Here’s a wonderful thing. Scientists in Lausanne have observed a Bose-Einstein condensate forming at the massively warm temperature of 19 Kelvin. Seriously, that’s warm, because previously the darn things were only thought to exist at absolute zero, which is really hard to recreate in the lab. All manner of wonderful possibilities now exist.
4 thoughts on “Warm Bose-Einstein”
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As someone who, God help me, tends to read Science Fiction for the large explosions and hasn’t been near a science text-book since leaving High School 19 years ago, any chance of expanding on the possibilities?
Heavens, I’ve been lurking on your Emerald City site for nearly two years and finally found my voice, whatever next?
Michael – the best example I’ve seen in SF is Chris Moriarty’s Spin State. When I wrote my review I talked a little about Bose-Einstein Condensates and the things they might be used for. Quantum computing, instantaneous communication across the universe, and teleportation are all being discussed. You’ll note that in the review I quote a scientist as saying that a BEC could not exist naturally, but the experiment I linked to above suggests that it could.
Oh, and welcome out of lurking!
Even better, Spin State is next on my “to read” pile once I finish Tim Powers’ Three Days To Never
I doubt that it can compete with Powers, but it is good hard SF. There’s a second book in the same universe, Spin Control, that came out in July (I think, I didn’t motice it at Worldcon). It is on my buy list for when I get back to the US.