Scientists create sixth form of matter

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Sabz5150

Sabz5150

FALCON PUNCH!!!
"Yahoo News has a story about scientists creating a sixth form of matter. They are calling their new state of matter a 'fermionic condensate.' Somehow they got potassium atoms to form pairs similar to the 'Cooper pairs' that make superconducting possible. Maybe any quantum physicists around can tell us more about this, but it certainly sounds pretty revolutionary. The scientists are predicting that this will lead to 'room temperature solid' superconductors, which in turn will enable us to have better electricity generators, more efficient electric motors, and (our favorite) cheaper maglev trains."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ience_matter_dc

Fresh from Slashdot to you.
 
Isn't that just a phase transition? Is it really another form of matter?

EDIT: A post on slashdot summed it up way better than I could have:

Frankly, I wish they would stop claiming every phase transition to form 'the n-th state of matter'. There are literally hundreds of phase transitions in nature, especially at low temperatures. If you start calling every sector of the phase diagram 'a New State Of Matter™' on an equal footing with gases, liquids and solids, you can't stop at Bose-Einstein condensates and these fermionic condensates. What about superconducting metals, vortex lattices, liquid crystals, flowing sand, and what have you. All New Forms Of Matter. That is to say, it's completely arbitrary. Sure it's cool what these guys have done, but they deliberately misrepresent their result to make a catchy headline. A scientist has a responsibility not to do that.
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No, it isn't just a phase transition.
Basically they discovered a process through EXTREME cooling and photo/magnetic manipulation to push atoms in a gas togther and force them to act like a superconductor.

A simple phase change would only require bringing it to a certain temperature, pressure and density to change into a different phase.

By using laser light and magnetic fields they moved the (basically unmoving) atoms into an ordered gas or some sort.


The problem is that to cool something to one billionth of a degree above absolute zero requires tremendous amounts of energy, unless you performed it in outer space or somewhere that is extremely cold (the shadow of the moon). And even then it would still be impractible to assume you could ever mass produce enough of a solid superconductor to make it to the consumer market or replace all the electrical wires in the United States.

It certainly is a damn cool discovery, and I hope they figure out a way to induce this process at a higher temperature. Even bringing the operating temperature up to -250 degrees Celcius (24 degrees Kelven or above absolute zero) would reduce the amount of energy required to lower the temperature by 10 fold or more.


And that concludes today's science lesson class.
 
i've always thought of that too for superconductors, they need to figure this shit out within the next 10 years so us young'ns can take advantage of it :)
 
Originally posted by silver@Jan 29 2004, 07:26 PM
i've always thought of that too for superconductors, they need to figure this shit out within the next 10 years so us young'ns can take advantage of it :)
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Yeah I want to see room temperature superconducting wire in my lifetime. :)

I want to hook a multimeter up to a 5 mile spool of wire, one contact on each end, and have it display 0 ohms :)
 
who fuckin' cares?

seriously...how is scientists coming up with some new 'form of matter' (and using millions of tax dollars to do so)gonna benefit anyone?

a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in 1995.
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what the fuck? ive never seen one of those...how the fuck is that gonna impact anyone?

unless it will enlarge my penis and get rid of herpes, it's potentially useless.
 
it could help lead to the next generation of superconductors for use in electricity generation, more efficient trains and countless other applications.
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oh.
 
Originally posted by Celerity@Jan 29 2004, 11:54 PM
Everyone knows the 6th form of Matter is Nougat.
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I thought it was caramel?
 
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