First 'Atomic Air Force' Observed

SeaDour writes "From the National Institute of Standards and Technology (the people who brought you the atomic clock) and the Unviersity of Colorado at Boulder (location of the world's first Bose-Einstein Condensate and Fermionic Condensate) comes the world's first observation of atoms "flying in formation". Atoms are normally expected to fly around through empty space quite haphazardly, constantly colliding with one another. But thanks to precision laser pulses and extremely cold temperatures, Jun Ye's team was able to correograph strontium atoms into the shape of a cube as they travelled across a vacuum chamber. "This 'really bizarre' behavior is believed to occur with all atoms under similar conditions.""

Comments

Science is Fun

[Please_Chose_Another]

I know some will sat this is worthless but it is this kind of playing around that leads to huge advances in technology

Atomic Cube, eh?

[daeley]

We are the Borg.
Precision laser pulses are obsolete.
You will be assimilated.

Re:Atomic Cube, eh?

[MagicDude]

Cliches are irrelevent.

We seek only the integration of intellegent thought into the collective discussion.

Re:Atomic Cube, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Intelligent. You're safe, apparently.

Re:Atomic Cube, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Borg assimilate life that is at the same or higher level of technological advancement than them.

Probably...

[BigZaphod]

..this air force will all be swallowed by a small dog.

Of course this sort of thing is going on all the time and we are powerless to stop it.

Re:Probably...

[Alsee]

this air force will all be swallowed by a small dog

The small dog swallowed a spider,
the spider which swallowed a flea,
the flea which swallowed a bacteria,
the bacteria which swallowed a virus,
the virus which swallowed a stray strand of DNA,
the stray strand of DNA which swallowed a foreign gene,
the foreign gene which swallowed the airforce,
and so did the small dog swallow the airforce.

-

Re:Probably...

[wikdwarlock]

Only if that small dog doesn't mind getting pulsed with high energy lasers, focused magnetic fields, and liquid helium/hydrogen temperatures. Actually, sound like a plot for the next blockbuster.

Sparky, an ordinary pet beagle, sat watching the experiment from a nearby lab stool. His owner, Fred, was on the verge of something, something great, something that would free humanity from death, disease, and poverty. As the equipment came to life, Sparky the inquisitve beagle sniffed in the direction of the minutely controlled atoms, and, sniffing a bit too close, was caught up in the experiment. *flash of light* As the smoke cleared, Sparky was no longer a normal dog. Instead, he had been given new powers, new abilities, and a new mission in life: to fight crime! Coming this summer, Nano Dog! The tiniest hero the world has ever seen.

Re:Probably...

[2sheds]

"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle."

Just another step towards

[Marxist Hacker 42]

A cashless gift economy based on nanofactories.

I see this all the time

[Photar]

Atoms moving in formation is nothing new.

Atoms usually move in formation. You know when you throw a ball, or drop a hammer on your foot. WTF?

Still no cure for cancer. Still no flying cars.

Us non-physicists call it 'shattering'

[Andy_R]

Solid objects do it all the time. Nothing special to see here as far as I can tell, apart from the very small size of the shard in question.

false hope

[beelobrown]

At first glance of the headline, I thought it was going to be about a self-sustaining nuclear-powered airborne carrier type thing, but then I remembered it's 2004.

So is friction.

[Veramocor]

F = uN

Re:So is friction.

[Alibi]

Technically it's a greek mu (μ in html, slash won't let it go in directly) :P

Honey, I shrunk the kids?

[rickbrodie]

If the normal behaviour of atoms is to whizz about individually, what does this new observation imply for the density of the material? If all the atoms are stacked up in some sort of lattice type structure (though they're not actually connected), then they'd be super-dense, not to mention super-strong right?

Re:Honey, I shrunk the kids?

[Windscion]

We're talking about maybe a few hundred atoms here. Even if we get a few million or billion (10^9), Avogadro's Number is (IIRC) 6x10^23 so the mass involved is negligible. Hence, no building super-materials. The real use is being able to measure gravity with great precision and do other kewl stuff.

New Form of Matter?

[Vagary]

Can someone parse this and tell me: does this qualify as a new form of matter? And if so, doesn't that mean there are an infinite number of forms?

Re:New Form of Matter?

[Mark of THE CITY]

No. Gas atoms cool into liquids or solids, and on the way exist as clusters of small numbers of atoms. What is special here is that the cluster is formed under controlled conditions, not haphazardly.

There were a number of researchers trying to understand the condensation process by a variety of experimental processes. As a graduate student, I was looking for molecular clusters with symmetries that lent themselves to further study.

Subscription needed

[mike3411]

Why is a story posted that is only available to subscribers? I can't read the article.