WITH THE INDELICATE SOUND OF A BAROMETER INSTANTLY FALLING FROM FIVE MEGABARS TO NONE, SOMETHING VERY BAD HAS HAPPENED IN A HARVARD LAB: THE WORLD'S FIRST & ONLY SAMPLE OF METALLIC HYDROGEN HAS GONE BANG !
"An attempt to study the properties of metallic hydrogen appears to have ended in catastrophe after one of the two diamonds being used like a vice to hold the tiny sample was obliterated.
The metal was being held between two diamonds at a pressure of around 71.7 million pounds per square inch – more than a third greater than at the Earth's core. According to The Independent, one of these diamonds shattered while the sample was being measured with a laser, and the metal was lost in the process.
Professor Isaac Silvera, who was leading the research on the material, recalled hearing a small clicking noise before realising the magnitude of what had happened. "I've never seen a diamond shatter like that. It was so powdered on the surface, it looked like baking soda or something like that," he said.
Atomic cock-up
Due to its size – about a fifth the diameter of a strand of human hair — attempts to locate the sample have been unsuccessful, leading the Silvera and his team to speculate that it may have become embedded in the equipment, lying somewhere in the lab or simply evaporated upon being released from pressure. "The sample is in the wreckage some place or it's not meta-stable and it disappeared, it turned into a gas," he said.
Silvera had been due to discuss his research on metallic hydrogen with the American Physical Society in the coming weeks. All is not lost as his team plans to create a second sample by recreating the original experiment.
"We've got a pair of diamonds that we are now preparing for a run," he said. "There were a few doubting Thomases, so we decided we should just reproduce it."
"An attempt to study the properties of metallic hydrogen appears to have ended in catastrophe after one of the two diamonds being used like a vice to hold the tiny sample was obliterated.
The metal was being held between two diamonds at a pressure of around 71.7 million pounds per square inch – more than a third greater than at the Earth's core. According to The Independent, one of these diamonds shattered while the sample was being measured with a laser, and the metal was lost in the process.
Professor Isaac Silvera, who was leading the research on the material, recalled hearing a small clicking noise before realising the magnitude of what had happened. "I've never seen a diamond shatter like that. It was so powdered on the surface, it looked like baking soda or something like that," he said.
Atomic cock-up
Due to its size – about a fifth the diameter of a strand of human hair — attempts to locate the sample have been unsuccessful, leading the Silvera and his team to speculate that it may have become embedded in the equipment, lying somewhere in the lab or simply evaporated upon being released from pressure. "The sample is in the wreckage some place or it's not meta-stable and it disappeared, it turned into a gas," he said.
Silvera had been due to discuss his research on metallic hydrogen with the American Physical Society in the coming weeks. All is not lost as his team plans to create a second sample by recreating the original experiment.
"We've got a pair of diamonds that we are now preparing for a run," he said. "There were a few doubting Thomases, so we decided we should just reproduce it."
