Imagine that. Using a particle accelerator to make Guinness Draught.
Posted on 04/19/2005 2:26:32 PM PDT by neverdem
The unexpected finding could provide insight into the creation of the universe, scientists say.
Researchers smashing gold atoms together to mimic conditions in the first microseconds after the creation of the universe have observed an unexpected new state of matter.
Instead of the thin, fiery gas of quarks and gluons that they expected, they found instead a dense drop of the elementary particles that behaves like a hitherto unseen "perfect fluid."
It is "a truly stunning finding," said Raymond L. Orbach, director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science.
Quarks are the fundamental building blocks of protons, neutrons and other subatomic particles, held together in pairs and triplets by mysterious particles called gluons, whose attractive force is so overwhelming that neither quarks nor gluons have ever been seen separated from one another in nature.
When the universe was created, however, it consisted only of a massive swarm of gluons and quarks, a so-called quark-gluon plasma, which quickly condensed into conventional matter.
Four separate international teams now believe that they have created a small, short-lived quark-gluon plasma whose behavior will provide insights into the moments after the big bang that started everything off.
"We think we are looking at a phenomenon [similar to what happened] in the universe 13 billion years ago when free quarks and gluons … cooled down to the particles that we know today," said Sam Aronson of Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., where the experiments were performed.
Aronson spoke Monday at a news conference at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Florida, where the results were presented.
"The matter that they are seeing is even more interesting … than we thought it would be," said theoretical physicist Berndt Mueller of Duke University. "They have presented a compelling case for the achievement of an...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
ping
Yeah, but does it make your laundry whiter?
I'm sure they will know in 5 years
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
I'm sure they will know in 5 years
That's a long wash cycle.
Chocolate milk is the "Perfect Fluid."
This other stuff is just goop.
Imagine that. Using a particle accelerator to make Guinness Draught.
Chocolate milk is the "Perfect Fluid."
This other stuff is just goop.
om Smasher Yields 'Perfect Fluid'
Remember Mandrake, give them yourself but never your essense.
I believe one Jack Daniels beat them to this.
What we have here is an announcement of new grant applications.
Thank you for that Strangelove moment.
Johnnie Walker Red Label. By 2 miles ahead of JD.
While studying this perfect fluid's properties with all it's mystery dating back billions of years, do ya think that some researcher might be able to tell us who hired Craig Livingstone a mere decade ago?
"Returned South Korean blames alcohol for defection to North Korea"
I wonder if this guy was sampling "the perfect fluid"?
Does this imply that the string theory version predicting only mini-black holes are generated at high energies (instead of exotic particles) is correct?
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