![]() ![]() On a microscopic level, liquid glass is somewhere between a solid and a gel-like substance called a colloid - a mixture of particles that are larger than a single atom or molecule. (Image credit: Research groups of Professor Andreas Zumbusch and Professor Matthias Fuchs) For example, in January 2021, research published in the journal PNAS revealed that during the transformation between the state of liquid and solid, glass becomes a new state of matter referred to as liquid glass.Ī diagram of the position and orientation of ellipsoidal particles in clusters of a liquid glass. Many other states of matter have been created under extreme or exotic conditions. BECs are also used to simulate conditions that might exist in black holes. A BEC also has many of the properties of a superfluid, or a fluid that flows without friction. Light appears to slow down as it passes through a BEC, allowing scientists to study the particle/wave paradox. There are no longer thousands of separate atoms, just one "super atom."īECs are used to study quantum mechanics on a macroscopic level. Since there is almost no kinetic energy being transferred from one atom to another, the atoms begin to clump together. At this extremely low temperature, molecular motion comes very close to stopping. Using a combination of lasers and magnets, Eric Cornell and Carl Weiman, scientists at the Joint Institute for Lab Astrophysics (JILA) in Boulder, Colorado, cooled a sample of rubidium to within a few degrees of absolute zero. BECs are a strange, lab-made form of matter in which thousands of separate atoms seem to act as one "super atom." (Image credit: NIST/JILA/CU-Boulder)Ī BEC was first created by scientists in 1995. The velocity-distribution data for gaseous rubidium atoms which confirmed the discovery of the Bose–Einstein condensate in 1995. When a gas is put under pressure by reducing the volume of the container, the space between particles is reduced and the gas is compressed, according to NASA's Glenn Research Center. If unconfined, the particles of a gas will spread out indefinitely if confined, the gas will expand to fill its container. In a gas, the particles have a great deal of space between them and have high kinetic energy. Much like solids, liquids (most of which have a lower density than solids) are incredibly difficult to compress. Therefore, the liquid will conform to the shape of its container. In a liquid, the particles are more loosely packed than in a solid and are able to flow around each other, giving the liquid an indefinite shape. Solids also have a high density, meaning that the particles are tightly packed together. Solids have a definite shape, as well as mass and volume, and do not conform to the shape of the container in which they are placed. Because of this, particles in a solid have very low kinetic energy. The electrons of each atom are constantly in motion, so the atoms have a small vibration, but they are fixed in their position. There are six ways a substance can change between these three phases melting, freezing, evaporating, condensing, sublimination, and deposition (2).In a solid, particles are packed tightly together so they don't move much. In the example of ice melting, while the ice is melting, there is both solid water and liquid water in the cup. This typically happens when the substance is transitioning from one phase to another. There can be two phases coexisting in a single container at the same time. The temperature and pressure at which the substance will change is very dependent on the intermolecular forces that are acting on the molecules and atoms of the substance (2). Every substance is in one of these three phases at certain temperatures. \)Įach substance has three phases it can change into solid, liquid, or gas (1). ![]()
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