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Monday, January 7, 2013

Down of absolute zero!


My friend Andrew Jones wrote a great article about the recent publication of going down absolute zero:
"Temperature has long been understood as a measurement of the average energy of a set of atoms, with the absolute zero temperature representing a system in which the particles no longer have any kinetic energy at all, having ceased all movement. For this reason, while we frequently talk about negative temperatures in the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, the idea of a negative temperature on the Kelvin temperature scale was believed to be a nonsensical concept. After all, you can't have less motion than none, can you?
Well, new research may have found a way around that."
Read entire article and papers here.
According with the NewScientist:
Credit: NewScientist
"Negative-temperature systems have the opposite behaviour. Adding energy reduces their disorder. But they are not cold in the conventional sense that heat will flow into them from systems at positive temperatures. In fact, systems with negative absolute temperatures contain more atoms in high-energy states than is possible even at the hottest positive temperatures, so heat should always flow from them to systems above zero kelvin."
and
"This has already been done in experiments in which atomic nuclei were placed in a magnetic field, where they act like tiny bar magnets and line up with the field. The field was then suddenly reversed, leaving the nuclei briefly aligned opposite to the direction in which they would have the lowest energy. While they were in this state they fleetingly behaved in a way consistent with them having negative absolute temperatures, before they too flipped over to line up with the field."
Read entire article here.
It seems a new rise for technology:
"Moving into the sub-absolute zero realm, matter begins to display odd properties. Clouds of atoms drift upwards instead of down, while the atomic matrix’s ability to resist collapsing in on itself echoes the forces causing the universe to expand outwards rather than contracting under the influence of gravity.
The ability to produce a relatively stable substance at several billionths of a Kelvin below absolute zero will allow physicists to better study and understand this curious state, possibly leading to other innovations."
Read entire article here.

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