New Material State “Defies” Laws of Physics

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Whilst the headline might sound sensational, it is accurate, in that the 5 new states are defying known physics, this is a fact. Under current physics laws the pressure exerted on the Zinc Cyanide should have produced a known typical reaction, that it didn't defies that which is currently known as physics.

The wording does make sense, the abstract is actually rather abstract, it means the material, which is a dense solid essentially expanded in size, reduced in density and became porous.

The diagram explains it best.

A for it being in space exploration, I am 100% certain I placed the thread in Science and Tech, which is where it should be, I didn't receive a message from a MOD saying it was moved though.

ETA A lot of my threads ended up hidden away in places they shouldn't or even deleted and given to another ahem more 'esteemed' poster, so I am not surprised, there is a MOD or two that are holding a grudge, as well as certain other posters, you criticize something they posted once, they follow you around and find anything they can that is negative to say.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
I'm not sure if my interpretation is correct, but it sounds like the volume of the solid only is increased. When considering the fluid also, total volume (solid + fluid) under pressure decreased, and this is not counter-intuitive, it's what I would expect.

It increase in volume under pressure the way a sponge increases in volume under negative pressure. When this material is squeezed the molecules rearrange themselves in a manner that makes it more porous. That's the counter-intuitive part of it: On would think that when something is put under pressure, any voids between molecules word decrease, not increase. When I squeeze a sponge, the volume of that sponge decreases (although its density increases

I think maybe it could be considered like a topology issue, such as the "coastline problem" in fractal mathematics (an example famously used in fractal mathematics). In fractal math, a "coastline" can be thought of as having an infinite length, because as you zoom in closer and closer to the coastline, it still remains just as grainy (jagged) as it does when you look at it from afar. As fractal math goes, even if you look at a tiny microscopic portion of this coastline through a microscope, it is still jagged, and all of that jagged coastline needs to be measured. Therefore, the closer you look at a coastline, and the more adding up all of those jagged bits that you can see as you look more closely, the greater the length of coastline becomes any given amount of coastline becomes.

Perhaps the molecules in this material are doing something similar -- i.e, when they are squeezed, the molecules arrange themselves in a way that creates a larger surface area (through the jaggedness of the molecule arrangement) in the same amount of void space in the materials "pores", thus creating a lager volume of porousness without creating a large volume of material.

I dunno -- just a thought.

PS. Why is this in "Space Exploration"?

edit on 14-6-2013 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

I'm not sure. I would think this belongs in the Science and Technology Forum. I suppose there are some space vehicle construction applications for this material, but it has applications as a building material in general -- not just for spacecraft. As mentioned in the article, I can see tremendous potential medical applications.

Originally posted by theabsolutetruth
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

Whilst the headline might sound sensational, it is accurate, in that the 5 new states are defying known physics, this is a fact. Under current physics laws the pressure exerted on the Zinc Cyanide should have produced a known typical reaction, that it didn't defies that which is currently known as physics.

No. It is not defying the laws of physics. It is certainly counter-intuitive, but being counter-intuitive is not the same a defying the known laws of physics.

The article itself explains that the processes at work here were finally understood -- it just took a while (several years). The people involved in this study never say it defies the known laws of physics. Just because people don't understand a process at first, that doesn't mean it defies the known laws of physics. Sometimes it takes some additional studying, additional testing, some hard work, and some difficult math to understand how a process works.

HOWEVER coming to a new understanding of how the process works is NOT the same as saying it is new physics. We can discover new processes without creating new physics to fit those processes. Almost always, it is the process that is found to fit into the known physical laws, not vice-versa.

At first glance all I could gather was that it gets bigger when you squeeze it.

This reminds me of water that it expands when it freezes, where you'd think it should shrink from lower temperature but it doesn't.

Here there is zinc cyanide and it's showing five new states of matter under high pressure. Not solid or liquid or gas or plasma, but new no-name states. What will they call them to confuse people further? Please not the same loopy ideas that named the quarks. I hope they can make it intuitive, working with 4 crystalline and 1 amorphous state.

Now I've got images of the movie the Andromeda Strain dissolving rubber gas masks in a jet. Blood turning into powder. People running into underground labs. The scientific universe is full of holes because someone squeezed it too much. If you squeeze it too hard will it take over the planet? It might this time with the five new states.

Futuristic ideas of lattice expansion... well the most far out at the moment would be UFO-related or vehicle related uses. How to make a metal shell expand or contract to reflect something or let it pass through.

See at the end it didn't defy the laws of physics... the laws of physics were incomplete to start with, and therefore fundamentally flawed and potentially invalid. Now we have 9 states of matter, maybe more? This is incredible.

Originally posted by KawRider9
Can some please post a "dummies version" of this thread? Just spent five minutes reading through this thread and have no clue what is going on. Either the meds for my broken leg are affecting my brain or this topic is waaaay over my head.

In the same boat as you are. From my simple mind, I think these researchers introduced moisture/heat under extreme pressure that caused the material to expand. Once the pressure was removed, the material stayed in the same puffed state. Kind of like a new Vermiculite, but this one uses pressure instead of heat alone.

In a nut shell - they made a new puffed rock.

I personally don't find it counter intuitive for a material to behave in this way.

The sample is basically assuming a form that best dissipates the pressure throughout its structure and in this form the sample structure sits between the molecules in the bulk liquid, a little like dissolving .

reply to post by ChuckNasty


To make it clear precisely how bonkers this result is, think about the way that fake diamond is created. Essentially speaking, real diamonds are nothing more than collections of carbon atoms, which have been exposed to very high pressure and heat by natural processes in the ground, normally near volcanic features.

Fake diamond is made by simulating the pressure under which a collection of carbon atoms/molecules become diamonds. Under these conditions, the carbon particles are compressed together in such a way as to change the way they are bonded at the molecular level, making those bonds stronger. The compression means that although the carbon atoms remain the same in number, they occupy a much smaller space. Therefore one would say that the density of the resulting object (the diamond) is much higher.

So, to recap, under normal circumstances, applying pressure to something is supposed to make it denser, more compact. However, essentially what this new discovery means, is that scientists have developed a way of making pressure cause an EXPANSION , a decrease in density, an increase in the size of the resultant object.

This made me think of this balloon experiment:



Which is also counter intuitive and seemingly defying the laws of physics. But when you look into it a bit deeper its really our lack of knowledge thats the problem, not the laws of physics. Same seems to be true about the effect in the OP.

Originally posted by theabsolutetruth
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

The report details ''5 new phases'' of the material, and mentions varying pressure, it appears the variants are: materials, pressure and chemicals used in the pressure process, giving a variation of porosity within the 5 new phases.

Which suggests the expansion reactions start occurring at varying points whilst under pressure and perhaps stabilising or fulfilling their porosity potential after the pressure application.

Wow, this really is fascinating.
If I'm understanding this correctly, this is like "hole punching" a solid material to a specified range at the atomic level, meaning that anything could become a filter for any particles chosen. This could shrink water or air filtration to nothing more than something the size of a bottle cap.

The medical applications of this could be immense too.

Great find!

Originally posted by theabsolutetruth
A very interesting development in the world of physics and a step closer to truly understanding matter, it's properties and potential.

This is huge and brings to mind questions - lots of questions about water that I want to put out there (here?) before I have to leave (only time to read first page of comments) so I don't forget them in the day-to-day stuff.

Could this be an explaination for why Water gets denser when it gets colder?

I ask because I recall (long time ago) that Heat and Pressure are somewhat interchangeable?

Only Zinc Arsenic (?) was used to make these new 5 materials correct? It was the fluid the material was suspended in that caused the different states? and size/shape of lattice hole (?)? Did the fluid affect the two forms that were stable at normal pressures?

Does Heat affect the process?

Simply fascinating.

Interesting side note on a new state/phase of water at:

Originally posted by FyreByrd

Originally posted by theabsolutetruth
A very interesting development in the world of physics and a step closer to truly understanding matter, it's properties and potential.

This is huge and brings to mind questions - lots of questions about water that I want to put out there (here?) before I have to leave (only time to read first page of comments) so I don't forget them in the day-to-day stuff.

Could this be an explaination for why Water gets denser when it gets colder?

I ask because I recall (long time ago) that Heat and Pressure are somewhat interchangeable?

Only Zinc Arsenic (?) was used to make these new 5 materials correct? It was the fluid the material was suspended in that caused the different states? and size/shape of lattice hole (?)? Did the fluid affect the two forms that were stable at normal pressures?

Does Heat affect the process?

Simply fascinating.

The material used: Zinc Cyanide
type of pressure: hydrostatic
fluids used: various
diagram shows: fluid 1. Methanol
fluid 2. Water
results: 5 new phases of material; 2 of which retained porosity under normal pressure (Methane and Water probably as these are shown in diagram)

ie. potentially

Zn(CN)2 + specific hydrostatic pressure + Water = new porous material A
+ Methane = new porous material B
+ other fluids = phases 1,2,3, or phases 1,2,3 could be part of the process involving Water or Methane prior to fulfilling porosity potential

Heat wasn't mentioned so possibly wasn't a factor.

scitechdaily.com...

The scientists put zinc cyanide, a material used in electroplating, in a diamond-anvil cell at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne and applied high pressures of 0.9 to 1.8 gigapascals, or about 9,000 to 18,000 times the pressure of the atmosphere at sea level. This high pressure is within the range affordably reproducible by industry for bulk storage systems. By using different fluids around the material as it was squeezed, the scientists were able to create five new phases of material, two of which retained their new porous ability at normal pressure. The type of fluid used determined the shape of the sponge-like pores. This is the first time that hydrostatic pressure has been able to make dense materials with interpenetrated atomic frameworks into novel porous materials.Several series of in situ high-pressure X-ray powder diffraction experiments were performed at the 1-BM, 11-ID-B, and 17-BM beamlines of the APS to study the material transitions.

“By applying pressure, we were able to transform a normally dense, nonporous material into a range of new porous materials that can hold twice as much stuff,” Chapman said. “This counterintuitive discovery will likely double the amount of available porous framework materials, which will greatly expand their use in pharmaceutical delivery, sequestration, material separation and catalysis.”

The scientists will continue to test the new technique on other materials.

The research is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

I also find the correlation in shapes between the diamond anvil cell and the rune 'Dagaz' (clarity, breakthrough, transformation, revelation, the light) very interesting.

www.earth.northwestern.edu...


www.ipublica.net...

reply to post by FyreByrd


Thanks for the video, the water state thing is similar in ways to this, also to this new hydrogen from water research, all very interesting and with awesome potential.

scitechdaily.com...

Researchers at Penn State University have discovered that a nanoparticle composed of nickel and phosphorus can catalyze a chemical reaction that generates hydrogen from water.

Cheaper clean-energy technologies could be made possible thanks to a new discovery. Led by Raymond Schaak, a professor of chemistry at Penn State University, research team members have found that an important chemical reaction that generates hydrogen from water is effectively triggered — or catalyzed — by a nanoparticle composed of nickel and phosphorus, two inexpensive elements that are abundant on Earth. The results of the research are published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

“Nanoparticle technology has already started to open the door to cheaper and cleaner energy that is also efficient and useful,” Schaak said. “The goal now is to further improve the performance of these nanoparticles and to understand what makes them function the way they do. Also, our team members believe that our success with nickel phosphide can pave the way toward the discovery of other new catalysts that also are comprised of Earth-abundant materials. Insights from this discovery may lead to even better catalysts in the future.”

Originally posted by EasyPleaseMe
I personally don't find it counter intuitive for a material to behave in this way.

The sample is basically assuming a form that best dissipates the pressure throughout its structure and in this form the sample structure sits between the molecules in the bulk liquid, a little like dissolving .

I'm not sure how much it's like dissolving, but aside from that, your description is how I see it too and it's not counter-intuitive to me either.

Originally posted by TrueBrit
So, to recap, under normal circumstances, applying pressure to something is supposed to make it denser, more compact.

That's what they did in this experiment, if you consider the fluid also.

However, essentially what this new discovery means, is that scientists have developed a way of making pressure cause an EXPANSION , a decrease in density, an increase in the size of the resultant object.

If you disregard the fluid, you could say this, but they used fluid, so why would you disregard the fluid?

I love this! Great stuff!

I wish we had a better term for "laws" of physics though....If the scientific community allowed, I'd call them "standard observations" of physics....because that's exactly what they are....We see things behave in a particular manner and that's what we call a "law" but it's not necessarily a law....Just like electrons that behave like particles when observed but more like waves when not observed(wave-particle duality).....

But I have hope that quantum mechanics will shatter most of these "laws" and give us a much better, yet ridiculously more complex, understanding of our state of reality....

Good find! s&f
A2D

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
I love this! Great stuff!

I wish we had a better term for "laws" of physics though....If the scientific community allowed, I'd call them "standard observations" of physics....because that's exactly what they are....We see things behave in a particular manner and that's what we call a "law" but it's not necessarily a law....Just like electrons that behave like particles when observed but more like waves when not observed(wave-particle duality).....

But I have hope that quantum mechanics will shatter most of these "laws" and give us a much better, yet ridiculously more complex, understanding of our state of reality....

Good find! s&f
A2D

edit on 15-6-2013 by Agree2Disagree because: (no reason given)

Exactly, science evolution is fluid, there are so many things science doesn't know yet that are probably of major significance.