Posted on 03/12/2007 8:44:22 AM PDT by nypokerface
AUSTIN, Texas, March 12 (UPI) -- U.S. physicists report a breakthrough in the field of atomic optics by controlling the speed of a beam of helium atoms using an "atomic paddle."
Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin said their technique could someday be used to better investigate microscopic surfaces or create advanced navigation systems.
Mark Raizen and colleagues at the university's Center for Non-linear Dynamics created the slow helium beams using a yard-long, rapidly spinning titanium blade tipped with silicon wafers that Raizen calls an atomic paddle.
The team pumped puffs of super-cooled helium gas into a vacuum chamber containing the paddle using supersonic beam technology developed by Professor Uzi Even of Tel Aviv University. The paddle's silicon wafers reflected the helium atoms much like a glass mirror reflects a beam of light.
Just as the energy of a tennis ball is absorbed by the motion of a tennis racquet, the motion of the paddle absorbed the energy from the helium beam, slowing it to 560 miles per hour, less than one-eighth the normal velocity of helium.
"The slow beam is an enabling technology," said Raizen. "The next step is to do science with the beams."
Now we can inflate balloons anywhere we want to! BWA HA HA!
ping.
Anyone here able to fill in the missing info? Explanation of Helium having a speed of around 4k miles per hour? Is this the speed of He nuclei in a plasma? brownian motion? ???
article left me clueless
What is the speed of sound in a vacuum? (trick question alert)
"560 miles per hour, less than one-eighth the normal velocity of helium"
Why would helium or any gas for that matter have some "normal" velocity?
What the heck have they been doing so far? Playing Pinochle?........
I used one of those atomic paddles once up on Cape Cod. Got through the canal in three minutes in a 12-foot Boston Whaler!
Even better. We can now make anyone's voice jump three octaves from anywhere! Just wati 'til the next Hugo Chavez speech....
I used one of those atomic paddles once up on Cape Cod. Got through the canal in three minutes in a 12-foot Boston Whaler!
Why would anybody want "slow" Helium, in the first place? I like mine "fast" and "loose"........
Why would anybody want "slow" Helium, in the first place? I like mine "fast" and "loose"........
Hook'em Horns
Hey! They invented a fan. These are surely heady days.
I remember a few years ago, some of the 90's Republicans were pushing to eliminate the nation's strategic stockpile of helium, claiming it was a waste of taxpayer money. Does anyone know whatever happened to that idea?
Sounds like something that might be usefully applied to a whole bunch of politicians.
The molecules in a gas are constantly in motion. The higher the temperature of the gas, the faster the molecules move. The higher the mass of the molecules, the slower they move.
A common demonstration of this is performed in chemistry classes. Ammonium hydroxide is put on a ball of cotton and HCl on another. They are inserted into either end of a glass tube. Where NH3 and HCl meet, they form a white powder, NH4Cl. They meet farther from the NH3 end since those molecules are faster due to their lower mass.
ou can calculate the speed (actually the 'root mean square' speed) of a gas by the equation "square root of (3RT/M). Remember R from chem class?
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