[quote]This matter is both a superfluid, which has zero friction and viscosity, and a kind of Bose-Einstein condensate - sometimes described as the fifth state of matter - and it allows light to actually flow around objects and corners.
Regular light behaves like a wave, and sometimes like a particle, always travelling in a straight line. That's why your eyes can't see around corners or objects. But under extreme conditions, light can also act like a liquid, and actually flow around objects.
The scientists sandwiched a 130-nanometre-thick layer of organic molecules between two ultra-reflective mirrors, and blasted it with a 35 femtosecond laser pulse (1 femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second).
[i]"In this way, we can combine the properties of photons - such as their light effective mass and fast velocity - with strong interactions due to the electrons within the molecules,"[/i] says one of the team, Stéphane Kéna-Cohen from École Polytechnique de Montreal in Canada.[/quote]
[url]https://www.sciencealert.com/fifth-state-of-matter-liquid-light[/url]
Call me when I can drink it in a convenient beverage container.
And this substance may lead to the creation of room temperature polariton devices, which apparently, in turn, may apparently lead to room-temperature superconductors. Which, it goes without saying, is pretty cool.
[QUOTE=F.X Clampazzo;52375910]Call me when I can drink it in a convenient beverage container.[/QUOTE]
No idea what it would do to you. It'd probably depend on what [B]kind[/B] of organic molecules form the base of the polariton solution. Though with zero viscosity and zero friction, it would probably have some rather... interesting effects in the gastrointestinal tract. (though in that regard, maybe it could act as a laxative and/or aid in colonic irrigation?)
Also, it does raise the question: if the substance were digested in the G.I tract, would the breakdown of the substance release the light energy locked up in the polaritons? If so, that would be one hell of a party trick.
stealth suits when
Fools, we already did this.
It's called Sunny D.
I bet all the dumbs are people who actually expected liquid light, and not some neat little physics discovery performed at scale too small for the human eye.
The dumbs are probably because of this line
[quote]Regular light behaves like a wave, and sometimes like a particle, always travelling in a straight line. That's why your eyes can't see around corners or objects. But under extreme conditions, light can also act like a liquid, and actually flow around objects.[/quote]
Light bends around corners all the fucking time, it's called diffraction
Then again it could be the way the whole article is written, that line just stuck out to me as particularly stupid
[QUOTE=ironman17;52375920]And this substance may lead to the creation of room temperature polariton devices, which apparently, in turn, may apparently lead to room-temperature superconductors. Which, it goes without saying, is pretty cool.
No idea what it would do to you. It'd probably depend on what [B]kind[/B] of organic molecules form the base of the polariton solution. Though with zero viscosity and zero friction, it would probably have some rather... interesting effects in the gastrointestinal tract.
Also, it does raise the question: if the substance were digested in the G.I tract, would the breakdown of the substance release the light energy locked up in the polaritons? If so, that would be one hell of a party trick.[/QUOTE]
[IMG]http://s3cf.recapguide.com/img/tv/111/7x1/Futurama-Season-7-Episode-1-9-c972.jpg[/IMG]
Who knows what else we can achieve like....
Light salad dressing
Light summer clothing
Light hearted
It only behaves like this weird freaky pseudo-state because of the environment it's in. You will never be able to "pour it out" into a glass - it needs to be in their fancy lattice of nano whatevers, once it reaches the edge it probably just "shines out" as regular light.
[QUOTE=ZCaliber;52376683]Who knows what else we can achieve like....
Light salad dressing
Light summer clothing
Light hearted[/QUOTE]
Light blue
Lighter fluid
[editline]19th June 2017[/editline]
Wait
[QUOTE=Lizzrd;52377378]Lighter fluid
[editline]19th June 2017[/editline]
Wait[/QUOTE]
Wait for it...
...
[i]Lightest fluid[/i]
I'm already sick of the shampoo adverts that have Light-Activating-Technology (TM), I don't want to give them more fuel for terrible adverts.
[QUOTE=Helix Snake;52376312]The dumbs are probably because of this line
Light bends around corners all the fucking time, it's called diffraction
Then again it could be the way the whole article is written, that line just stuck out to me as particularly stupid[/QUOTE]
It's rare to have the writer of articles like this actually possess some modicum of elementary particle physics.
They usually interview a researcher who gives an extremely simplified version, which gets further simplified by the article editors.
zero friction you say? better not drop it on the ground
Either way, I'm interested to see where this goes. And if it gets any easier to manufacture (and isn't toxic to humans), would it be available as a commercial commodity?
If it does, the substance would need some sort of quasi-mythical name for itself. Something like ichor or "the juice" or... [B]aqualux?[/B]
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