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Marble and Sand Creates a New State of Matter

Posted by samzenpus on from the mr.fusion dept.

An anonymous reader writes "LiveScience has a story about a surprisingly simple experiment (yes, you can try this at home) at room temperature that yielded a jet of sand that behaves similar to jets created in ultra-dense gas near absolute zero. From the article: 'We're discovering a new type of fluid state that seems to exist in this combination of gas--air in this case--and a dense arrangement of particles.'"

1 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. Its good to see basic science supported again by ElitistWhiner · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I like it when unexpected things happen and science can't explain it. Status quo is upset and knowledge gets a chance to reorder thinking. Now that bit in the experiment where the *jet* behaves in well defined boundaries informs us that there is more than meets the eye! This is the part of Science where it is challenged by its dictum of "observable" facts.

    So how long is the Discipline going to be constrained by the human eye? How much experimental information is lost in the reduction to an observable medium?