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Weird 'Nuclear Pasta' Could Be The Strongest Material in The Universe
A really weird form of matter found in ultradense objects such as neutron stars is looking like a good candidate for the strongest material in the Universe. According to new calculations, it clocks in at a massive 10 billion times stronger than steel.
"This is a crazy-big figure," physicist Charles Horowitz of Indiana University Bloomington told Science News, "but the material is also very, very dense, so that helps make it stronger."
[...] This incredibly high density does something strange to the nuclei of the atoms in the star. As you move closer and closer in towards the centre, the density increases, squishing and squeezing together the nuclei until they deform and fuse together.
The resulting nuclear structures are thought to resemble pasta - hence the name - forming just inside the star's crust. Some structures are flattened into sheets like lasagna, some are bucatini tubes, some are spaghetti-like strands and others are gnocchi-esque clumps. Their density is immense, over 100 trillion times that of water.
In astrophysics and nuclear physics, nuclear pasta is a type of degenerate matter found within the crusts of neutron stars. Between the surface of a neutron star and the quark–gluon plasma at the core, at matter densities of 1014 g/cm3, nuclear attraction and Coulomb repulsion forces are of similar magnitude. The competition between the forces allows for the formation of a variety of complex structures assembled from neutrons and protons. Astrophysicists call these types of structures nuclear pasta because the geometry of the structures resembles various types of pasta.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @07:53AM (5 children)
so what happened is that scientists simulated a very exotic form of matter.
this is good because they can make predictions about various stuff, and maybe one day we'll be able to check those predictions.
in turn, if it turns out the predictions are correct, it means we understand the equations correctly (we know what to keep and what to throw out when we do the simulations).
in turn, this has currently unpredictable consequences throughout mathematics and physics, because approximation schemes are confirmed etc --- most likely nothing groundbreaking, but possibly leading to more efficient simulations in other problems as well.
in any case, we now understand the universe a little better.
but the authors of the work need citations in order to get future funding/jobs.
therefore they struggle to find something revealed by their work that is at the same time new and extreme in some sense (because, unfortunately, there's nothing paradigm-shifting or with significant practical applications), such that their work will stand out in some way (therefore earning the right to be published in a highranking journal, and being much more visible, therefore getting more citations).
as a physicist myself, I read the title and my first instinct was to start berating the idiotic authors. it's obvious that this material is very "strong". but this material will never interact with anything but itself, or a quark-gluon plasma. it's not like anyone will ever be able to use it for anything. the statement is meaningless.
I may as well say that bottles made from solid helium will never contaminate their contents with dangerous chemicals, unlike plastic bottles.
I hate the "get cited or perish" state of affairs that we're in.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 19 2018, @08:40AM (4 children)
First, is (a state of) matter not a material. In the sense you can't take a small piece of it and do stuff with it - there's nothing to keep that small piece stable in that state.
Second... yeah, nah... it will interact with you pretty strong if you, a being kept together by chemical forces, get close enough to that monster kept together by strong nuclear forces and a gravity only a smidge lower than the one of a blackhole. Of course, during that atto-second interaction, the nuclei of all atoms that make you up will be happy to "dissolve and season" that pasta.
Getting close enough for you to touch it will kill you in the process many times over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 19 2018, @11:44AM (3 children)
Sounds like we've already found an application: nuclear pasta bomb.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 19 2018, @12:17PM (2 children)
None can do.
At the best, throw all you garbage into a neutron star, it won't come back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @10:18PM
Until you throw enough in that it becomes a black hole and then it comes back out as Hawking radiation. (i think that's how it works - but there's a reason it's not called AC-radiation.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @01:40AM