1.16.2004

superfluidity found?

"If their findings are correct, this state is deeply bizarre. Although it is a crystalline solid, it can 'flow' like the most slippery liquid imaginable - in fact, like a liquid with no viscosity.

Liquids that can do this have been known about for years. They are called superfluids, and because they have no viscosity they behave in strange ways. Once stirred, a superfluid will keep swirling forever, whereas a vortex stirred into a normal liquid will eventually exhaust itself and disappear. A superfluid will even creep up the side and out the top of a container."

From Nature