 1940s and 1950s have come to nothing: no people walking around on the Moon or Mars, no widespread personal jet aircraft, no fusion reactors, nuclear power limited by safety concerns and the availability of cooling water, limited use of superconducting magnets, lasers being used in CD players rather than as enormous weapons. Fifty years later, most research seems to be into making things smaller and smaller, or making tiny quantities of exotic things (as in this case.) Surely the remaining proponents of the Big Ideas should have learned to stay quiet by now?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I've seen lots of posts saying "this has nothing to do with room temperature superconductors, but really cold gasses!" and whatnot.
The point is that the pairing formation of these fermions is potentially related to the Cooper pairing in electrons (also fermions). While it obviously isn't going to lead directly to a high temperature superconductor, the better we understand the mechanism IN GENERAL, the easier it will be for materials scientists and other condensed matter physicists to start figuring out how to get the critical temperature of REGULAR, SOLID superconductors up.
In that regard, this is big news.
Are you BioCurious?
These guys keep talking about superconductors but the fact remains that this is fundamental research with no real applications now or even in the near future.
Oh, I'm sorry -- is this your field? Yes, now I understand. You are entirely qualified to discuss the viabilities of this research for the purposes of application now or down the road, you brilliant slashdotter, you.
Just what makes that "fact?" Surely facts are universal -- so would I be getting a reflection of that if I went to a chemistry Ph.D. friend of mine (who happens to specialize in development of superconductors) and asked about honest prospects regarding applications?
Smacks like "gotta tell them at least about some possible application to keep us funded"-talk.
Smacks of "if it ain't instant gratification it's worthless"-talk to me, actually...
"What's the use in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes?" --Fourth Doctor, "Robot"
Ooh...this sort of comment makes me mad. There's no possible way anyone can know what will come out of any fundamental research tomorrow, a year from now, or ten years from now. Many, many conveniences of modern day life sprang forth from researches into the most arcane of topics.
It especially gets me in this particular case, because we're talking about research that will likely bear as much fruit as the early 1900's physics research that later served as the foundation for the modern transistor.
I shall not be as vainglorious as to assume I can say it better than it's already been said, so let's see what a few of the titans had to say on this...
Hardy is speaking of his contributions in general, of which the search for prime numbers was significant, one of the most abstruse and abstract areas of pure mathematics one could name at the time of the research. Even this, however, in a mere 70 years yielded important practical applications in public key encryption.Bertrand Russell spent much of his time trying to find a definition of "number" in terms of pure logic, having found a flaw in Gottleb Frege's attempt to do the same. This was the purest of pure intellection and Russell himself would have hooted with laughter if you'd asked him about practical applications at the time. He even found himself wondering: "It seemed unworthy of a grown man to spend his time on such trivialities..."
In fact, Russell's work eventually brought forth Principia Mathematica, a key development in the modern study of the foundations of mathematics. Among the fruits of that study have been, so far, nothing less than victory in World War II (at least, victory at lower cost than would otherwise have been possible) and machines like the one on which I type this.
I just previewed this post and read it, and I realized I've used words like "vainglorious" and "intellection". I've clearly been watching too much Dennis Miller.
sevbut have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Research as fundamental as this should be funded, with no regard to practical applications. These scientists shoudn't be forced to think about practical applications, that is the job of other scientists, later in the process.
"Hmmmmm; how are they going to come to a process that can produce an extruded filament that can be bought in Radio Shack, if cooling to such a low temperature is needed in the process?"
Well, the point is the process, or some future decendant of it, will produce materials that will superconduct AFTER it is warmed up to room temperature. That this is only the first step to creating new, heretofore unknown superconductors that will perform to different specs.
As for how it would be economical, which I think your point is: how economical is the process that builds silicon processors? How incredibly, ridiculously persnickity and expensive. But economies of scale and massive investment by both government and private concerns made factories theat could turn out enough chips to change the world.
Superconducting materials at room temperature will change so many things. Motors. Power transmission. Industrial manufacturing. Transportation. No matter how hard it is to make the room temperature superconductors, it would be more expensive NOT to make them. It'll be done.
Are you out of your mind? The only one of those that has the slightest prayer of working is private school.... and even that will only provide an education to those who can afford it.
Argue all you like, there is a fundamental truism in Education. Those who can do, those who can't teach. The reason is simple, teaching doesn't pay shit. The related catch 22, which is that if you pay teachers more you'll attract some decent teachers but a lot of people who are just looking for job security and a nice salary, is also pretty much inescapable. Again, argue all you want, at this stage it's about what you believe about human nature.
So moving on, if the basic problem is that teachers (as a whole, there are of course individual exceptions) are some of the least qualified people in their fields. We are confronted with the problem of how to get good teachers into the classroom while introducing a minimum number of disinterested individuals. Let's examine how the three methods you advocate do that.
Private Schools -- Have the option of paying more, but frequently don't. They do have the advantage of being more or less immune to the completely insane federal regulations (such as No Child Left Behind) and therefore able to operate within the bounds of reality, but will ultimately fail the American People because we need to educate more than just the children of the wealthy. Higher scores? Of course, most standardized test scores can be expressed as a function of socio-economic status
Home schools -- Again, a problem of who can get into it. Most American families require two incomes to survive, and that's not addressing those with only one parent. How can you home school these kids?
Community Schools -- Here you encounter many of the same problems as public schools (in terms of teacher pay and regulations). This isn't solving the problem, it's shifting it off onto a community with fewer resources less able to deal with the it.
So what can we do? Well a big part of the problem is funding. Michigan has boosted test scores through the roof by socializing their education across the state. No longer is the funding of a school tied to the taxes generated locally, rather all those taxes are thrown together and applied to all schools across the state. The result is the application of funds where they are needed the most.
Another part remains the ability to attract good teachers to bad areas. Wealthy school districts with well behaved kids and lots of resources will never have problems attracting teachers. Ask at your local college's education school... most of the applications go to the ritzy 'burbs. So how do you get teachers into the inner city? The rural backwoods areas? You pay them for it of course, and you pay them in the best way possible.... student loans. Granting temporary licensure to BA and BS holders to teach for three years is fairly easy to do in most states (No Child Left Behind will make it all but impossible). Let these young graduates teach the next generation, let them emerge from those disadvantaged schools debt free and able to enter the professional world with solid experiance and confidance. The forgiveness of tens of thousands in debt will draw graduates to these jobs like nothing else and will allow these underfunded schools some of the nations brightest minds, if only for a few years.
What we're doing now doesn't work. You're right, we need real change, but not the kind of change that only benefits the few. Public education must benefit all. Should we fail even a few, we have failed the community as a whole. Education is the silver bullet. Crime? Hunger? Even longevity is beneficially affected by education. We don't need "No Child Left Behind" or school vouchers, we need to actually leave no children behind, and we need to do it be strengthening the public schools.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
"Only one fermion of a given type is allowed to be in a specific quantum state. A quantum state is a discrete level that can be labeled. The labeling gives information about the spatial characteristics (e.g. the orbit) and the spin of the particle. Two electrons can exist in the same quantum orbital, but only if they have different spin states. No two electrons of the same spin can occupy the same orbital state. "
That's why this is interesting.
yeah, I've got a degree in it. But engineering pays better.
Just google for "Pauli Exclusion Principle" and Fermion.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
This will not do! I demand that the scientists come up with a name for this stuff that is more fun. You just can't use this properly in sci-fi films. Observe:
Captain Shamerica: Cease and desist, foul scum!
Grokthor: Never! *rowr*
Captain Shamerica: Then I shall blast you with my fermionic condensate ray!
See? Poor Captain Shamerica now looks like a pussy because he's using some weirdo-thingy to whack the bad guys.
New name! New name! *forms picket line*
Blog,Twitter
This year one of the nobel prizes in physics went to Tony Legget who explained experiments over twenty years ago in which Helium 3, when cooled low enough exhibited superfluidity. In this scenario the Helium 3 which is a fermion pairs up much like low Tc cooper pairing (except in a p-wave state). This allows it to flow without resistance in addition to giving it interesting magnetic properties. What I would like to know is how this experiment is different from the experimental work on Helium 3. It seems that both involve pairing of fermion atoms to form bosons, except that somehow in this example there are charge carriers... Does someone have a reference to the article at the preprint archive (or in a journal)?
I finally get to use my croatian knowledge for something ....
Here we go:
Huge Discovery
Danijel Djurek manufactured a techologically revolutionary material that helps conserve energy.
Croatian physycist discovered a conductor of electicity without resistance. Even though results are verified additional investigation is still needed according to Mladen Prester from the Physics Institute
Conduction of electiricity without loss and vehicles which with their small electrical motors travel thousands of kilometars [without recharching i guess] will soon be an everyday occurance. This revlutionary discovery, a material composed of led, silver, oxygen and water [maybee hydrogen], surounded by [i think] copper, performs as a superconductor, insists the croatian physisist Dr. Danijel Djurek. The global independant labaratory already verified this croatian scientists discovery and have announced a new technological revolution.
Some are skeptical
The quest for superconductivity, transfer of electricity without loss resulting from resistance, lasted 15 years. Massive production of wires and the installation of new materials in various compontens, ie. speakers and electrical motors, should begin in the upcoming months in Croatia and should expand throughout the world afterwards. If it suceeds, a new industrial branch should make a contribution to croatian economy.
The world acknowledges
In order for a scientific discovery to be acknowledged and subsequently published in various journals it has to be verified by independent labaratories whose members are secretely selected by teams of particular journals. Dr. Danijel Djurek's discovery has been given the green light by the independant labaratory. As a result of which an article in The Economist, Scientific American, New Scientist and a scientifict brach of New York Times, about the new superconductive material has been published. This is a landmark discovery for technology and [maybee economy, not sure]. With current techniques, transmition over high power electrical lines, results in a loss of 30% of the manufactured power. An additional 20% is lost at the consumer level. The new material is not only ecologically acceptable and will save electrical energy, time and money - said Dr. D. Djurek. Despite the support of coleagues and scientists from other parts of the word and a despite a worldwide [maybee global] ackowledgment many remain skeptical becuase Djurek's material does not emit a magnetic field. More correcty, Meissner's [something maybee work] which was though to be required in order for a material to be superconductive.
I will continue in next post as it is not relevant to discussion any more but will be there in case you want to read.
Okay, what was the fifth?
Mila Jovovich. Duh.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
These guys keep talking about superconductors but the fact remains that this is fundamental research with no real applications now or even in the near future.
...oh wait...
Wanna talk about pointless research, I heard about these zany scientists that were looking into interactions between electicity and magnetism (like anything good could come of that). I think they were trying to make something called a "Cathode Ray". I mean, what good would that do the general public? Are we going to zap things with this mysterious "Cathode Ray" or something? It sounds like something from a bad sci-fi movie.
These people should be cut from funding... they're just waisting tax payers money. Who ever heard of a Cathode Ray anyway?