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MIT Team Creates Ultracold Molecules

Posted by Soulskill on from the promises-not-to-give-them-to-supervillains dept.

jan_jes writes: Physicists at MIT have successfully cooled molecules in a gas of sodium potassium (NaK) to a temperature of 500 nanokelvins. The researchers found that the ultracold molecules were relatively long-lived and stable, resisting reactive collisions with other molecules (abstract). The molecules also exhibited very strong dipole moments — strong imbalances in electric charge within molecules that mediate magnet-like forces between molecules over large distances. According to professor Martin Zwierlein, "We are very close to the temperature at which quantum mechanics plays a big role in the motion of molecules. So these molecules would no longer run around like billiard balls, but move as quantum mechanical matter waves. And with ultracold molecules, you can get a huge variety of different states of matter, like superfluid crystals, which are crystalline, yet feel no friction, which is totally bizarre. This has not been observed so far, but predicted. We might not be far from seeing these effects, so we’re all excited."

17 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Old news.. by wbr1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    There are about 10^27 ultra-cold molecules in my ex-wife.

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    Silence is a state of mime.
    1. Re:Old news.. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1, Funny

      Maybe if your penis wasn't 10^-27 inches long.

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      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    2. Re:Old news.. by Omnipotent999 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Isn't that smaller than Plank's Constant? This penis bends spacetime. What can your penis do?

  2. 500 nanokelvin gas? by Nutria · · Score: 1

    Why didn't the matter turn into the solid phase? (Not I did not RTFA.)

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    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    1. Re:500 nanokelvin gas? by Megane · · Score: 4, Funny

      To get to the other side?

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      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    2. Re:500 nanokelvin gas? by sberge · · Score: 1

      Even if that might have been energetically possible, the molecules probably lack the activation energy that is required to perform the phase change.

  3. What can Ice Guy do now? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    Oh great. More science for comic book writers to misunderstand.

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    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    1. Re:What can Ice Guy do now? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Maybe the comic book writers understood just fine, and science is only just catching up.

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      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. Three months from now, the Chinese will announce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    450 nK, thus launching another Cold War

  5. How do you cool something that cold? by rossdee · · Score: 1

    How do you cool something that cold?

    No, I didn't RTFA, this is /. after all

    1. Re:How do you cool something that cold? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Funny

      >> How do you cool something that cold?

      (air quotes) LAY-ZERZ (air quotes)

    2. Re:How do you cool something that cold? by Deadstick · · Score: 2

      Surprisingly, by shining a laser into it, thanks to the Doppler effect. It's how the Bose-Einstein Condensate was demonstrated at the U of Colorado in 1995, for a Nobel.

    3. Re:How do you cool something that cold? by WoOS · · Score: 3

      The Doppler effect only comes in to explain how one can get atoms to actually slow down (thus cool down) when absorbing laser light while vibrating back and forth (so the absorption could hinder them or speed them up). The main mechanism is the absorption of photons and respective transfer of momentum. Georgia state university has a very nice explanation except that they are loosing me in the last but one paragraph when it really gets interesting.

  6. Re:Three months from now, the Chinese will announc by Megane · · Score: 1

    Thankfully, my mouth was empty when I read that. Caaaaaaarlos!

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    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  7. Duff by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    "UltraCold! So cold, you can't even taste it! Oh, yeah!!"

  8. Quantum mechanics by Omnipotent999 · · Score: 1

    In case if nobody noticed, quantum mechanics is really hot right now. Who wants to be in a quantum mechanics lab? If you work for CERN, please do not convert my world into strange matter. We still do not have some of those awesome weapons from Half-Life to destroy all of the "aliens". But, as Scientologists have said, "we are the aliens". I hope they do not push button char 9 and fire when they see me in a corridor.

  9. A Sodium and Potassium Molecule? by lcreech · · Score: 1

    What does it take to make those pair join chemically?