Slashdot Mirror
World's Only Sample of Metallic Hydrogen Has Been Lost (ibtimes.co.uk)
New submitter drunkdrone quotes a report from International Business Times: A piece of rare meta poised to revolutionize modern technology and take humans into deep space has been lost in a laboratory mishap. The first and only sample of metallic hydrogen ever created on earth was the rarest material on the planet when it was developed by Harvard scientists in January this year, and had been dubbed "the holy grail of high pressure physics." The metal was created by subjecting liquid hydrogen to pressures greater that those at the center of the Earth. At this point, the molecular hydrogen breaks down and becomes an atomic solid. Scientists theorized that metallic hydrogen -- when used as a superconductor -- could have a transformative effect on modern electronics and revolutionize medicine, energy and transportation, as well as herald in a new age of consumer gadgets. Sadly, an attempt to study the properties of metallic hydrogen appears to have ended in catastrophe after one of the two diamonds being used like a vice to hold the tiny sample was obliterated. The metal was being held between two diamonds at a pressure of around 71.7 million pounds per square inch -- more than a third greater than at the Earth's core. According to The Independent, one of these diamonds shattered while the sample was being measured with a laser, and the metal was lost in the process.
Hydrogen was not lost. It just sublimated.
No chance in hell we will use metallic hydrogen due to pressures required.
As I recall the biggest problem they had in making the stuff in the first place was constantly shattering the diamonds when they tried to shine light through them. Also, the breathless talk of this revolutionizing every industry under the sun is tremendously overblown. Right now these are laboratory curiosities, they may very well amount to nothing.
I read the internet for the articles.
If they're unable to make more metallic hydrogen, then we'd never be able to use it to transform modern electronics. So clearly they can just make more of the stuff. I'm a bit confused why the experiment wasn't within an enclosed chamber and why you couldn't wave a magnet around in there and then scan every nano-meter to find the sample.
Perhaps if I read the article I'd understand more. Perhaps not.
Nope, meta is not rare any more.
That you know about. Pretty sure I saw some of that junk in the shed.
One job
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_...
As it turns out I have a backup sample, because you have to keep it at incredibly high pressure I keep it in the much more reliably pressurized environment of a dorm room with two Chemical Engineering majors.
Indeed because of the pressures involved I had to add some padding around the sample to prevent the rare metal from being crushed.
You can come collect it whenever, except of course when there's a sock on the door handle (P.S. there is never a sock on the door handle).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I helped find a lost contact lens once, so I know what this is like. As long everyone stops what they are doing and helps to look for it, someone will eventually find it. The key is to not step anywhere without first scanning the area very carefully.
Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnsizkVjGm8
Did they look on the floor nearby? Did they look in the couch? How about near where they put their keys?
They made it so... either they can make it again, or they can't because it wasn't real.
Ok, let's all relax, it's not like they lost vibranium.
My labmate Geoff is a cutup who tries to make people laugh at inappropriate times. Unfortunately, he succeeded and I managed to get one of the diamonds pretty good. So it was my bad, but it was really *his* bad.
What a gas!
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Oops!
Use CCC perfect diamonds or cubic zirconia?
What I found most interesting about the article is that the guy they were talking to was actually considering that it might still be stable in solid form (and even stuck in the equipment) although also stated it might have just evaporated away. However, he also admitted that some think that they didn't even succeed and were actually getting readings off some aluminium used in the experiment. He says they'll just have to repeat the experiment to prove their case.
Let me get this straight. They are simultaneously concerned about losing their one and only tiny sample, but had intended to study its potential use in mass produced gadgets and other things, suggesting that they'd be able to pump out whatever quantity they needed. So why worry about losing the sample? Either it's hard to make and studying its use is pointless or worrying about losing it is crying over spilled milk.
Also if it took that amount of constant crushing force to keep it from sublimating... do we really want that in a handheld device? And could such a crusher even fit?
The discoverers said that the material might be metastable - meaning it might be stable (for some period of time) at lower pressures and higher temperatures. Diamond anvil cells shatter all the time, its part of the price of admission. I don't know how much the laser heated the sample, but whatever the temperature was, it was too high for the (claimed to be) metallic hydrogen to remain, suggesting it won't be useful in normal industrial/commercial contexts. Note that diamond is quite useful but it, too, is only metastable at room temperature and pressure.
But do they mean lost as in "it fell on the floor or something and is so small no one can find it?" or lost as in "it was metallic hydrogen but during the mishap it became something other than metallic hydrogen?"
In either case, why don't they just repeat the process and create more?
This is supposed to "revolutionize modern technology" and yet we can't even create a second sample of this? Remind me again, how this is going to "revolutionize modern technology" ?
How convenient. When they go to test the substance... oops... it's gone!
I wonder if they ever actually had it.
No problem, just bust into the Roswell stash. The Zorkians carried plenty with them.
Table-ized A.I.
I was always told on TV that "Diamonds are forever"
Apparently it was a lie.
Seriously .. scientist working at the extreme limits are criticised by talentless keyboard jockeys because of equpitment failure. Click bait shit at it's most disgusting. These men and women doing this work should be praised and admired not mocked by morons.
BoRegardless isn't OP's real name, and hell does not exist.
Have I been pedantic enough?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
They've discovered a new way to create powdered diamond. Quote from the lead researcher:
“I’ve never seen a diamond shatter like that. It was so powdered on the surface, it looked like baking soda or something like that.”
It will help refine theories of material science, and advance our models of gas giants. But for the average person on Earth, metallic hydrogen is useless.
They made it once. They can make it again. Not easy, but it should be easier than the first time, when they weren't even sure it could be made!
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
To do all that, they're probably going to need a lot more metallic hydrogen than was lost in the accident. So I'd suggest the scientists concentrate upon making more metallic hydrogen.
.
. iow, don't cry over sublimated hydrogen.
It sucks that this was lost, because it's cool research.
Despite that, how goddamn stupid do you have to be to think this is a big setback for technology? You have to press it between two diamonds harder than they can stand it just to force it to continue existing. The consumer technology that might've fallen out of this will arrive in 2455 instead of 2450. Oh no.
I would tell you about what happened the last time I dropped some metallic hydrogen, but neither I nor anyone else has ever dropped the stuff. Therefore nobody really knows what happens when you drop it. This sample was too small to track as the diamond shattered.
They think it probably turned to gas (sublimated), but it may have remained solid and might be under the lab bench right now. Or maybe some other, unexpected thing happened - maybe it reacted with oxygen in the air to form water. Nobody knows until the try it again and watch closely.
Does that mean it wasn't meta-stable then?
The new era of physics: reality show physics. Follow the hopes and dreams of your favourite physics stars with our live Labcam[tm]. Blew up the only dilithium crystal in the known universe? Calm down everybody, we will crowd-fund a new one, this is what the Labcam[tm] is for. I trust this is not a "dog ate my homework" situation.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
They can make more, after all! it only takes more of someones else s money ;)
Is that safe and sound? Scotty is going to need that in San Francisco sometime soon.
then they can make it again, otherwise it is a bullshit story or they are chasing after a ghost that isnt there
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Putin sent agents in to steal it. By now it must be in Russia somewhere. Damn you Russia, DAMN YOU!!!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
> a pressure of around 71.7 million pounds per square inch
How many firkin-force per square furlong is that?
My comment on the first story about the metallic hydrogen. https://slashdot.org/comments....
Glad to be proven right. And so quickly.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
fake news.
Can't prove your paper? No surprise. That is "modern" science. The elders call it conjecture, but don't let us old folk get in the way of "progress".
They created a minuscule amount. That was all. It is not even clear that it was metallic hydrogen - other experts in the file remain publicly very skeptical. Quite frankly, if I were feeling mischievous, I would conclude that the researches "misplaced" the sample to make sure that nobody could verify that it was not, after all, metallic hydrogen.
https://www.bing.com/search?q="doctor+to+the+daughter
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/f...
...of the time when Glenn Seaborg had the only sample of Plutoniium in the world in his pocket while traveling to another lab. If his pocket had been picked or he'd been run over in traffic, things could have turned out quite differently..
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Kind of like those expanding T-Shirts.. or Ant Man.. it grew and grew and grew
Except reporters who do real work can insert stories deliberately trying to deceive, frighten or mislead with varying degrees of fiction in with their valid work.
Only problem is that there are no such people, or any such place. Then of course you run into the problem of stories that falsely report that a story is fake. It's a real hall of mirrors
Except reporters who do real work can insert stories deliberately trying to deceive, frighten or mislead with varying degrees of fiction in with their valid work.
Citation please. Any such reporter would destroy their career pretty quickly.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
..set the damn laser to stun!! Not kill dammit!!
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
The safe bet is to assume they all do this to varying degrees and to demand proof they are not. But unless the reporters who slurred PewDiePie are fake reporters or their careers are destroyed, there you go.
Only problem is that there are no such people, or any such place. Then of course you run into the problem of stories that falsely report that a story is fake. It's a real hall of mirrors
I see what you're trying to do. You claim there's no way to trust any source of any information, so we are ripe for influence by whoever connects with our base instincts of fear, anger, and survival.
Journalism isn't perfect, but nevertheless it's essential to the proper functioning of a democracy.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Playlist: Why is PewDiePie Your Enemy? https://www.youtube.com/playli...
"Whooopth!" - Daffy Duck
i thought they misplaced it, like car keys
Even if not stable, would it theoretically be possible to maintain "pressure" in some other way such as encasing in a nanostructure that perhaps has an innate pressure? Maybe you only need nanowires not a macro-sized chunk of it.
It is already classified because it can be used in Military Tech.
It was not really lost. Just rephrase it, research is top secret and not in public domain.
Don't even get me started on democracy. People just need to figure out which way others are trying to manipulating them and why and just make the best of a lousy situation in the lousy universe in which they live.
It is so important to protect the water. It's a valuable resource. Software has been developed for water! Try it FREE! www.ModernDayMystic.com
When your own body is a perpetual source of pain and let down, anything involving large numbers of people you aren't going to ever meet or have anything much to do anything with really isn't going to change a whole lot.
well find the damn thing then!
At least it didn't open a portal to Dimension 67e24 and bring destructive HydroMech aliens to earth!
Are we sure the lab tech running the laser doesn't have super powers, though?
Using the diamonds and lasers looks complicated and unreliable when they could just ask Chuck Norris to grab the hydrogen and give it a squeeze.
Scientists don't even know for sure they've made hydrogen metal, have no idea what its properties are, can only create a microscopic amount and can only hold it in a stable state using a diamond anvil cell at extreme pressures. So how does that herald a new age in consumer gadgets?
I believe metallic hydrogen should be ferromagnetic... maybe they can find it with a small magnet.
MSMBC ginning up fake Tea Party is racist story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Katie Couric documentary deceptively edits gun supporters to make them appeared stumped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
CNN "shorthanded" call for taking black riots to suburbs as call for peace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
NBC edits call to make Zimmerman look racist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The New York Times and the narrative:
I seriously doubt this was anywhere near the rarest material on the planet. I'm quite sure antimatter still holds that title. They make that a positron at a time, and it doesn't have a very long shelf life.
What else can we do when we have the fakest president in office in history?
another thing that works sometimes is to get a bright light like a desk lamp or bright flashlight and shine it very low across the floor parallel to the floor.
anything on the floor will be easier to see with the side lighting and you can see a contact lens on a carpet a lot easier.
Pink.......Damn.....that was the last 0402 6.8K resistor......good luck in the carpet with that one......
Indeed, which is why it's too bad journalistic integrity is all but dead (at least in the US). 90% of all the media Americans consumed is owned by 6 conglomerates. The partisan hacks that work for them have to follow guidelines on how to report. We are getting news crafted by billionaires, for billionaires.
CNN gave the presidential debate questions to Clinton ahead of time and reporters were running their stories by the DNC before publishing. Complete and total corruption. I have no doubt that conservative new sources are similarly corrupt.
... their research is not reproducible and therefore useless.
A piece of rare meta poised to revolutionize modern technology and take humans into deep space has been lost in a laboratory mishap.
What kind of rare meta was it? Meta internet memes? Slashdot Meta-moderation? I just hope it wasn't the meta of leaving comments on Slashdot about the poor editing of content on Slashdot, or this post might disappear in a puff of logic!
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Don't link to pages that blocks adblocker
Who'd a thunk it.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
They should sue De Beers.
Chris Mesterharm
Bernie? Is that you?
"- people who are deliberately trying to deceive,"
And before you argue, watch those nudniks tweet. You'd swear these people were educated in the third world.
If they can't replicate it, then was it ever really true?
I mean I'm really quite sure that metallic Hydrogen exists in Jupiter's core and likely other places in the cosmos, and that creating it was truly a feat of science/engineering.
However, if you can't replicate it then maybe you never actually had it the first time?
The Digital Sorceress
Try it sometime. Catch a bumblebee, bring him indoors and let him fly around in the evening. When you turn the room lights off he'll fall to the ground. When you turn them on he'll start flying again.
this experiment happening in the Black Mesa facility? Maybe right as Gordon Freeman arrives?
da fuq do I can.
MSMBC ginning up fake Tea Party is racist story:
Correct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The only 2 ways you could hold it would be a cube shaped which means: if you are lucky enough to get it square, you need 6 clamps. Or if it is a sphere then you need 2 hollow halves. Then comes the question if it is being held down that way, how do you see it? How can you measure it's resistance? How can it hold together by itself? If it needs that kind of pressure, it's similar to bringing up a deep sea fish and trying to study it at atmospheric pressure.. it just comes apart. If it takes that kind of pressure to hold it together, why would it not give a big explosion as it destructs?? Is this someone pulling a prank on us??
Re: Fake News okay they lost a sample nobody keeps logbooks? not reproducible ?
It's time to make some more.
They should try one of those metal detectors that you see advertised in comic books. I understand those things always find valuable metal objects.