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Scientists recently created a whole new state of matter that has never been seen before. Now that isn't something that happens every day.
The discovery came when researchers at Oxford University's Department of Physics bombarded aluminum with an incredibly intense burst of light energy from a special type of laser. The pulse stripped away an electron from every aluminum atom in a sample without disrupting the metal's crystalline structure. This made the aluminum nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation.
Now if you asked me to explain that in plain English I would have to say I haven't got a clue what that really means, but I can only infer from the news accounts that it is something quite extraordinary. Transparent aluminum has hitherto been confined to the realm of science fiction (the term was coined in a Star Trek movie), but for 40 femtoseconds* it was part of our world.
Professor Justin Wark of Oxford put it this way: "What we have created is a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before. ... What is particularly remarkable about our experiment is that we have turned ordinary aluminum into this exotic new material in a single step by using this very powerful laser. For a brief period the sample looks and behaves in every way like a new form of matter."
What does this mean? Nothing that will help us solve any of today's problems. But it does serve as a reminder that there are new discoveries waiting to be made, discoveries that can change everything.
Mankind faces a crisis the like of which has never been experienced in recorded history: climate change. Maybe there are other game changers like transparent aluminum waiting to be found that will help us deal with this crisis. Maybe not.
Either way, it is good to know that there are still whole realms of science still to be imagined never mind explored. As someone who grew up watching Star Trek, it is nice to believe in the possibilities if only for a few femtoseconds.
*A femtosecond is a millionth of a nanosecond, which is in turn a billionth of a second.
This article first appeared on www.PlanetRestart.org.
