What The...?
From Daily Tech:The National Institute of Standards and Technology, in conjunction with the University of Maryland's Joint Quantum Institute, created a short-lived "proof of concept" of perpetual motion. Using an exotic type of matter known as a Bose Einstein condensate, or BEC, the team demonstrated true perpetual motion. Though the state persisted only ten seconds, team members say it will one day lead to real-world applications.
...Usually barred by the laws of thermodynamics, perpetual motion is possible at the macroscopic level when friction is completely eliminated -- the state one finds in a BEC. The NIST demonstration used laser-cooled sodium atoms flowing within a torus to demonstrate the superfluid state. So far, their longest attempt persisted for only ten seconds; the team is attempting to lengthen the period in a future prototype.
Well, that's mind-boggling. I'll wait for the 99% of you who are smarter than I am to comment on its validity.
Okay, 99.9%.
<< Home