Bose-Einstein condensate - Root Privileges

The awesome limits of superconductors

On June 24, a press release from CERN said that scientists and engineers working on upgrading the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had “built and operated … the most powerful electrical transmission line … to date”. The transmission line consisted of four cables – two capable of transporting 20 kA of current

blue hypergiant

Where is the coolest lab in the universe?

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) performs an impressive feat every time it accelerates billions of protons to nearly the speed of light – and not in terms of the energy alone. For example, you release more energy when you clap your palms together once than the energy imparted to a proton

Albert Einstein

When cooling down really means slowing down

Consider this post the latest in a loosely defined series about atomic cooling techniques that I’ve been writing since June 2018. Atoms can’t run a temperature, but things made up of atoms, like a chair or table, can become hotter or colder. This is because what

Bose-Einstein condensate

Atoms within atoms

It’s a matter of some irony that forces that act across larger distances also give rise to lots of empty space – although the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. The force of gravity, for example, can act across millions of kilometres but this only

Albert Einstein

The science in Netflix's 'Spectral'

I watched Spectral, the movie that released on Netflix on December 9, 2016, after Universal Studios got cold feet about releasing it on the big screen – the same place where a previous offering, Warcraft, had been gutted. Spectral is sci-fi and has a few great moments but mostly it’

Bose-Einstein condensate

Relativity’s kin, the Bose-Einstein condensate, is 90 now

Excerpt: Over November 2015, physicists and commentators alike the world over marked 100 years since the conception of the theory of relativity, which gave us everything from GPS to blackholes, and described the machinations of the universe at the largest scales. Despite many struggles by the greatest scientists of our

Bose-Einstein condensate

The Nobel intent

A depiction of Alfred Nobel in the Nobel Museum in Stockholm. Credit: sol_invictus/Flickr, CC BY 2.0 About three weeks from now, the Nobel Foundation will announce the winners of the 2015 Nobel Prizes. Every year, commentators, opinionators and enthusiasts try to guess who will win the awards

Bose-Einstein condensate

A simplification of superfluidity

“Once people tell me what symmetry the system starts with and what symmetry it ends up with, and whether the broken symmetries can be interchanged, I can work out exactly how many bosons there are and if that leads to weird behavior or not,” Murayama said. “We&