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Related: About this forumExotic, fifth state of matter created on the space station
By Charles Q. Choi - Live Science Contributor an hour ago
The velocity-distribution data for gaseous rubidium atoms which
confirmed the discovery of the BoseEinstein condensate in 1995.
(Image: © NIST/JILA/CU-Boulder)
Scientists have generated an exotic form of matter in the unique microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station and are using it to explore the quantum world, a new study finds.
There are four states of matter common in everyday life gases, liquids, solids, and plasmas. However, there is also a fifth state of matter Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), which scientists first created in the lab 25 years ago. When a group of atoms is cooled to near absolute zero, the atoms begin to clump together, behaving as if they were one big "super-atom."
Bose-Einstein condensates straddle the boundary between the everyday world, governed by classical physics, and the microscopic world, which follows the rules of quantum mechanics. In the world of quantum mechanics, a particle can behave as if it were spinning in two opposite directions at the same time, or as if it existed in two or more locations simultaneously. Because they follow some of these quantum behaviors, Bose-Einstein condensates may offer scientists key clues into the workings of quantum mechanics, potentially helping to solve mysteries such as how to create a "theory of everything" that could explain the workings of the cosmos from the smallest to largest scales.
Scientists now routinely create Bose-Einstein condensates in hundreds of labs across the world. However, one limitation that stands in the way of this research is gravity. These "super-atoms" are extraordinarily fragile and the setups used to create them are incredibly delicate, so the pull of gravity felt on Earth can disrupt both, making it challenging to learn much about them.
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soothsayer
(38,601 posts)If they dont accidentally make a new Big Bang
Firestorm49
(4,002 posts)Most of it is beyond me, but Im always fascinated reading about it.