RHIC Collider Creates Quark-Gluon Plasma at 4,000,000,000,000 Degrees Celsius

[didact]

Until the LHC finally gets up to full speed, Brookhaven National Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) remains the world's most powerful heavy ion smasher. And on Monday, they showed off some of that power by announcing that a recent collision resulted in the hottest matter ever recorded. Coming in at a scorching 7.2 trillion degrees Fahrenheit, the plasma not only recreated the environment of the Big Bang, but might have also resulted in the temporary formation of a bubble within which some normal laws of physics did not apply.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-02/rhic-collider-creates-72-trillion-degrees-fahrenheit-quark-gluon-plasma

[givemebackmycountry]

1. Yawn, yeah so what?

Can you microwave some Mac and Cheese with it?


(just kidding - 7.2 trillion degrees! Wow. Sen Inhofe of Oklahoma says it's a "hoax" that it could be that hot.)

[Orsino]

12. At least it's a dry heat. n/t

[Recursion]

2. You could fill a lot of evil profs' houses with popcorn with that kind of heat NT

[Posteritatis]

3. The neat part's hidden away in the middle of the article..

These results are still controversial, and have not been independently verified with other experiments. In fact, the RHIC researchers were so astonished by their findings that they spent an entire year trying to formulate alternative explanations for their data before publishing their results.

One of those fun things to throw in the face of people who claim the monolithic Scientist(tm) jumps to conclusions or makes it up as he goes along.

[pokerfan]

9. Scientists are so arrogant

Always thinking they don't know everything!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG-jaYor-f4

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Wow! Just wow! What was the buffer that kept that heat from vaporizing everything around it?

[Posteritatis]

5. Probably a mix of vacuum and a lack of sufficient stuff to spread the heat around

You can get astonishingly high temperatures in tiny spaces for brief periods without ill effect that way. Pistol and mantis shrimp can create temperatures of five, six thousand degrees when they strike at a target, but because the temperature's in such a tiny area not much comes of it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Shrimp? I had no idea animals could do such a thing.

[caraher]

11. This is the flip side of a common question about laser cooling

"If it's some tiny fraction of a degree above absolute zero inside there, why doesn't the window on the chamber feel cold?"

Temperature is measure of average kinetic energy, but the amount of energy associated with some matter at a given temperature depends on how much of it there is.

You may be at umpteen trillion degrees, but in that collision you had maybe two atoms' worth of matter. A LOT of energy per nucleon, but almost no energy at all compared to typical thermal energies in everyday bulk materials.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Wow! That's 4,000,000,000,273.15 Kelvins! nt

[Tesha]

13. Lord that's hot! (NT)

[drm604]

8. This part is interesting.

However, if these results are vindicated, the bubbles seem to hint that the laws of physics are not fixed across all space, and could change depending on size and temperature.

Could it be that physical laws aren't constant? Could there be laws governing the variability of physical laws? Could the laws governing the variability of laws also be variable? How many levels of laws might there be? Is it turtles all the way down?

[caraher]

10. In a way, that kind of thinking is already quite common in physics

For instance, grand unified theories suggest that 3 of the "four forces" are really only distinct under certain conditions, much as this article says. But you could also argue that the overarching symmetry principles, etc. that govern how these interactions evolve are the "real" turtles at the bottom...

[TheMadMonk]

14. Nah the prime numbered ones are terapins. /nt

[originalpckelly]

15. I mean think of that, the fucking laws of physics do not apply universally to all parts of it!

HOLY CRAP! I would usually lurk in these parts, but this makes want to post, even if I am a moron.

All bets are off. :wow:

Two years ago Stephen Hawking delivered a speech at TED saying that the universe might have created itself out of nothing.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/stephen_hawking_asks_big_questions_about_the_universe.html

It's an idea, but it's truly amazing.

A little bubble where the laws of physics as we know them do not apply? Amazing.

Well, as Spock always said, there are always possibilities.