Science

Tags:

Three-way battles in the quantum world

When water in a pot is slowly heated to the boil, an exciting duel of energies takes place inside the liquid. On the one hand there is the interaction energy that wants to keep the water molecules together because of their mutual attraction. On the other hand, however, the motional energy, which increases due to heating, tries to separate the molecules. Below the boiling point the interaction energy prevails, but as soon as the motional energy wins the water boils and turns into water vapour. This process is also known as a phase transition. In this scenario the interaction only involves water molecules that are in immediate proximity to one another.

53303.jpg
An artificial quantum world of atoms and light: Atoms (red) spontaneously arrange themselves in a checkerboard pattern as a result of the complex interplay between short- and long-range interactions.

Tags:

Topology explains queer electrical current boost in non-magnetic metal: Scientists reduce resistance in PdCoO2 with magnetic fields

Insights from pure mathematics are lending new insights to material physics, which could aid in development of new devices and sensors. Now an international team of physicists has discovered that applying a magnetic field to a non-magnetic metal made it conduct 70% more electricity, even though basic physics principles would have predicted the opposite.

53306.jpg
Applying a magnetic field to PdCoO2, a non-magnetic metal, made it conduct 70% more electricity, even though basic physics principles would have predicted the opposite.

Tags:

Catalyst could make production of key chemical more eco-friendly

The world has more carbon dioxide than it needs, and a team of Brown University chemists has come up with a potential way to put some of it to good use.

53290.jpg
This is nitrogen-rich graphene festooned with finely tuned copper nanoparticles selectively converts carbon dioxide to ethylene, a key commodity chemical.

Tags:

Quantum effects affect the best superconductor: Quantum effects explain why hydrogen sulphide is a superconductor at record-breaking temperatures

The theoretical results of a piece of international research published in Nature, whose first author is Ion Errea, a researcher at the UPV/EHU and DIPC, suggest that the quantum nature of hydrogen (in other words, the possibility of it behaving like a particle or a wave) considerably affects the structural properties of hydrogen-rich compounds (potential room-temperature superconducting substances). This is in fact the case of the superconductor hydrogen sulphide: a stinking compound that smells of rotten eggs, which when subjected to pressures a million times higher than atmospheric pressure, behaves like a superconductor at the highest temperature ever identified. This new advance in understanding the physics of high-temperature superconductivity could help to drive forward progress in the search for room-temperature superconductors, which could be used in levitating trains or next-generation supercomputers, for example.

53283.jpg
This is a structure with symmetric hydrogen bonds induced by the quantum behavior of the protons, represented by the fluctuating blue spheroids.

Tags:

Exotic quantum effects can govern the chemistry around us

Objects of the quantum world are of a concealed and cold-blooded nature: they usually behave in a quantum manner only when they are significantly cooled and isolated from the environment. Experiments carried out by chemists and physicists from Warsaw have destroyed this simple picture. It turns out that not only does one of the most interesting quantum effects occur at room temperature and higher, but it plays a dominant role in the course of chemical reactions in solutions!

53285_0.jpg
Protons can tunnel in solutions and at temperatures above the boiling point of water, found scientists from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Pictured above: Part of the equipment used in experiments.

Tags:

NASA Study Solves Two Mysteries About Wobbling Earth

earth20160408c.jpg
The relationship between continental water mass and the east-west wobble in Earth's spin axis. Losses of water from Eurasia correspond to eastward swings in the general direction of the spin axis (top), and Eurasian gains push the spin axis westward (bottom).

Tags:

NASA Cargo Headed to Space Station Includes Habitat Prototype, Medical Research

16-043d.png

Tags:

Saturn Spacecraft Not Affected by Hypothetical Planet 9

PIA11141-16_0.jpg
Saturn as seen by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in 2008. Long-term tracking of the spacecraft's position has revealed no unexplained perturbations in Cassini's orbit.

500 282

Tags:

Quantum technologies: from mobile phones to supercomputers

Quantum physics not only explains how matter behaves at the subatomic level, but is also used to create many devices in our everyday lives, from lasers and transistors to GPS and mobile phones. The next wave of innovation could lead to unbreakable encryption and computers that are up to one million times faster. On 6 April, Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) unit organised a workshop to discuss with experts the potential of these new quantum technologies.

Tags:

Fast Radio Burst "Afterglow" Was Actually a Flickering Black Hole

2016-10_0.jpg