Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Wednesday July 03 2019, @12:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the Potassium-Sodium-Lithium-Hydrium? dept.

After Decades of Hunting, Physicists Claim They've Made Quantum Material from Depths of Jupiter

A team of French researchers has posted a paper online in which they claim to have achieved the holy grail of extreme-pressure materials science: creating metallic hydrogen in a laboratory.

Physicists have suspected since the 1930s that under extreme pressures, hydrogen atoms — the lightest atoms on the periodic table, containing just a single proton each in the nuclei — might radically change their properties. Under normal circumstances, hydrogen doesn't conduct electricity well and tends to pair with other hydrogen atoms — much like oxygen does. But physicists believe that, subject to enough pressure, hydrogen will act as an alkali metal — a group of elements, including lithium and sodium, that each have a single electron in their outermost orbitals, which they exchange very easily. The whole periodic table is organized around this idea, with hydrogen placed above the other alkali metals in the first column. But the effect has never been conclusively seen in a laboratory.

Now, in a paper posted June 13 to the preprint journal arXiv, a team of researchers led by Paul Loubeyre of the French Atomic Energy Commission claims to have pulled it off. Crushed between the points of two diamonds to about 4.2 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level (425 gigapascals), they say their sample of hydrogen demonstrated metallic properties.

Abstract.

Also at Gizmodo and ScienceAlert.

Previously: Creation of Jupiter Interior, a Step Towards Room Temperature Superconductivity
Harvard Researchers Report Production and Analysis of Solid Metallic Hydrogen
Solid Metallic Hydrogen, Once Theory, Becomes Reality -- or Maybe Not?
Harvard University's Metallic Hydrogen Sample "Disappeared" or Ruined

Related: New Evidence of Superconductivity at Near Room Temperature


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @09:33AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @09:33AM (#862639)

    So what are they going to do with "metallic hydrogen"? I mean, it's not transparent aluminum, for Scotty's sake! Are they going to discover "cold fusion"? Properly diagnose Lyme disease? Perhaps a perpetual motion machine, for endless energy!

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   -1  
       Troll=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Troll' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   -1  
  • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Wednesday July 03 2019, @10:43AM

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 03 2019, @10:43AM (#862650) Journal

    Jovian Rovers!

    --
    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:18PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:18PM (#862723) Journal

    They're going to shove it down your throat.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:51PM

    by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:51PM (#862731) Journal

    So what are they going to do with "metallic hydrogen"?

    Hydrogen is a fantastic rocket fuel, but it is very bulky and it likes to wiggle its way out of tiny little crevices. If you could make a solid form of hydrogen that would go a long way towards making H2 rockets more practical.

  • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:56PM

    by Rivenaleem (3400) on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:56PM (#862733)

    Haha, someone should have told them nobody would find their research intersting before they went to all that trouble!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @03:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @03:11PM (#862738)

    But... transparent aluminum is a thing.

    Anyway, I don't care what it is, if it's superconductive at room temperature I'll take it.