Posted on 07/20/2011 7:59:33 AM PDT by decimon
A violation of one of the oldest empirical laws of physics has been observed by scientists at the University of Bristol. Their experiments on purple bronze, a metal with unique one-dimensional electronic properties, indicate that it breaks the Wiedemann-Franz Law. This historic discovery is described in a paper published today in Nature Communications. In 1853, two German physicists, Gustav Wiedemann and Rudolf Franz, studied the thermal conductivity (a measure of a system’s ability to transfer heat) of a number of elemental metals and found that the ratio of the thermal to electrical conductivities was approximately the same for different metals at the same temperature.
The origin of this empirical observation did not become clear however until the discovery of the electron and the advent of quantum physics in the early twentieth century. Electrons have a spin and a charge. When they move through a metal they cause an electrical current because of the moving charge. In addition, the moving electrons also carry heat through the metal but now it is via both the charge and the spin. So a moving electron must carry both heat and charge: that is why the ratio does not vary from metal to metal.
For the past 150-plus years, the Wiedemann-Franz law has proved to be remarkably robust, the ratio varying at most by around 50 per cent amongst the thousands of metallic systems studied.
(Excerpt) Read more at bris.ac.uk ...
Thermo couple ping.
I hope it carries a hefty jail sentence and/or fine.
Not much of a law then.
Arrest them.breaking the law is breaking the law. I don’t care if they are physicists.
First she’s on Dancing with the Stars
Then she buys a mansion in AZ
Then she has a NYT best selling book
Now, a University is named after her!
Wow! Bristol Palin is on the move!!!
Phonons and Fermi-levels.
Perhaps this is connected to the nearby thread — “Men who buy sex commit more crimes, study finds”
50% variance? That's barely a suggestion, much less a law.
186,000 miles per second speed limit ... now that's a law.
It only applies to what he says it does.
The really interesting thing here is that the metal is 100,000 more heat conductive than expected. There are serious commercial implications/uses to this.
The technical details for those of us that wanted to know how.
A non-conductive heat sink for power electronics, LEDs, etc.
It has real uses, not just a gee-whiz factor for nerds.
I wonder what was expected?
A lot of spin? Or lack of spin?
If this “law” 150 years old, shouldn’t it be considered “settled science” and thus beyond question?
Sounds interesting. As you point out - IF (big “IF” there) it works out in practice, there could be a lot of applications.
(But the “science” was settled” wasn’t it? “Everybody” agrees on the “scientific consensus” involved, right? Where have we heard that recently?)
Apparently.
Maybe internal combustion engines - get the heat from where you don't want it to where you might want it. Put the waste heat to work.
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