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."

Comments

Technology used

[badmicrophone]

A "Magneto-optical trap".

http://www.npl.co.uk/quantum/projects/project1-1/m ot.html

one of my fav physics tools because it uses lasers and magnets! it's just so science-fictiony!

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Re:Short synopsis for the lazy

[Rei]

Science is full of neat, world-changing phenomina that we can't get to occur in a practical setting (or, at least, to the degree we'd like).

* 90% of the universe is hydrogen. H + H fusion produces crazy amounts of energy. But dang it, those electrons out there have all sorts of zany ways to dissipate the energy that you spend trying to surpass the Coulomb barrier.

* At low temperatures, some gasses behave as superfluids (like in the article). No friction. But darn those temperatures!

* Superconductors are the same, but even more frustrating in ways. Example: we found superconductors... but they only work at extremely cold temperatures. Then we found "high temperature" (i.e., liquid nitrogen-temperature) superconductors... but they're all brittle ceramics, limiting their uses. Another example: superconductors would have near boundless theoretical conduction potential... but, whoops, when you pass a current through a superconductor, it creates a magnetic field which will destroy its superconducting properties. We partly solve this by adding impurities to pin down the field lines, but we still have sadly limited capacity (even if it's much better than, say, copper).

* Carbon nanotubes have ridiculous strengths for their density. SWNTs have been measured up to 60 GPa tensile strength (theoretically much higher is capable), and MWNTs over 100. And yet, nanotube composites don't generally even outperform conventional materials because we can only produce tiny tubes held together weakly by vdw and pi bonds.

I can think of dozens more offhand. Science likes to tantalize you with incredible possibilities that float just outside your reach ;)