New "Nearly Perfect" Liquid Form Of Matter Discovered

[KingFish]

Detector groups at the Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered a new state of matter that is hot and dense and appears to be a "nearly perfect" liquid.

The new state of matter was created by colliding gold ions using the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and is believed to have existed a few microseconds after the birth of the universe.

Researchers were surprised by the liquid qualities of the matter, as they had been expecting it to behave more like a gas. This new state of matter was discovered as researchers used observations to test theoretical predictions for quark-gluon plasma. A "perfect" liquid in this usage is defined as a perfect fluid ("those with extremely low viscosity and the ability to reach thermal equilibrium very rapidly due to the high degree of interaction among the particles") that "can be explained by equations of hydrodynamics."

Another exciting discovery for physicists is "the emerging connection between the collider's results and calculations using the methods of string theory." Some of the highly complex math used in string theory calculations are being used to "predict the viscosity of the liquid being created at RHIC and to explain some of the other surprising findings."
Source: GEEK.com (http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Mar/gee20050419030095.htm)

[RWB]

relativistiUHHH?!

Guess I am no geek, but damn this sounds interesting!

[redchief]

I've been told the perfect liquid involve hops.
but Jack Daniels begs to differ

[primesuspect]

Yes, yes, this is all fine and well, but WILL IT HELP MAKE THE LIGHTSABER A REALITY?

Come on people, lets not lose focus here!

[mmonnin]

ability to reach thermal equilibrium very rapidly

This would be some awesome water cooling.

[RADA]

This would be some awesome water cooling.


Nice thought mmonnin, but I think they're talking about temps a little higher than anything you'd want in your computer ;D ;D

From article:

Another astonishing feat located in the press release is the fact that researchers have achieved temperatures of 150,000 times hotter than the center of the sun. If you consider the heat generated by our sun and the distance those energy waves must travel to give us a sunburn, it's almost impossible to imagine heat that is 150,000 times hotter than that.

[primesuspect]

I never understood how they make things that are so hot, and not have them melt anything that could possibly contain it.....

[RADA]

I never understood how they make things that are so hot, and not have them melt anything that could possibly contain it.....

You're absolutely right it would melt anything it touched. But fortunately, it only achives those phenominal temps for micro-fractions of a second. I'm not sure they could contain temps like that for extended amounts of time.

BTW - They use a high intesity magnetic field to "hold" the matter in the center of the chamber. Real-world Star Trek stuff here. The gold atoms they use to start the experiment never actually touch the chamber walls.

[QCH]

You're absolutely right it would melt anything it touched. But fortunately, it only achives those phenominal temps for micro-fractions of a second. I'm not sure they could contain temps like that for extended amounts of time.

BTW - They use a high intesity magnetic field to "hold" the matter in the center of the chamber. Real-world Star Trek stuff here. The gold atoms they use to start the experiment never actually touch the chamber walls.


Right on RADA.... Magnetic fields contains the heat. We have some experiments here that you cannot enter the building due to possible interactions with the magnetic fields. MASSIVE fields...