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A Super-Cool Science Story About a Really Cold Thing
Article

A Super-Cool Science Story About a Really Cold Thing

Sarah Kaplan
The Washington Post, 2017
References: Clark et al. (2017)
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Scientific
  • Well Structured

Recommendation

Sarah Kaplan, science reporter at The Washington Post, takes you inside the world of atoms, in which everything is moving. Tiny particles move unpredictably but constantly – as long as the temperature is above absolute zero. Kaplan presents the fascinating findings of a research group at The National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado, who set out to achieve the impossible: To cool a solid object down to near absolute zero. Their research may pave the way for a new class of instruments with unprecedented sensitivity and help physicists understand quantum mechanics. getAbstract recommends this article to anyone interested in fundamental research and advances in applied sciences.

Take-Aways

  • When physicists talk about the temperature of a material, they refer to the “thermal motion” of its atoms – their bumping, bouncing, jumping and spinning.
  • Physicists succeeded in cooling individual atoms and a quantum gas down to near absolute zero, but cooling larger, solid objects remained a challenge.
  • A new method of laser cooling now allows scientists to cool solid objects down to a degree never previously reached.

About the Author

Sarah Kaplan is a science reporter at The Washington Post.

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