SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Confirmed: New phase of matter is solid and liquid at the same time
Solid, liquid, gas … and something else? While most of us learn about just three states of matter in elementary school, physicists have discovered several exotic varieties that can exist under extreme temperature and pressure conditions.
Now, a team has used a type of artificial intelligence to confirm the existence of a bizarre new state of matter, one in which potassium atoms exhibit properties of both a solid and a liquid at the same time. If you were somehow able to pull out a chunk of such material, it would probably look like a solid block leaking molten potassium that eventually all dissolved away.
“It would be like holding a sponge filled with water that starts dripping out, except the sponge is also made of water,” says study coauthor Andreas Hermann, a condensed matter physicist at the University of Edinburgh whose team describes the work this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 16 2019, @05:59PM (1 child)
We had no observable indication that black holes existed either. Until last week...
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday April 16 2019, @07:29PM
Chances are it is the effects of a black hole but to speak in absolutes at this point is Sith like behaviour.