"most extreme" option. Sure, we've all heard stories of magnets strong enough to injure kids from the inside and acids that will go through your hands in seconds, but there are even more "extreme" versions of them.
1. The blackest matter known to man
What happens if you put the edges of carbon nanotubes on top of each other and alternate layers of them? The result is a material that absorbs 99.9% of the light that hits it. The microscopic surface of the material is uneven and rough, which refracts light and is a poor reflective surface. After that, try to use carbon nanotubes as superconductors in a certain order, which makes them excellent light absorbers, and you have a real black storm. Scientists are seriously puzzled by the potential applications of this substance, since, in fact, light is not “lost”, the substance could be used to improve optical devices, such as telescopes, and even be used for solar panels that operate at almost 100% efficiency.
2. The most combustible substance
Lots of things burn at amazing rates, like styrofoam, napalm, and that's just the beginning. But what if there was a substance that could set fire to the earth? On the one hand, this is a provocative question, but it was asked as a starting point. Chlorine trifluoride has the dubious reputation of being terribly flammable, though the Nazis thought it was too dangerous to work with. When people who discuss genocide believe that the purpose of their life is not to use something because it is too lethal, this encourages careful handling of these substances. It is said that one day a ton of substance was spilled and a fire started, and 30.5 cm of concrete and a meter of sand and gravel burned out until everything subsided. Unfortunately, the Nazis were right.
3. The most poisonous substance
Tell me, what would you least like to get on your face? It could very well be the most deadly poison, which will rightfully take 3rd place among the main extreme substances. Such a poison is really different from what burns through concrete, and from the strongest acid in the world (which will be invented soon). Although not entirely true, but you all, no doubt, heard from the medical community about Botox, and thanks to it the most deadly poison became famous. Botox uses botulinum toxin, which is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, and it is very deadly, and the amount of a grain of salt is enough to kill a person weighing 200 pounds (90.72 kg; approx. mixednews). In fact, scientists have calculated that it is enough to spray only 4 kg of this substance to kill all people on earth. Probably, an eagle would have acted much more humanely with a rattlesnake than this poison with a person.
4. The hottest substance
There are very few things in the world known to man to be hotter than the inside of a newly microwaved Hot Pocket, but this stuff seems set to break that record as well. Created by the collision of gold atoms at almost the speed of light, matter is called quark-gluon "soup" and it reaches a crazy 4 trillion degrees Celsius, which is almost 250,000 times hotter than the stuff inside the Sun. The amount of energy released in the collision would be enough to melt protons and neutrons, which in itself has features that you did not even suspect. Scientists say this stuff could give us a glimpse of what the birth of our universe was like, so it's worth understanding that tiny supernovae aren't created for fun. However, the really good news is that the "soup" spanned one trillionth of a centimeter and lasted for a trillionth of one trillionth of a second.
5. The most corrosive acid
Acid is a terrible substance, one of the most scary monsters in the movies, acid blood was given to make it even more terrible than just a killing machine ("Alien"), so it's ingrained inside us that exposure to acid is very bad. If the "aliens" were filled with fluoride-antimonial acid, not only would they sink deep through the floor, but the fumes emitted from their dead bodies would kill everything around them. This acid is 21019 times stronger than sulfuric acid and can seep through glass. And it can explode if you add water. And during its reaction, poisonous fumes are released that can kill anyone in the room.
6 Most Explosive Explosives
In fact, this place is divided into currently two components: octogen and heptanitrocuban. Heptanitrocuban mainly exists in laboratories, and is similar to HMX, but has a denser crystal structure, which carries a greater potential for destruction. HMX, on the other hand, exists in large enough quantities that it can threaten physical existence. It is used in solid propellants for rockets, and even for detonators of nuclear weapons. And the last one is the most terrifying, because despite how easily it happens in the movies, starting a fission/fusion reaction that results in bright, glowing mushroom-like nuclear clouds is not an easy task, but octogen does it perfectly.
7. The most radioactive substance
Speaking of radiation, it's worth mentioning that the glowing green "plutonium" rods shown in The Simpsons are just a fantasy. Just because something is radioactive doesn't mean it glows. It's worth mentioning because "polonium-210" is so radioactive that it glows blue. Former Soviet spy Alexander Litvinenko was misled when the substance was added to his food and died of cancer shortly thereafter. This is not something you want to joke about, the glow is caused by the air around the substance that is being affected by the radiation, and indeed the objects around it can get hot. When we say "radiation", we think, for example, about nuclear reactor or an explosion where the fission reaction actually takes place. This is only the release of ionized particles, and not out of control splitting of atoms.
8. The heaviest substance
If you thought that the heaviest substance on earth was diamonds, that was a good but inaccurate guess. This is a technically created diamond nanorod. It is actually a collection of nano-scale diamonds, with the lowest degree of compression and the heaviest substance known to man. It doesn't really exist, but which would be quite handy, as it means that someday we could cover our cars with this material and just get rid of it when a train collision occurs (an unrealistic event). This substance was invented in Germany in 2005 and will probably be used to the same extent as industrial diamonds, except for the fact that the new substance is more resistant to wear than ordinary diamonds.
9. The most magnetic substance
If the inductor were a small black piece, then this would be the same substance. The substance, developed in 2010 from iron and nitrogen, has magnetic abilities that are 18% greater than the previous "record holder" and is so powerful that it has forced scientists to rethink how magnetism works. The person who discovered this substance distanced himself from his studies so that none of the other scientists could reproduce his work, as it was reported that a similar compound was being developed in Japan in the past in 1996, but other physicists were unable to reproduce it, therefore officially this substance was not accepted. It is unclear whether Japanese physicists should promise to make Sepuku under these circumstances. If this substance can be reproduced, it could mean new Age efficient electronics and magnetic motors, possibly increased in power by an order of magnitude.
10. The strongest superfluidity
Superfluidity is a state of matter (like a solid or gaseous) that occurs at extremely low temperatures, has high thermal conductivity (every ounce of this substance must be at exactly the same temperature) and no viscosity. Helium-2 is the most characteristic representative. The helium-2 cup will spontaneously rise and spill out of the container. Helium-2 will also seep through other solid materials, as the total lack of friction allows it to flow through other invisible openings through which ordinary helium (or water for this case) could not flow. "Helium-2" does not come into its proper state at number 1, as if it has the ability to act on its own, although it is also the most efficient thermal conductor on Earth, several hundred times better than copper. Heat moves so fast through "helium-2" that it travels in waves, like sound (actually known as "second sound"), rather than dissipates, it just moves from one molecule to another. By the way, the forces that govern the ability of "helium-2" to crawl along the wall are called the "third sound". You are unlikely to have anything more extreme than the substance that required the definition of 2 new types of sound.
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In this (2007 - P.Z.) year we want to tell you, dear readers, about water. This series of articles will be called: the water cycle. It probably makes no sense to talk about how important this substance is for all natural sciences and for each of us. It is no coincidence that many try to speculate on the interest in water, take at least the sensational film “ Great Mystery water", which attracted the attention of millions of people. On the other hand, we cannot simplify the situation and say that we know everything about water; this is not at all true, water has been and remains the most unusual substance in the world. To consider in detail the features of water, a detailed conversation is needed. And we begin with chapters from a wonderful book by the founder of our journal, Academician I.V. Petryanov-Sokolova, which was published by the Pedagogy publishing house in 1975. This book, by the way, may well serve as an example of a popular science conversation between a prominent scientist and such a difficult reader as a high school student.
Is everything already known about water?
Quite recently, in the 30s of our century, chemists were sure that the composition of water was well known to them. But once one of them had to measure the density of the rest of the water after electrolysis. He was surprised: the density was several hundred-thousandths higher than normal. Nothing is insignificant in science. This insignificant difference demanded an explanation. As a result, scientists have discovered many new great secrets of nature. They learned that water is very complex. New isotopic forms of water have been found. Extracted from ordinary heavy water; it turned out that it is absolutely necessary for the energy of the future: in a thermonuclear reaction, deuterium isolated from a liter of water will provide as much energy as 120 kg of coal. Now, in all countries of the world, physicists are working hard and tirelessly to solve this great problem. And it all started with a simple measurement of the most common, everyday and uninteresting quantity - the density of water was measured more accurately by an extra decimal place. Each new, more accurate measurement, each new correct calculation, each new observation not only increases confidence in the knowledge and reliability of what has already been mined and known, but also pushes the boundaries of the unknown and not yet known and paves new paths to them.
What is ordinary water?
There is no such water in the world. There is no ordinary water anywhere. She is always extraordinary. Even the isotopic composition of water in nature is always different. The composition depends on the history of water - on what happened to it in the infinite variety of its circulation in nature. When water evaporates, it is enriched with protium, and therefore rain water is different from lake water. River water is not like sea water. In closed lakes, the water contains more deuterium than the water of mountain streams. Each spring has its own isotopic composition of water. When the water in the lake freezes in winter, no one who skates suspects that the isotopic composition of the ice has changed: the content of heavy hydrogen in it has decreased, but the amount of heavy oxygen has increased. The water from melting ice is different and different from the water from which the ice was made.
What is light water?
This is the same water, the formula of which is known to all schoolchildren - H 2 16 O. But there is no such water in nature. Scientists have prepared such water with great difficulty. They needed it to accurately measure the properties of water, and primarily to measure its density. So far, such water exists only in a few of the largest laboratories in the world, where the properties of various isotopic compounds are studied.
What is heavy water?
And this water does not exist in nature. Strictly speaking, it would be necessary to call heavy water, consisting only of heavy isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen, D 2 18 O, but such water is not even in the laboratories of scientists. Of course, if science or technology needs this water, scientists will be able to find a way to get it: there is plenty of deuterium and heavy oxygen in natural water.
In science and nuclear engineering, heavy hydrogen water is conventionally called heavy water. It contains only deuterium, it does not contain the usual, light isotope of hydrogen at all. The isotopic composition of oxygen in this water usually corresponds to the composition of atmospheric oxygen.
Until quite recently, no one in the world even suspected that such water exists, and now giant factories are operating in many countries of the world that process millions of tons of water in order to extract deuterium from it and get clean heavy water.
Are there many different types of water in the water?
In what water? In the one that flows from the water tap, where it came from the river, heavy water D 2 16 O is about 150 g per ton, and heavy oxygen (H 2 17 O and H 2 18 O together) is almost 1800 g per ton of water. And in the water from the Pacific Ocean, heavy water is almost 165 g per ton.
In a ton of ice of one of the large glaciers of the Caucasus, there is 7 g more heavy water than in river water, and the same amount of heavy oxygen water. But on the other hand, in the water of the streams running along this glacier, D 2 16 O turned out to be 7 g less, and H 2 18 O - 23 g more than in the river.
Tritium water T 2 16 O falls to the ground along with precipitation, but it is very small - only 1 g per million million tons of rainwater. In ocean water, it is even less.
Strictly speaking, water is always and everywhere different. Even in the snow that falls on different days, the isotopic composition is different. Of course, the difference is small, only 1-2 g per ton. Only, perhaps, it is very difficult to say whether it is a little or a lot.
What is the difference between light natural and heavy water?
The answer to this question will depend on who it is asked to. Each of us has no doubt that he is familiar with water well. If each of us is shown three glasses with ordinary, heavy and light water, then each will give a completely clear and definite answer: in all three vessels there is plain pure water. It is equally transparent and colorless. There is no difference in taste or smell between them. It's all water. The chemist will answer this question in almost the same way: there is almost no difference between them. All of them Chemical properties almost indistinguishable: in each of these waters, sodium will release hydrogen in the same way, each of them will decompose in the same way during electrolysis, all their chemical properties will almost coincide. It is understandable: after all, they have the same chemical composition. This is water.
The physicist disagrees. He will point out a noticeable difference in their physical properties: they boil and freeze at different temperatures, their density is different, their vapor pressure is also slightly different. And during electrolysis, they decompose at different rates. Light water is slightly faster, and heavy water is slower. The difference in speeds is negligible, but the rest of the water in the electrolyzer turns out to be slightly enriched with heavy water. This is how it was opened. Changes in the isotopic composition have little effect on physical properties substances. Those that depend on the mass of the molecules change more noticeably, for example, the rate of diffusion of vapor molecules.
The biologist, perhaps, will be at a dead end and will not immediately be able to find the answer. He will need to work on the issue of the difference between water with different isotopic compositions. Quite recently, everyone believed that living beings could not live in heavy water. It was even called dead water. But it turned out that if you very slowly, carefully and gradually replace protium in the water where some microorganisms live with deuterium, then you can accustom them to heavy water and they will live and develop well in it, and ordinary water will become harmful for them.
How many water molecules are in the ocean?
One. And this answer is not entirely a joke. Of course, everyone can, after looking in the reference book and finding out how much water is in the World Ocean, it is easy to calculate how many H 2 O molecules it contains. But this answer is not entirely correct. Water is a special substance. Due to the peculiar structure, individual molecules interact with each other. A special chemical bond due to the fact that each of the hydrogen atoms of one molecule pulls towards itself the electrons of the oxygen atoms in neighboring molecules. Due to such a hydrogen bond, each water molecule is quite firmly bonded to four neighboring molecules.
How are water molecules built in water?
Unfortunately, this very important issue has not yet been sufficiently studied. The structure of molecules in liquid water is very complex. When ice melts, its network structure is partially preserved in the resulting water. The molecules in melt water consist of many simple molecules - aggregates that retain the properties of ice. As the temperature rises, some of them disintegrate, their sizes become smaller.
Mutual attraction leads to the fact that the average size of a complex water molecule in liquid water significantly exceeds the size of a single water molecule. Such an extraordinary molecular structure of water determines its extraordinary physical and chemical properties.
What should be the density of water?
It's a very strange question, isn't it? Remember how the unit of mass was established - one gram. This is the mass of one cubic centimeter of water. Hence, there can be no doubt that the density of water should only be as it is. Can you doubt it? Can. Theorists have calculated that if water did not retain a loose, ice-like structure in a liquid state and its molecules would be tightly packed, then the density of water would be much higher. At 25°C, it would be equal not to 1.0, but to 1.8 g/cm 3 .
At what temperature should water boil?
This question is also, of course, strange. That's right, at a hundred degrees. Everyone knows this. Moreover, it is the boiling point of water at normal atmospheric pressure and is chosen as one of the reference points of the temperature scale conventionally designated 100°C. However, the question is put differently: at what temperature should water boil? After all, the boiling points of various substances are not random. They depend on the position of the elements that make up their molecules, in periodic system Mendeleev.
If we compare chemical compounds of various elements with the same composition and belonging to the same group of the periodic table, it is easy to see that the lower the atomic number of the element, the lower its atomic weight, the lower the boiling point of its compounds. Water by chemical composition can be called oxygen hydride. H 2 Te, H 2 Se and H 2 S are chemical analogues of water. If we determine the boiling point of oxygen hydride by its position in the periodic table, then it turns out that water should boil at -80 ° C. Therefore, the water boils about one hundred and eighty degrees hotter than it should. The boiling point of water - this is its most common property - turns out to be extraordinary and surprising.
At what temperature does water freeze?
Isn't the question no less strange than the previous ones? Well, who does not know that water freezes at zero degrees? This is the second reference point of the thermometer. This is the most common property of water. But even in this case, one can ask: at what temperature should water freeze in accordance with its chemical nature? It turns out that oxygen hydride, based on its position in the periodic table, should have solidified at a hundred degrees below zero.
From the fact that the melting and boiling points of oxygen hydride are its anomalous properties, it follows that under the conditions of our Earth, its liquid and solid states are also anomalous. Only the gaseous state of water should be normal.
How many gaseous states of water are there?
Only one is steam. Is there only one pair? Of course not, there are as many water vapors as there are different types of water. Water vapor, different in isotopic composition, although very similar, but still different properties: they have different densities, at the same temperature they slightly differ in elasticity in the saturated state, they have slightly different critical pressures, different speed diffusion.
Can water remember?
Such a question sounds, admittedly, very unusual, but it is quite serious and very important. It concerns a great physico-chemical problem, which in its most important part has not yet been investigated. This question has only been posed in science, but it has not yet found an answer to it.
The question is whether or not the previous history of water affects its physical and chemical properties and whether it is possible, by studying the properties of water, to find out what happened to it earlier - to make the water itself “remember” and tell us about it. Yes, it is possible, surprising as it may seem. The easiest way to understand this is by a simple but very interesting and unusual example - the memory of ice.
Ice is water. When water evaporates, the isotopic composition of water and steam changes. Light water evaporates, although to a negligible extent, but faster than heavy water.
When natural water evaporates, the composition changes in the isotopic content of not only deuterium, but also heavy oxygen. These changes in the isotopic composition of the vapor are very well studied, and their dependence on temperature is also well studied.
Recently, scientists have made a remarkable experiment. In the Arctic, in the thickness of a huge glacier in the north of Greenland, a borehole was laid and a giant ice core almost one and a half kilometers long was drilled and extracted. The annual layers of growing ice were clearly visible on it. These layers were subjected to isotopic analysis along the entire length of the core, and the temperatures of the formation of annual ice layers in each section of the core were determined from the relative content of heavy isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen - deuterium and 18 O. The date of formation of the annual layer was determined by direct reading. Thus, the climatic situation on Earth was restored over the course of a millennium. Water managed to remember and record all this in the deep layers of the Greenland glacier.
As a result of isotope analyzes of the ice layers, scientists built a curve of climate change on Earth. It turned out that the average temperature in our country is subject to secular fluctuations. It was very cold in the 15th century, at the end of the 17th century and in early XIX. The hottest years were 1550 and 1930.
What the water kept in memory completely coincided with the records in historical chronicles. The periodicity of climate change found from the isotopic composition of ice makes it possible to predict the average temperature in the future on our planet.
It's all perfectly clear and understandable. Although the thousand-year chronology of weather on Earth, recorded in the thickness of the polar glacier, is very surprising, the isotopic equilibrium has been studied quite well and there are no mysterious problems in this yet.
Then what is the mystery of the “memory” of water?
The fact is that in recent years, science has gradually accumulated many amazing and completely incomprehensible facts. Some of them are firmly established, others require quantitative reliable confirmation, and all of them are still waiting for their explanation.
For example, no one knows yet what happens to water flowing through a strong magnetic field. Theoretical physicists are absolutely sure that nothing can and does not happen to it in this case, reinforcing their conviction with quite reliable theoretical calculations, from which it follows that after the termination of the action magnetic field the water should instantly return to its previous state and remain as it was. And experience shows that it changes and becomes different.
From ordinary water in a steam boiler, dissolved salts, escaping, are deposited in a dense and hard, like a stone, layer on the walls of boiler pipes, and from magnetized water (as it is now called in technology) they precipitate in the form of loose sediment suspended in water. It seems like the difference is small. But it depends on the point of view. According to the employees of thermal power plants, this difference is extremely important, since magnetized water ensures the normal and uninterrupted operation of giant power plants: the walls of the pipes of steam boilers do not overgrow, heat transfer is higher, and more electricity is generated. At many thermal power plants, magnetic water preparation has long been installed, and neither engineers nor scientists know how and why it works. In addition, experience has shown that after magnetic treatment of water, the processes of crystallization, dissolution, adsorption are accelerated in it, wetting changes ... however, in all cases, the effects are small and difficult to reproduce. But how in science can one evaluate what is little and what is much? Who will undertake to do this? The action of a magnetic field on water (necessarily fast-flowing) lasts a small fraction of a second, and the water “remembers” this for tens of hours. Why is unknown. In this respect, practice is far ahead of science. After all, it is not even known what exactly magnetic treatment acts on - on water or on impurities contained in it. There is no such thing as pure water.
The "memory" of water is not limited to the preservation of the effects of magnetic influence. In science, many facts and observations exist and are gradually accumulating, showing that water seems to “remember” that it was frozen before. Melt water, recently obtained by melting a piece of ice, also seems to be different from the water from which this piece of ice was formed. In melt water, seeds germinate faster and better, sprouts develop faster; even as if the chickens that receive melt water grow and develop faster. In addition to the amazing properties of melt water, established by biologists, purely physical and chemical differences are also known, for example, melt water differs in viscosity, in the value of the dielectric constant. The viscosity of melt water takes its usual value for water only 3-6 days after melting. Why this is so (if so), no one knows either. Most researchers call this field of phenomena the "structural memory" of water, believing that all these strange manifestations of the influence of the previous history of water on its properties are explained by a change in the fine structure of its molecular state. Maybe this is so, but ... to name is not the same as to explain. There is still an important problem in science: why and how water “remembers” what happened to it.
Does water know what is happening in space?
This question touches on the realm of observations so unusual, so mysterious, so far completely incomprehensible, that they fully justify the figurative formulation of the question. The experimental facts seem to be firmly established, but no explanation has yet been found for them.
The astonishing riddle to which the question relates was not immediately established. It refers to an inconspicuous and seemingly trifling phenomenon that does not have a serious significance. This phenomenon is associated with the most subtle and yet incomprehensible properties of water, which are difficult to quantify - with the rate of chemical reactions in aqueous solutions and mainly with the rate of formation and precipitation of sparingly soluble reaction products. This is also one of the countless properties of water.
So, for the same reaction carried out under the same conditions, the time of appearance of the first traces of a precipitate is not constant. Although this fact was known for a long time, chemists did not pay attention to it, being satisfied, as is often the case, with the explanation of "random causes". But gradually, with the development of the theory of reaction rates and the improvement of research methods, this strange fact began to cause bewilderment.
Despite the most careful precautions in carrying out the experiment under completely constant conditions, the result is still not reproduced: either the precipitate falls out immediately, or one has to wait quite a long time for its appearance.
It would seem that it doesn’t matter if a precipitate falls in a test tube in one, two or twenty seconds? What does it matter? But in science, as in nature, nothing is unimportant.
Strange non-reproducibility more and more occupied scientists. And finally, a completely unprecedented experiment was organized and carried out. Hundreds of volunteer chemist researchers in all parts the globe according to a single, pre-developed program, at the same time, at the same moment in world time, the same simple experiment was repeated again and again: the speed of the appearance of the first traces of a precipitate of the solid phase formed as a result of the reaction in aqueous solution. The experiment lasted almost fifteen years, more than three hundred thousand repetitions were carried out.
Gradually, an amazing picture began to emerge, inexplicable and mysterious. It turned out that the properties of water, which determine the course of a chemical reaction in an aqueous medium, depend on time.
Today, the reaction proceeds in a completely different way than at the same moment it went yesterday, and tomorrow it will go again in a different way.
The differences were small, but they existed and required attention, research and scientific explanation.
The results of statistical processing of the materials of these observations led scientists to a striking conclusion: it turned out that the dependence of the reaction rate on time for different parts of the globe is exactly the same.
This means that there are some mysterious conditions that change simultaneously on our entire planet and affect the properties of water.
Further processing of the materials led scientists to an even more unexpected result. It turned out that the events taking place on the Sun are somehow reflected on the water. The nature of the reaction in water follows the rhythm of solar activity - the appearance of spots and flares on the Sun.
But even this is not enough. An even more incredible phenomenon was discovered. Water in some inexplicable way responds to what is happening in space. A clear dependence on the change in the relative velocity of the Earth in its movement in outer space was established.
The mysterious connection between water and events taking place in the Universe is still inexplicable. What is the significance of the connection between water and space? No one can yet know how big it is. Our body is about 75% water; there is no life on our planet without water; In every living organism, in every cell, countless chemical reactions take place. If, using the example of a simple and crude reaction, the influence of events in space is noticed, then it is still impossible to even imagine how great the significance of this influence on the global processes of the development of life on Earth can be. Cosmobiology will probably be a very important and interesting science of the future. One of its main sections will be the study of the behavior and properties of water in a living organism.
Are all the properties of water understood by scientists?
Of course not! Water is a mysterious substance. Until now, scientists cannot yet understand and explain many of its properties.
Can there be any doubt that all such riddles will be successfully solved by science. But many new, even more amazing, mysterious properties of water, the most extraordinary substance in the world, will be discovered.
http://wsyachina.narod.ru/physics/aqua_1.html
Most people will easily name the three classical states of matter: liquid, solid, and gaseous. Those who know a little science will add plasma to these three. But over time, scientists have expanded the list of possible states of matter beyond these four. In the process, we learned a lot about the Big Bang, lightsabers, and the secret state of matter hidden in the humble chicken.
Amorphous solids are a rather interesting subset of the well-known solid state. In a typical solid object, the molecules are well organized and don't have much room to move. This gives the solid a high viscosity, which is a measure of flow resistance. Liquids, on the other hand, have a disorganized molecular structure that allows them to flow, spread, change shape, and take on the shape of the container they are in. Amorphous solids are somewhere between these two states. In the process of vitrification, liquids cool down and their viscosity increases until the moment when the substance no longer flows like a liquid, but its molecules remain disordered and do not take on a crystalline structure, like ordinary solids.
The most common example of an amorphous solid is glass. For thousands of years people have been making glass from silicon dioxide. When glassmakers cool silica from its liquid state, it doesn't actually solidify when it drops below its melting point. As the temperature drops, the viscosity rises and the substance appears to be harder. However, its molecules still remain disordered. And then the glass becomes amorphous and solid at the same time. This transitional process allowed artisans to create beautiful and surreal glass structures.
What is the functional difference between amorphous solids and the usual solid state? IN Everyday life it's not very noticeable. Glass seems to be completely solid until you examine it for molecular level. And the myth that glass flows over time is not worth a penny. Most often, this myth is supported by the arguments that the old glass in churches seems thicker in the lower part, but this is due to the imperfection of the glass blowing process at the time of creation of these glasses. However, studying amorphous solids like glass is interesting from a scientific point of view for studying phase transitions and molecular structure.
Supercritical fluids (fluids)
Most phase transitions occur at a certain temperature and pressure. It is common knowledge that an increase in temperature eventually turns a liquid into a gas. However, when pressure increases with temperature, the fluid makes a leap into the realm of supercritical fluids, which have the properties of both a gas and a liquid. For example, supercritical fluids can pass through solids as a gas, but can also act as a solvent as a liquid. Interestingly, a supercritical fluid can be made more like a gas or a liquid, depending on the combination of pressure and temperature. This has allowed scientists to find many uses for supercritical fluids.
Although supercritical fluids are not as common as amorphous solids, you probably interact with them just as often as you would with glass. Supercritical carbon dioxide is loved by brewing companies for its ability to act as a solvent when interacting with hops, and coffee companies use it to produce better decaffeinated coffee. Supercritical fluids have also been used for more efficient hydrolysis and to keep power plants running at higher temperatures. In general, you probably use supercritical fluid by-products every day.
degenerate gas
Although amorphous solids are at least found on planet Earth, degenerate matter is found only in certain types of stars. A degenerate gas exists when the external pressure of a substance is determined not by temperature, as on Earth, but by complex quantum principles, in particular, the Pauli principle. Because of this, the external pressure of the degenerate matter will be maintained even if the temperature of the matter drops to absolute zero. Two main types of degenerate matter are known: electron-degenerate and neutron-degenerate matter.
Electronically degenerate matter exists mainly in white dwarfs. It is formed in the core of a star when the mass of matter around the core tries to compress the core's electrons to a lower energy state. However, according to the Pauli principle, two identical particles cannot be in the same energy state. Thus, the particles "repel" matter around the nucleus, creating pressure. This is possible only if the mass of the star is less than 1.44 solar masses. When a star exceeds this limit (known as the Chandrasekhar limit), it simply collapses into a neutron star or black hole.
When a star collapses and becomes a neutron star, it no longer has electron degenerate matter, it consists of neutron degenerate matter. Because a neutron star is heavy, electrons fuse with protons in its core to form neutrons. Free neutrons (neutrons are not bound in atomic nucleus) have a half-life of 10.3 minutes. But in the core of a neutron star, the mass of the star allows neutrons to exist outside the cores, forming neutron-degenerate matter.
Other exotic forms of degenerate matter may also exist, including strange matter that may exist in the rare form of stars, quark stars. Quark stars are the stage between the neutron star and the black hole, where the quarks in the core are unbound and form a soup of free quarks. We have not yet observed this type of star, but physicists admit their existence.
Superfluidity
Let's go back to Earth to discuss superfluids. Superfluidity is a state of matter that exists in certain isotopes of helium, rubidium, and lithium, cooled to near absolute zero. This state is similar to a Bose-Einstein condensate (Bose-Einstein condensate, BEC), with a few differences. Some BECs are superfluid and some superfluids are BECs, but not all are identical.
Liquid helium is known for its superfluidity. When helium is cooled to the "lambda point" of -270 degrees Celsius, some of the liquid becomes superfluid. If most substances are cooled to a certain point, the attraction between the atoms overcomes the thermal vibrations in the substance, allowing them to form a solid structure. But helium atoms interact with each other so weakly that they can remain liquid at a temperature of almost absolute zero. It turns out that at this temperature, the characteristics of individual atoms overlap, giving rise to strange properties of superfluidity.
Superfluids do not have intrinsic viscosity. Superfluid substances placed in a test tube begin to creep up the sides of the test tube, seemingly violating the laws of gravity and surface tension. Liquid helium leaks easily, as it can slip through even microscopic holes. Superfluidity also has strange thermodynamic properties. In this state, substances have zero thermodynamic entropy and infinite thermal conductivity. This means that two superfluid substances cannot be thermally distinct. If heat is added to a superfluid substance, it will conduct it so quickly that thermal waves are formed that are not characteristic of ordinary liquids.
Bose-Einstein condensate
The Bose-Einstein condensate is probably one of the most famous obscure forms of matter. First, we need to understand what bosons and fermions are. A fermion is a particle with a half-integer spin (like an electron) or a composite particle (like a proton). These particles obey the Pauli principle, which allows the existence of electron-degenerate matter. A boson, however, has a full integer spin, and several bosons can occupy one quantum state. Bosons include any force-carrying particles (such as photons), as well as some atoms, including helium-4 and other gases. Elements in this category are known as bosonic atoms.
In the 1920s, Albert Einstein took the work of Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose to propose new form matter. Einstein's original theory was that if you cool certain elemental gases to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero, their wave functions will merge, creating one "superatom". Such a substance will show quantum effects at the macroscopic level. But it wasn't until the 1990s that the technology needed to cool elements to these temperatures emerged. In 1995, scientists Eric Cornell and Carl Wiemann were able to fuse 2,000 atoms into a Bose-Einstein condensate that was large enough to be seen under a microscope.
Bose-Einstein condensates are closely related to superfluids, but also have their own set of unique properties. It's also funny that the BEC can slow down the normal speed of light. In 1998, Harvard scientist Lene Howe was able to slow light down to 60 kilometers per hour by passing a laser through a cigar-shaped BEC sample. In later experiments, Howe's group succeeded in completely stopping the light in the BEC by turning off the laser as the light passed through the sample. These opened up a new field of communication based on light and quantum computing.
Jan-Teller metals
Jahn-Teller metals are the newest baby in the world of states of matter, as scientists were only able to successfully create them for the first time in 2015. If the experiments are confirmed by other laboratories, these metals could change the world, as they have the properties of both an insulator and a superconductor.
Scientists led by chemist Cosmas Prassides experimented by introducing rubidium into the structure of carbon-60 molecules (commonly known as fullerenes), which led to the fullerenes taking on a new form. This metal is named after the Jahn-Teller effect, which describes how pressure can change geometric shape molecules in new electronic configurations. In chemistry, pressure is achieved not only by squeezing something, but also by adding new atoms or molecules to a pre-existing structure, changing its basic properties.
When Prassides' research group began adding rubidium to carbon-60 molecules, the carbon molecules changed from insulators to semiconductors. However, due to the Jahn-Teller effect, the molecules tried to stay in the old configuration, which created a substance that tried to be an insulator, but had the electrical properties of a superconductor. The transition between an insulator and a superconductor was never considered until these experiments began.
The interesting thing about Jahn-Teller metals is that they become superconductors at high temperatures (-135 degrees Celsius, not at 243.2 degrees as usual). This brings them closer to acceptable levels for mass production and experimentation. If all is confirmed, perhaps we will be one step closer to creating superconductors that work at room temperature, which, in turn, will revolutionize many areas of our lives.
Photonic matter
For many decades it was believed that photons are massless particles that do not interact with each other. However, over the past few years, scientists at MIT and Harvard have discovered new ways to "endow" light with mass - and even create "" that bounce off each other and bind together. Some felt that this was the first step towards the creation of a lightsaber.
The science of photonic matter is a little more complicated, but it is quite possible to comprehend it. Scientists began to create photonic matter by experimenting with supercooled rubidium gas. When a photon shoots through the gas, it is reflected and interacts with rubidium molecules, losing energy and slowing down. After all, the photon exits the cloud very slowly.
Strange things start to happen when you send two photons through a gas, which creates a phenomenon known as Rydberg blockade. When an atom is excited by a photon, nearby atoms cannot be excited to the same extent. The excited atom is in the path of the photon. In order for an atom nearby to be excited by a second photon, the first photon must pass through the gas. Photons do not normally interact with each other, but when they encounter a Rydberg blockade, they push each other through the gas, exchanging energy and interacting with each other. From the outside, photons appear to have mass and act as a single molecule, although they remain in fact massless. When photons come out of the gas, they appear to coalesce, like a molecule of light.
The practical application of photonic matter is still in question, but it will certainly be found. Maybe even lightsabers.
Disordered hyperhomogeneity
When trying to determine whether a substance is in a new state, scientists look at the structure of the substance as well as its properties. In 2003, Salvatore Torquato and Frank Stillinger of Princeton University proposed a new state of matter known as disordered hyperhomogeneity. Although this phrase seems like an oxymoron, at its core it suggests a new type of matter that seems disordered up close, but super-homogeneous and structured from afar. Such a substance must have the properties of a crystal and a liquid. At first glance, this already exists in plasmas and liquid hydrogen, but recently scientists have found a natural example where no one expected: in a chicken eye.
Chickens have five cones in their retinas. Four detect color and one is responsible for light levels. However, unlike the human eye or the hexagonal eyes of insects, these cones are scattered randomly, with no real order. This is because the cones in the eye of a chicken have alienation zones around them, which do not allow two cones of the same type to be side by side. Due to the exclusion zone and the shape of the cones, they cannot form ordered crystal structures (as in solids), but when all the cones are considered as one, they appear to have a highly ordered pattern, as seen in the Princeton images below. Thus, we can describe these cones in the retina of a chicken eye as liquid on closer inspection and as solid when viewed from afar. This is different from the amorphous solids we talked about above, because this ultra-homogeneous material will act as a liquid, and the amorphous solid- No.
Scientists are still investigating this new state of matter because it may also be more common than originally thought. Now scientists at Princeton University are trying to adapt such ultra-homogeneous materials to create self-organizing structures and light detectors that respond to light with a certain wavelength.
String networks
What state of matter is the vacuum of space? Most people don't think about it, but in the last ten years Xiao Gang-Wen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Levin of Harvard have proposed a new state of matter that could lead us to the discovery of fundamental particles beyond the electron.
The path to developing a string-net fluid model began in the mid-90s, when a group of scientists proposed the so-called quasi-particles, which seemed to have appeared in an experiment when electrons passed between two semiconductors. There was a stir as the quasi-particles acted as if they had a fractional charge, which seemed impossible for the physics of the time. Scientists analyzed the data and suggested that the electron is not a fundamental particle of the universe and that there are fundamental particles that we have not yet discovered. This work brought them Nobel Prize, but later it turned out that an error in the experiment crept into the results of their work. About quasiparticles safely forgotten.
But not all. Wen and Levin took the idea of quasiparticles as a basis and proposed a new state of matter, the string-network state. The main property of such a state is quantum entanglement. As with disordered hyperhomogeneity, if you look closely at string-network matter, it looks like a disordered collection of electrons. But if you look at it as a whole structure, you will see a high order due to the quantum entangled properties of the electrons. Wen and Levin then expanded their work to cover other particles and properties of entanglement.
After running computer models for the new state of matter, Wen and Levin found that the ends of string networks can produce a variety of subatomic particles, including the legendary "quasiparticles." An even bigger surprise was that when the string-net substance vibrates, it does this in accordance with the Maxwell equations responsible for light. Wen and Levin proposed that the cosmos is filled with string networks of entangled subatomic particles, and that the ends of these string networks represent the subatomic particles that we observe. They also suggested that the string-network liquid can provide the existence of light. If the vacuum of space is filled with a string-net fluid, this could allow us to combine light and matter.
All this may seem very far-fetched, but in 1972 (decades before the string-net proposals), geologists discovered a strange material in Chile - herbertsmithite. In this mineral, the electrons form triangular structures that seem to contradict everything we know about how electrons interact with each other. In addition, this triangular structure was predicted by the string-network model, and the scientists worked with artificial herbertsmithite to accurately confirm the model.
Quark-gluon plasma
Speaking of the last state of matter on this list, consider the state that started it all: quark-gluon plasma. In the early Universe, the state of matter differed significantly from the classical one. To start, a little background.
Quarks are the elementary particles that we find inside hadrons (like protons and neutrons). Hadrons are made up of either three quarks or one quark and one antiquark. Quarks have fractional charges and are held together by gluons, which are the exchange particles of the strong nuclear force.
We do not see free quarks in nature, but immediately after big bang for a millisecond free quarks and gluons existed. During this time, the temperature of the universe was so high that quarks and gluons moved almost at the speed of light. During this period, the universe consisted entirely of this hot quark-gluon plasma. After another fraction of a second, the universe has cooled down enough to form heavy particles like hadrons, and quarks begin to interact with each other and gluons. From that moment, the formation of the Universe known to us began, and hadrons began to bind with electrons, creating primitive atoms.
Already in the modern universe, scientists have tried to recreate the quark-gluon plasma in large particle accelerators. During these experiments, heavy particles like hadrons collided with each other, creating a temperature at which quarks separated into a short time. In the course of these experiments, we learned a lot about the properties of the quark-gluon plasma, in which there was absolutely no friction and which was more like a liquid than an ordinary plasma. Experiments with an exotic state of matter allow us to learn a lot about how and why our universe formed as we know it.
Sourced from listverse.com
We can laugh at our ancestors who considered gunpowder to be magic and did not understand what magnets were, however, in our enlightened age, there are materials created by science, but similar to the result of real witchcraft. These materials are often difficult to obtain, but worth it.
1. Metal that melts in your hands
The existence of liquid metals such as mercury and the ability of metals to become liquid at a certain temperature are well known. But solid metal melting in the hands like ice cream is an unusual phenomenon. This metal is called gallium. It melts at room temperature and is unsuitable for practical use. If you place an object made of gallium in a glass of hot liquid, it will dissolve right before your eyes. In addition, gallium can make aluminum very brittle - just place a drop of gallium on an aluminum surface.
2. Gas capable of holding solid objects
This gas is heavier than air, and if you fill a closed container with it, it will settle to the bottom. Just like water, sulfur hexafluoride is able to withstand less dense objects, such as a foil boat. The colorless gas will hold the object on its surface and give the impression that the boat is floating. Sulfur hexafluoride can be scooped out of the container with an ordinary glass - then the boat will smoothly sink to the bottom.
In addition, due to its gravity, the gas reduces the frequency of any sound passing through it, and if you inhale a little sulfur hexafluoride, your voice will sound like Dr. Evil's sinister baritone.
3. Hydrophobic coatings
The green tile in the photo is not jelly at all, but tinted water. It is located on a flat plate, treated with a hydrophobic coating along the edges. The coating repels water, and the drops take on a convex shape. There is a perfect raw square in the middle of the white surface and the water collects there. A drop placed on the treated area will immediately flow to the untreated area and merge with the rest of the water. If you dip your hydrophobic-coated finger into a glass of water, it will remain completely dry, and a "bubble" will form around it - the water will desperately try to run away from you. On the basis of such substances, it is planned to create water-repellent clothing and glass for cars.
4 Spontaneously Exploding Powder
Triiodine nitride looks like a ball of dirt, but appearances are deceiving: this material is so unstable that a light touch of a pen is enough to cause an explosion. The material is used exclusively for experiments - it is dangerous even to move it from place to place. When the material explodes, beautiful purple smoke appears. A similar substance is silver fulminate - it is also not used anywhere and is only suitable for making bombs.
Hot ice, also known as sodium acetate, is a liquid that hardens on the slightest impact. From a simple touch, it instantly transforms from a liquid state into an ice-hard crystal. Patterns form on the entire surface, as on windows in frost, the process continues for several seconds - until all the substance “freezes”. When pressed, a crystallization center is formed, from which information about the new state is transmitted to the molecules along the chain. Of course, the result is not ice at all - as the name implies, the substance is quite warm to the touch, cools very slowly and is used to make chemical heating pads.
6Memory Metal
Nitinol, an alloy of nickel and titanium, has an impressive ability to "remember" its original shape and return to it after being deformed. All it takes is a little heat. For example, you can drop warm water on the alloy, and it will return to its original shape, no matter how much it was previously distorted. Methods for its practical application are currently being developed. For example, it would be reasonable to make glasses from such a material - if they accidentally bend, you just need to substitute them under the jet warm water. Of course, it is not known whether cars or something else serious will ever be made from nitinol, but the properties of the alloy are impressive.
These substances "violate" the rules of physics only at first glance, because in fact everything has long been scientifically explained. But that still doesn't make them any less amazing.
No. 1. ferrofluid
Ferrofluid is a magnetic fluid that can be used to form very curious and intricate shapes. However, as long as there is no magnetic field, the ferrofluid is viscous and unremarkable. But it is worth acting on it with the help of a magnetic field, as its particles line up along the lines of force - and create something indescribable.
A ferrofluid can also become either solid or liquid, depending on the influence of a magnetic field. This makes this material significant for the automotive industry, and for NASA, and for the military.
No. 2. Airgel Frozen Smoke
Airgel Frozen Smoke ("Frozen smoke") is 99% air and 1% silicic anhydride. The result is a very impressionable magic: bricks hang in the air and all that. In addition, this gel is also fireproof.
A variety of airgel is the so-called "air glass" (Airglass) with a density of 0.05-0.2 grams per cubic centimeter. It is quite transparent, and although not very strong, it is many times superior to ordinary glass in terms of thermal protection.
In general, engineers and scientists believe that in the near future airgel will be able to find dozens of applications on Earth. And here again space helps. In recent years, experiments have been carried out on shuttles to obtain airgel in weightlessness.
Being almost imperceptible, the airgel at the same time can hold almost incredible weights, which are 4000 times the volume of the consumed substance. Moreover, he is very light. It is used in space: for example, to "catch" dust from comet tails and to "insulate" astronauts' suits. In the future, scientists say, it will appear in many homes: a very convenient material.
No. 3. perfluorocarbon
Perfluorocarbon is a liquid containing a large number of oxygen, and which, in fact, you can breathe. The substance was tested back in the 60s of the last century: on mice, demonstrating a certain amount of effectiveness. Unfortunately, only certain: laboratory mice died after several hours spent in containers with liquid. Scientists came to the conclusion that impurities are to blame ...
Today, perfluorocarbons are used for ultrasound research, and even to create artificial blood. In no case should the substance be used uncontrollably: it is not the most environmentally friendly. The atmosphere, for example, "warms up" 6500 times more actively than carbon dioxide.
Source: slavbazar.org
No. 4. Elastic conductors
The matrix of transistors, as well as an elastic conductor, can be stretched. A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo, led by Takao Someya, has for the first time obtained an elastomer with high conductivity and chemical stability. Its feature is carbon nanotubes embedded in a polymer matrix.
The elastic material was obtained by actively stirring the black paste obtained by rubbing nanotubes in an ionic liquid. The resulting mixture is combined with a fluorinated copolymer (gives the material additional elasticity), allowed to harden and dry. Then covered with silicone rubber. This is how a conductor is formed in the form of an elastic sheet, the properties of which do not change when it is stretched up to 70%.
According to the scientist, this material can easily be used to produce much larger flexible and elastic integrated electrical circuits. Someya is also confident that this technique can reduce the cost of manufacturing flexible displays, as well as create artificial skin for robots and interface systems for human-computer interaction.
