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Gold survives impossible heat, defying physics limits

Gold was superheated to 19,000 Kelvin without melting, defying physics and unlocking new possibilities in high-energy research. Physicists have heated gold to over 19,000 Kelvin, more than 14 times its melting point, without melting it, smashing the long-standing “entropy catastrophe” limit. Using an ultra-fast laser pulse at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source, they kept the gold crystalline at extreme heat, opening new frontiers in high-energy-density physics, fusion research, and planetary science.

Scientists have simultaneously broken a temperature record, overturned a long-held theory and utilized a new laser spectroscopy method for dense plasmas in a groundbreaking article published on July 23 in the journal Nature.

In their research article, “Superheating gold beyond the predicted entropy catastrophe threshold,” physicists revealed they were able to heat gold to over 19,000 Kelvin (33,740 degrees Fahrenheit), over 14 times its melting point, without it losing its solid, crystalline structure.

New AI Model May Predict Success Of Future Fusion Experiments, Saving Money And Fuel

What this means in real time is that researchers using these maps do not know if there are any errors or issues ahead of them, nor do they know if these errors are part of the research design. Nevertheless, this is all they have to work with, so they have to make a decision based on this limited information, and doing so will always have high costs in terms of the ignition attempt, which is expensive.

To overcome this, the team at the NIF created a new way to create these “maps” by merging past data with high-fidelity physics simulations and the knowledge of experts. This was then fed into a supercomputer that ran statistical assessments in the course of over 30 million CPU hours. Effectively, this allows the researchers to see all the ways that things can go wrong and to pre-emptively assess their experimental designs. This saves a lot of time and, more importantly, money.

The team tested this approach on an experiment they ran in 2022, and, after a few changes to the model’s physics, was able to predict the outcome with an accuracy above 70 percent.

Dark Matter: A Parallel Universe? New Breakthrough Explained! | WION Podcast

A groundbreaking new study suggests that dark matter, one of the universe’s biggest mysteries, could be the result of a parallel universe. Researchers argue that the unseen, gravitationally interacting matter might be the interaction between our universe and another, previously undetected one. The study explores how this hypothesis could explain the effects of dark matter that have been observed in galaxies and cosmic structures. The idea challenges the current understanding of physics and opens new avenues for research into the nature of reality. This revelation could transform our approach to cosmology, potentially leading to a deeper understanding of the universe and its fundamental forces. The implications of such a discovery could revolutionize how we perceive space, time, and matter.

#science #space #wionpodcast.

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Gaia’s variable stars: A new map of the stellar life cycle

One of the best places to study stars is inside “open clusters,” which are groups of stars that formed together from the same material and are bound together through gravity.

Open clusters act as laboratories, showing how stars of different masses and ages behave. At the same time, some stars, known as “variable stars,” regularly change in brightness, and their flickers and pulses help scientists learn about the physics inside stars and about the wider galaxy.

Until now, astronomers studied clusters and variable stars separately, and usually one cluster at a time. But that approach missed the bigger picture, leaving gaps in our understanding of how the lives of stars unfold across the galaxy.

Finding clarity in the noise: New approach recovers hidden signals at the nanoscale

In the world of nanotechnology, seeing clearly isn’t easy. It’s even harder when you’re trying to understand how a material’s properties relate to its structure at the nanoscale. Tools like piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) help scientists peer into the nanoscale functionality of materials, revealing how they respond to electric fields. But those signals are often buried in noise, especially in instances where the most interesting physics happens.

Now, researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a powerful new method to extract meaningful information from even the noisiest data, or when, alternatively, the response of the material is the smallest. Their approach, which combines physical modeling with advanced statistical reconstruction, could significantly improve the accuracy and confidence of nanoscale measurement properties.

The team’s findings, led by Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb, Harris Saunders, Jr. Chair and Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), are reported in Small Methods.

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