Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminium' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion.
Full article on PhysOrg.com
3 comments:
Transparent? The article specifically states that the process "turned the aluminium nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation." My range of vision does not include extreme ultraviolet.
Additionally, this "transparent" state only lasted for about 40 femtoseconds. That's 0.00000000000004 seconds, which is not stable by any measure.
It's fun to bounce around the phrase "transparent aluminum" and bring up Star Trek IV, but the reality is that the claims are exaggerated.
Yes, maybe it's a bit exagerated and they shouldn't have brought Star Trek up, but they do talk about a transparent form of aluminium, and a new state of matter is always worth a note :)
Yes, of course it's important and word should be spread. I'm tired, however, of all the misleading headlines with "transparent aluminum" and "Star Trek" (and there have been a lot of them).
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