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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.
One job
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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.
Also, the breathless talk of this revolutionizing every industry under the sun is tremendously overblown.
Was definitely going to be useful to every industry at the center of the Sun.
Until they hit the Pentium division bug, which has caused the massive recent bumblebee die-off
Is that safe and sound? Scotty is going to need that in San Francisco sometime soon.
Don't divide, Intel Inside.
Chocolate...because "shit coloured" didn't track well at DeBeers advertising session groups...
Q.E.D.