Thursday, June 30, 2005

MIT physicists create new form of matter

No, not Islamic scientists this time, either:

MIT physicists create new form of matter


MIT scientists have brought a supercool end to a heated race among physicists: They have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity. Their work is closely related to the superconductivity of electrons in metals. Observations of superfluids may help solve lingering questions about high-temperature superconductivity, which has widespread applications for magnets, sensors and energy-efficient transport of electricity, said Wolfgang Ketterle, a Nobel laureate who heads the MIT group. Seeing the superfluid gas so clearly is such a dramatic step that Dan Kleppner, director of the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, said, "This is not a smoking gun for superfluidity. This is a cannon.""In superfluids, as well as in superconductors, particles move in lockstep. They form one big quantum-mechanical wave," explained Ketterle. Such a movement allows superconductors to carry electrical currents without resistance. The work is based on the MIT group's earlier creation of Bose-Einstein condensates, a form of matter in which particles condense and act as one big wave. Albert Einstein predicted this phenomenon in 1925. Scientists later realized that Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity are intimately related.

2 Comments:

At June 30, 2005 9:42 PM, Blogger Jude the Obscure said...

Here's Ulf again
sending a message to terrorists - don't kidnap Scandinavians - you don't get to spend the ransom money.

 
At June 30, 2005 10:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good for Ulf! Maybe his actions will awaken some slumbering Swedes. Maybe even the comatose ones too!

 

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