PDA

View Full Version : New state of matter seen on cheap



buckminster fuller
25th November 2011, 14:13
source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15876145

"Students and enthusiasts attending a recording for BBC Radio 4 have probably seen a new state of matter only recently discovered, an expert says.

The state of matter is a plasma like those in conventional nuclear fusion tests, but at higher densities.

And far from needing hundred-million-pound apparatus, the conditions can be achieved in a simple glass tube containing a routine liquid.

The professor behind the demonstration says it can be achieved for a mere £10.

The audience were attending a demonstration lecture by chemist Professor Andrea Sella being recorded at University College London for Spooklights on Radio 4.

During the lecture, Professor Sella demonstrated a phenomenon called sonoluminescence - flashes of light created by collapsing bubbles in a fluid. The flashes are extraordinarily faint, but in the darkened auditorium, those attending could see the evanescent sparks quite clearly.

As the name suggests, sonoluminescence is traditionally created by intense sound waves - rapid pressure oscillations - focused into a liquid. In the low-pressure regions of the sound waves, fluid is ripped apart to create tiny bubbles, the source of the light.

Professor Sella's demonstration is far simpler, involving a simple sealed glass tube part filled with phosphoric acid and traces of the inert gas xenon. Then all that's needed is a gentle shaking of the tube. As the acid hits the tube's bottom, there's a distinct metallic clink, as if a heavy ball bearing is striking the glass wall.
Hotter than the Sun

In fact, it's just a water-hammer effect, an impact that shatters the liquid column, creating a trail of bubbles that are clearly visible in daylight.

With the lights off, what's seen is a trail of blue sparks - the sonoluminescence.

"When the bubbles collapse," Professor Sella explains, "they generate incredibly high temperatures - 10 thousand degrees. That's twice the temperature of the surface of the Sun."

Seeking more information on what goes on inside that bubble, Professor Sella contacted a world authority on the effect, physicist Seth Putterman of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). And he learned far more than he bargained for.

Professor Putterman has also long been trying to understand the precise source of the light. Judging from its intensity and characteristics, the light demands a source containing billions upon billions of free electrons.

But although ten thousand degrees sounds extreme by human experience, it's nowhere near enough to strip the electrons from the molecules and atoms in the sonoluminescence.
Dense plasma

What Professor Putterman realised earlier this year is that under these peculiar circumstances a kind of electrical cascade can take place. If a few electrons escape the embrace of their home atoms, their field makes it easier for further electrons to escape, and so on until the entire bubble interior has become ionised.

"Not only is it creating a plasma," Professor Putterman explains, "we believe it's an new state of matter because it's an extremely dense plasma - the density is hundreds to ten thousand times the density they achieve inside nuclear fusion experiments."

According to Professor Putterman's experiments, the plasma goes through a phase transition - analogous the melting of ice to water. Which is why he feels justified in describing the plasma as an entirely new state.

He also confirmed that the conditions in Andrea Sella's "plink tube" demonstration are precisely those needed to create this new state.

Not that that means nuclear fusion is occurring inside the tubes. Claims of nuclear fusion inside fluid bubbles have been extremely controversial.

Professor Putterman is emphatic: "We have not yet succeeded - no-one has yet succeeded - in generating nuclear fusion inside these bubbles. However, we're looking around for that trick that could boost our parameters by a factor of 10, to get it to the region of fusion."

Professor Sella, meanwhile, is delighted that his simple demonstration should reveal to onlookers a state of matter that has only just been discovered.

"I can't wait to tell my nuclear physicist friends, that for a cost of around £10, I'm up in the region that they do for the cost of hundreds of millions of pounds. It's very exciting.""



Interesting... I think I read somewhere that dolphins can do that by targeting air bubbles with ultrasounds, will look into that..

WhiteFeather
25th November 2011, 14:15
Are new wave forms of energy/instructions if you will, coming in from The Galactic Plane or Source Field?

buckminster fuller
25th November 2011, 14:17
another article : "Bubbles Get Hotter than the Sun" source : http://www.livescience.com/192-bubbles-hotter-sun.html

"Just as blowing up a bubble leads to a pop, so can shrinking it. Rapidly collapsing bubbles have long been known to reach astonishing temperatures.

Now scientists have measured just how hot. And they're surprised.

"When bubbles in a liquid get compressed, the insides get hot - very hot," said Ken Suslick of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The temperature we measured - about 20,000 degrees Kelvin [35,540 Fahrenheit] - is four times hotter than the surface of our Sun."

The bubbles are driven to form and collapse in a process called sonoluminescence, in which a liquid is blasted with high-frequency sound waves between 20 and 40 kilohertz (the highest pitch that humans can hear is about 20 kilohertz).

Inside a collapsing bubble, the temperature rises precipitously. Atoms and molecules collide with high-energy particles to create a fourth state of matter, called plasma. The process emits light.

But the heating is so brief and localized that it cannot be measured directly with a thermometer.

The emitted light, however, can be analyzed to determine the temperature of the imploding gas. Previous measurements of multiple-bubble sonoluminescence have found temperatures of 5,000 Kelvin, or 8,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Suslick and his graduate student David Flannigan were able to measure the temperature of single bubbles, which are not disturbed by neighboring ones. The light from these isolated bubbles is bright enough to be seen by the naked eye.

The high temperatures, measured by Suslick and Flannigan, were partly expected from theory, but solid evidence has been lacking, said Detlef Lohse from the University of Twente, The Netherlands.

The new experiments "are a milestone in single-bubble sonoluminescence, as they constitute the first direct measurement of the temperature and the state of matter in a single bubble at collapse," said Lohse, who was not involved in the work.

The light that is seen is coming from the outer surface of the rapidly shrinking bubble. Inside this surface, the temperature is believed to be even higher. Some have predicted that in these extreme conditions nuclear fusion might occur, but no conclusive evidence has yet been found.

The recent results are reported in the March 3 issue of the journal Nature.

States of Matter

SOLID


LIQUID


GAS


PLASMA

The state of normal matter depends on temperature, which regulates how fast molecules move and therefore how far apart they are. Plasma, a superhot gas, is an entirely different animal, being electrically charged and very expansive.

Plasma is sometimes called a fourth state of matter (in addition to solid, liquid, gas). It's created when gas is superheated and electrons are stripped out, leaving electrically charged particles.

Plasma occurs naturally in interstellar space and in the atmospheres of our Sun and other stars. Scientists also create plasma in labs in order to study emissions from the violent regions around black holes. A fluorescent lamp is an example of a highly contained plasma.

LiveScience graphic, Robert Roy Britt"

WhiteFeather
25th November 2011, 14:18
Interesting!

buckminster fuller
25th November 2011, 14:19
Are new wave forms of energy/instructions if you will, coming in from The Galactic Plane or Source Field?

it might be, but I don't think it relates to those experiments. thing is... we are still discovering what 'stuff' the world around us is made of...

Pete
25th November 2011, 14:39
this reminds me of a heating device developed by a plumber in the USA. He created what seemed to be the interior of a steam shell boiler with no heat added. he simply pumped it and created a water hammer effect. For the cost of the energy to pump the water he was able to heat an entire fire station. Now I wondered how he was able to do this without sending everyone mad with the noise, but you may have just given me the answer, the vibration of this reaction could have been out of human hearing range.
I have since tried to find some reference to this machine and the documentary but have failed up to now. However, this has inspired me to re-investigate. Thank you for your post.

WhiteFeather
25th November 2011, 15:12
this reminds me of a heating device developed by a plumber in the USA. He created what seemed to be the interior of a steam shell boiler with no heat added. he simply pumped it and created a water hammer effect. For the cost of the energy to pump the water he was able to heat an entire fire station. Now I wondered how he was able to do this without sending everyone mad with the noise, but you may have just given me the answer, the vibration of this reaction could have been out of human hearing range.
I have since tried to find some reference to this machine and the documentary but have failed up to now. However, this has inspired me to re-investigate. Thank you for your post.

Thinks I found It Pete: He said he was waiting to get a Patent On It, I guess hes gonna wait for awhile. This Is Brethtaking To Say The Least:

Here's a PDF On It. http://www.themeasuringsystemofthegods.com/sonic%20boiler.pdf

Website Here: http://www.rexresearch.com/davey/davey.htm

And The Video:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGT5PB733a0

toad
25th November 2011, 20:20
http://www.smf.phy.cam.ac.uk/Publications/General%20papers/050GenChakravartyPRE69.pdf

here is a detailed publication from 2004 of a 'plink tube' if anyone is more intrigued, its an interesting topic that is for sure. It goes on to show the different sonoluminescent and physical properties of various liquids. Phosphoric acid seems to have the highest intensity.