Slashdot Mirror
MIT Physicists Create New Form of Matter
Ninwa writes "According to the MIT news office the folks in their labs have really outdone themselves this time, they've
created a new form of matter. The post states, 'They have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity.' It has been said that this could solve the mysteries in superconductivity."
Hey. Except you are putting a shitload of energy to sustain it yea. So its not perpetual motion just motion of matter at an odd state. If you could sustain it indefinatly then it would work. Haven't you read the laws of thermodynamics??
My UID is prime is yours?
Or when you go REAL high... :-P, but to me that just sounds like plain old bullshit).
We feel temperatures differently, than how they really are. We actually measure some sorth of logarithmic scale (well, with our current theories physics uses the inverse of it
Meaning that if you put 10C extra when it's 0.005C it does much. However, if you add 10C to 1500C it doesn't do shit.
Thus meaning, that if we want to know more, we need to get to the extremes of temerature (just imagine fusion etc). But note too, that -most of the time- there are methods to 'trick' nature. Meaning we might be able to get these same effects on temperatures that are 50 times higher (still very cold) (& note COLD fusion)
(meaning you are right)
What this means is that you can basically expect to see as many interesting phenomena between 1mK and 1K as you would between 1K and 1000K. These experiments were done down at 50nK, so that's a world of difference from even the cryo stuff I do at 10mK.
make world, not war
Bing! You hit my mayor gripe with the blurb; plasma was the first truly new state of matter discovered. Not to take away from the interesting discovery the MIT-ans have made, but it most surely isn't the first new state of matter found.
Byline: to talk about a 'state of matter' I've found is quite illusory. Different configurations and concentrations of atoms/molecules produce different behaviours...lumping them into 'states of matter' just doesn't do reality justice, even though it simplifies things for those who don't delve into that kind of thing (ie non-physicists).
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
The paper.
you shouldn't abbreviate london forces as vdw. or at least type out van der waals. :P [technically ALL dipole interactions are vdw...]
(people can't google for VDW if they don't know what it means....and i have faith that at least ONE reader out there would have wanted to google it)
</chem snob>
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
I guarantee you, in many major Canadian cities you'll still find someone in shorts and a parka at that temperature.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Science likes to tantalize you with incredible possibilities that float just outside your reach ;)
Yes, but it's because of work like this that so many miracles do, in fact, happen.
* Ever stop to consider that the thermal density in recent P4/Athlon CPUs is actually higher than the thermal density of a nuclear power plant?
* Speaking of which, how about those nuclear power plants - 1 lb of radioactive material able to provide power for a city for a year or more...
* Power used to light up lights, like those nifty Compact Florescent bulbs that are so power efficient. Exotic power - a Florescent bulb creates an intense radio signal by blasting electricity at thousands of volts (essentially, a spark several inches long) through a vacuum tube, dusted with dust that floresces (glows) as it converts the radio signal into visible light... Fancy that - they cost me about a buck each, and are 4-5 times as efficient as regular incandescent light bulbs.
* Let's not even get into an obvious one - the Internet. Where are you? I'm in California - but it doesn't matter, does it? You can read this merely seconds after I post it, wherever you happen to be...
* I'm about to go jogging in my new running shoes, created from an exotic foam material that springs unnaturally, preventing injuries to my knees and ankles as I jog - they can take a pounding over and over again, yet their cost is only around $40.
* Its not uncommon for me to run in a Gore-tex suit. Comprising of nylon (itself a miracle material from the early 1900s) fabric covering a Mylar membrane with microscopic holes in it. Mylar is, itself, incredible in its strength-weight ratio, but the microscopic holes allow my sweat to evaporate and keep me dry, even when it's raining or the jacket is wet - the holes allow water vapor through while being far too small for liquid water to go through, effectively blocking it.
While science might appear to tantalize with things out of reach, we only remember them because they are out of reach. When you really consider it, the miracles within our grasp are nothing short of incredible.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
people can't google for VDW if they don't know what it means
Actually, they can. He said held together weakly by vdw...bonds. I googled "vdw", and the 7th result was intermolecular bonding - van der Waals forces, anybody with half a brain (and slashdotters generally aren't too dull) could easily figure out that that is what they want. You don't even have to scroll the page to see it.
Religion is a belief system used for explaining things that we cannot easily explain on our own. Why am I here? What happens after death? Where did the universe come from? Science is a religion in that it is a belief system used for explaining things that we cannot easily explain otherwise. Unfortunatly Science does not (yet) answer all the questions we wish to answer. We accept things in religions (including science) on faith. We may believe that there is evidence of those things. I've never seen God, but then again, I've never seen an electron either.