Posted on 01/26/2017 12:36:51 PM PST by BenLurkin
Producing metallic hydrogen in the laboratory has been a dream of high-pressure researchers ever since 1935, when theorists first predicted its existence3. When squeezed with enough pressure inside an anvil, hydrogen should be able to conduct electricity, the hallmark of a metallic state. And theorists say that the material could have other exotic properties, such as being a superconductor...even at room temperature.
...
Dias and Silvera say that they were able to squeeze their hydrogen gas at greater pressures than anyone else has managed. To do so, they used an anvil that can fit inside a cryostat, enabling them to cool their hydrogen sample to just above absolute zero. They also say they have found a better way to polish the tips of their diamonds, to remove irregularities that could break the gems. They then turned a screw to crank up the pressure to 495 billion pascals (495 GPa), or almost 5 million times higher than atmospheric pressure at sea level.
“Then, suddenly, it becomes a lustry, reflective sample, which you can only believe is a metal,” Silvera says. Seen through a microscope, the sample appeared shiny, and it reflected light in the way metallic hydrogen should do, he says.
...
Other researchers aren't convinced. It’s far from clear that the shiny material the researchers see is actually hydrogen, says geophysicist Alexander Goncharov of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC. Goncharov has criticized the Silvera lab’s methods before. He suggests that the shiny material may be alumina (aluminium oxide), which coats the tips of the diamonds in the anvil, and may behave differently under pressure.
Loubeyre and others think that Silvera and Dias are overestimating the pressure that they reached, by relying on an imprecise calibration between turns of the screw and pressure inside the anvil.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Back to the anvil.
What I want to know is: how diverse was the team that made this discovery?
I know it is considered factual that the core of Jupiter is dense metallic Hydrogen. Never heard that it was made in a laboratory.
Even with theoretical studies being made, hydrogen is pretty hard to get to behave like a metal. The very first of the metals, lithium, behaves the way it does because the electron in its outer shell is loosely enough held that it may be transformed into an electrical current. The electrons in the first electron shell are too tightly held to be moved in an electrical current. Hydrogen has only one shell, lithium has a second shell.
Maybe dilithium crystals really are what we need.
“Maybe dilithium crystals really are what we need.”
These nay saying scientists are all wet. Didn’t they say the same thing about transparent aluminum a number of years ago? Now it’s everywhere! :)
Interesting points.
The Star Trek reference too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.