2020-06-14

OMG a 5th state of matter

Recently scientists aboard the International Space Station created Bose-Einsten condensates. You can read the PDF of the paper here.

Why is this important? Well mainly because stuff in space floats. A BEC is just a regular boson (like a photon or meson or an atom of deuterium, for obvious reasons the last one is more useful to us) cooled so close to absolute zero that almost all the bosons are in the lowest quantum energy state and we start seeing quantum mechanical principles in a visible medium. However this requires our collection of bosons to be very very very very cold: any thermal energy starts bumping them up in energy states. By thermal energy I mean heat of course, generated by radiation or convection or...collisions...which tends to happen when a gaseous substance touches the walls. In space, lower gravity means less wall touching (since the floor is a wall), which means our BEC is around to be observed and studied for a lot longer. A lot longer is of course a physics term meaning "about as long as it takes you to snap your fingers"

Bose-Einstein Condensates are often termed "the fifth state of matter" (solid, liquid, gas, plasma, BEC, Fermionic condensate being the 6th) and have been created in a lab since 1995 (plus superfluids, which are still liquids but are in low energy states and a lot of the BEC properties are maintained, and were discovered before WWII). In other words, the fifth state of matter itself is old hat, just now we're making it in space. Which is why some of the headlines make me giggle:

Quantum ‘fifth state of matter’ observed in space for first time! Uh, yeah, we never got around to making it before.
Astronauts on the space station are helping to forge a bizarre 5th state of matter that disappears in seconds on Earth. Actually disappears in milliseconds on Earth. Also bizarre is a strong word.
ISS astronauts create FIFTH STATE OF MATTER in space for first time ever! Again we've been making THE FIFTH STATE OF MATTER for 25 years now, it is neat that we're now making it in space but try to remain calm.
Scientists Have Created 5th State Of Matter That Could Answer Some Of Humanity's Biggest Questions. Right now my biggest question is why you're a quarter century behind on the topic of Bose-Einstein condensates.

Can we get some of these sensational headlines on other ISS experiments?
Scientists create foam bubbles in space for the first time ever!