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Frictionless Superfluid Found In Neutron Star Core
intellitech writes "NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered the first direct evidence for a superfluid, a bizarre, friction-free state of matter, at the core of a neutron star (abstract). Superfluids created in laboratories on Earth exhibit remarkable properties, such as the ability to climb upward and escape airtight containers. The finding has important implications for understanding nuclear interactions in matter at the highest known densities."
They have their own special definition of the word "found".
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I'm not an astrophysicist, but correlating a 4% drop in temperature over 10 years to the existence of a superfluid core seems like a stretch.
Last time I got close enough to a neutron star to confirm this theory, the tidal forces nearly killed me, despite being in a General Products #2 hull.
B. Shaeffer
Ok, so you have a container that you think is air tight. But something escapes it, so obviously your container needs to be tighter than air tight.
Now, if you can put this stuff in a seamless glass sphere, and it still leaks out, I'll be impressed.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
For all intensive purposes the universe is a perpetual motion machine. Yah enthalpy and all that will eventually slow down everything, but we wont be around to see it.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Isaac Asimov
Actually, it is. Remember, it takes a photon emitted by a fusion reaction reaction at the suns core tens of thousands of years to make its way to the surface of the sun, because it is reabsorbed and re-emitted so often. The fact that Cas A can be of a uniform temperature and that the temperature can change so rapidly is pretty good "direct" evidence for a superfluid. Besides, a neutron star is essentially one giant molecule anyways, since in degenerate matter protons, neutrons and electrons are pretty much in direct contact, without any "atomic" or "molecular" structure.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I believe, what their saying is that, a superfluid can escape a container that air can not. Not that the superfluid can escape an inescapable container.
Are you trying to troll, or what?
It's for all "intents and purposes", and it's entropy that is the ongoing process (enthalpy is removed from the system).
I'm sorry for being pedantic, but we all have our roles to fill.
For all intents and purposes, you don't know what "perpetual" means, either.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Now, if you can put this stuff in a seamless glass sphere, and it still leaks out, I'll be impressed.
Normal helium can leak out of a seamless glass sphere, so I imagine you'd see supercooled helium leaking out as well from the same mechanism. Not that exciting, but gives you an idea of how hard some things are.
Yea except a gram of it will weigh a few million pounds.
"The finding has important implications for understanding nuclear interactions in matter at the highest known densities." So the core of a neutron star is now more dense than a black hole?
Yeah, I happend to find unicorns at the center of that same star. My current theory is that the fluid they discovered is actually unicorn urine.
I'm trying really hard to not make a KY joke out of this.
Prepare to be impressed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z6UJbwxBZI (see the 1min mark) & http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/lhel.html#c3 ~Fus
_____^_-________ Fus Was Here
Sloppy remnants of the Big Bang!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Ah, but entropy is an intensive property, so in a way, the poster was right.
>> . But something escapes it, so obviously your container needs to be tighter than air tight.
Try a congressional sub-committee, nothing valuable ever gets out of that.
Dude, it's astrophysics ... to the layman, it all sounds like it's a stretch.
I'm told the cosmologists are even more vague (with apologies to any cosmologists ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Try a congressional sub-committee, nothing valuable ever gets out of that.
Thats different because nothing of value is ever put in...
I believe, what their saying is that, a superfluid can escape a container that air can not. Not that the superfluid can escape an inescapable container.
So, we should hold off on naming it 'Houdinium'?
Leave a bottle of vegetable oil somewhere (back of an upper cabinet is excellent) for a long time (year or 2) without disturbing it.
When you finally do disturb it, you are likely to find that its exterior is sticky, and that it may be puddling around the base of the container.
Oil can climb, and it can get through seals you thought were tight. All it takes is thermo- and electro-dynamics.
Quantum-fluid frictionlessness not required.
Really? What, it just seeps out through the actual glass? Are the helium atoms small enough to squeeze through the gaps between molecules, or just really sneaky?
I continue to be awed by all of the wacky shit that is apparently everyday physics.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Superfluid helium can leak through containers that normal liquid helium can't.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate for you to call her a bitch, since she fucks everyone but you?
well, if you look at her 9 months later and she's having a baby, that's pretty good corroborative evidence.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
I can't wait for the infomercials about this new superlubricant!
...seems like a stretch.
The gravity gradient will do that to you if you look close enough. ;)
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but at best they can guess that's what it is. It's like looking at a picture of kim kardashian's ass (with clothes on!) and caliming to find sperm in her cooch.
No, it's like taking an infrared picture every day for a fortnight and finding her skin temperature is 0.4 degrees C higher than average. From that you can say with pretty good confidence that *someone's* sperm has been in her cooch in the last three weeks.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Correction, sub-committees are more like a black hole, because no matter how much money and time you throw at them nothing ever comes out, and sub-committees can take an infinite amount of both without trying.
Except what you posted a video to was a cylindrical container with an open top in which you are looking at capillary action/forces draw the liquid up the side walls of the container and then back down the sides to drip off the bottom.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
For all INTENTS and purposes it's not, but since those purposes (if you're looking at supra-galactic time scales) aren't particularly intensive... I guess GP is right. :(
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Yep, pretty much. Practically speaking, it's one of the things that keeps a helium-based Stirling engine from being one of the most efficient methods of solar power production - the stuff leaks out at every opportunity.
So the conclusion is a stretch? Cool, thanks for the info.
Yeah, I realized that later, along with the "fusion reaction reaction". Wish there was a damn "preview" button or something.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Yep, that's how it goes.
:( )
Although I was disappointed to find that the "climbs the walls of the container" thing was actually just in a one-atom-thick layer. (At such scales, surface tension beats gravity, and with no viscosity to hold it in check, the fluid flows up the sides molecule-by-molecule. It looks like it's just dripping through a hole in the container.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Or shes got a yeast infection.
Or she's got a viral infection.
Or she's got a bacterial infection.
Or you took your original reference pictures in the shade and the 'raised temperature' happened because you took the pictures in the Sun.
Or about a billion other reasons why the differences showed up that are more likely since she's a slut and probably pretty good at taking her birth control.
I can make random shit up that is apparently true when you have basically 0 factual information about what you are 'studying'. When you make it all up as you go its pretty easy to make all the pieces fit, you have to be a real idiot for your conclusions to fall apart when you're making up all the supporting evidence as well.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
"Intensive" means "highly concentrated" or "highly focussed", and when I'm reading Slashdot that's exactly what my purposes aren't.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The energy is leaving the star via neutrino emission, which in turn is a result of the neutron superfluid inside the neutron star. That's the important discovery.
This is very interesting physics, because there is no way to produce these conditions in the lab, or anywhere outside a neutron star.
Of course you could just read the abstract and get all this information yourself, but this is Slashdot so knoledge takes a back seat to bad jokes and uninformed opinion.
Why is Snark Required?
Organic Superlube? Oh, it's great stuff, great stuff. You really have to keep an eye on it, though - it'll try and slide away from you the first chance it gets.
T. M. Morgan-Reilly, Morgan Metagenics
Stored properly meaning that it is not stored in proximity to a tiger?
No it wasn't. It was flowing through the glass. The even SAY it in the video. Yes they top was open, but what was being shown was the liquids moving through the glass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I can make random shit up that is apparently true when you have basically 0 factual information about what you are 'studying'. When you make it all up as you go its pretty easy to make all the pieces fit, you have to be a real idiot for your conclusions to fall apart when you're making up all the supporting evidence as well.
Which describes you, if you think this describes the situation in TFA.
The enemies of Democracy are
Sorry about that. I am a chemical engineer, so I tend to think of specific entropy as the only type worth discussing. Of course, generally entropy is an extensive property.
Well of course, that would short-circuit the rock's powers. You have a rock in a bock, and a nearby tiger in a cage, the rock wants to repel the tiger but can't, the force feeds back onto the rock, eventually it becomes just a normal rock.
I've seen more tiger-repelling rocks ruined that way. People think they should keep the rock near a tiger, to keep the rock primed. But it doesn't work that way.
The enemies of Democracy are
"Rock in a bock"? Bock. Bock.
Heh.
I of course meant to say "Rox in a box".
The enemies of Democracy are
You can blame the things you don't understand on anything you want. I guess it's "scientists blame everything on dark matter" this week?
I'm okay not getting any update memos.
The enemies of Democracy are
No, it doesn't. It's at ~0K and once it hits that point the atoms become essentially still, aligning and allowing it to pass through the solid container. As Pratchett says: "Because of Quantum". Whilst that video is a short clip, if you watch the recent BBC Horizon episode - "What is one degree?" (I believe it was that episode). Unfortunately I don't know the quantum theory of superfluids to explain this any further but that is my understanding of it. Atomic alignment allowing one thing to pass another.
For all, um, Intensive Purposes, we knew what you meant.
Blame it on... Enthalpy.
Right. No, your other right. No, the other other right.
I haven't did the coke out nose thing on /. for a while. Thanks!
Blogging because I can...
when the fluid reaches the rim and starts to fall, won't it start being siphoned(siphoned?) out because of gravity and the attraction between the molecules? ... if it is, it will definitely be a sight to behold, a cup refuses to stay full.
Em, did you listen to the video? "The moment the helium turns superfluid it leaks through". It's mostly leaking through the pours bottom, not climbing the sides. The very next segment of the video shows superfluid helium doing that, and it's dripping at a considerably slower rate than the previous demonstration.
Bada boom!
I found a rare gold coin once. unfortunately it was under a man hole cover I couldn't lift.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Besides, a neutron star is essentially one giant molecule anyways, since in degenerate matter protons, neutrons and electrons are pretty much in direct contact, without any "atomic" or "molecular" structure.
Respectfully, this isn't correct. The core of a neutron star is indeed degenerate matter, but it's exclusively neutron degenerate matter, with a complete lack of protons or electrons. Every particle is a neutron, with no space at all in between them. Calling it a giant molecule is not accurate in any interpretation I can think of. I have heard of neutron star cores described as one giant atomic nucleus, which is slightly more accurate (in that it's made of subatomic particles in direct contact with each other), though actual nuclei are held together by nuclear force instead of gravity.
Now, the outer layers of a neutron star are made of electron degenerate matter with a thin surface of highly compressed regular matter. That fact may have been where you got the "protons, neutrons and electrons" part of your post - there are no protons or electrons in the interior, but they are present in the outer layers. Which, while interesting, doesn't really matter in regards to TFA, as they observed evidence of a superfluid core, and the core is nothing but neutrons.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Based on observations of Cassiopeia A, Dany Page and his collaborators pinpoint the critical temperature of the neutron superfluid to half a billion degrees and argue that the protons in neutron-star cores are superconducting.
Hey folks, help me out here. My understanding of "superconduction" deals solely with electron pairs traveling through a special medium. How would protons in a neutron star be "superconducting"? Is that to say that protons move through the neutron star material with zero resistance? And if that's the case, what happened to all the electrons? I thought that the very definition of a neutron star was one in which gravity had caused the collapse of atoms, and that one byproduct of that collapse was that the protons and electrons merged to become neutrons themselves...
???
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Here is the paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.6142
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it's ment to catch people who can't work it out due to spelling and grammatical errors.
From Franklin's,
Democracy is two wolfs and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. [which has some religious connotations]
Liberty is a well armed lamb.
sociopath/anti social personality disorder/ psychopath end of the spectrum are well... self centred with human attachment, manipulative.
Autistic's tend to be very unattached and not people centric at-all, going to the socially awkward but not anti-social Asperger's to more NT
NT (neuro typical) are somewhere in the middle and go with the flow... which would tend towards the narcissistic due to sociopath/anti social personality disorder/ psychopath end of the spectrum.
All run in families in one way or another, so I'd call that some form of racial or religious trait. [religion being a way of life]
but the a bias.
Scitzoids are just plain bonkers, but who could blame them really.
society is an artificial construct, the individual is naturally anti-social.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
"it's ment to catch people who can't work it out due to spelling and grammatical errors."
as in, reliant on consensus of knowledge, not intelligence / wisdom.
A.k.a Grammar Nazi
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
ahh... but this is slashdot. I couldn't fit the real world version in a sig,
but I could encode extra information in the misuses of authority and consensus in relation to understanding.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.