Beyond Cold: How the World Works at Minus 459 Degrees

Graduate student David McKay describes how atoms are cooled to near absolute zero for research using an approach called quantum simulation Quantum vortices form when atoms are allowed to expand for 50 thousandths of a second. Credit and Larger Version Most of us would agree that 32 degrees Fahrenheit (F), the temperature at which water freezes, is a pretty cold day, but what about minus 320 degrees F, the boiling point of nitrogen ... or minus 452 degrees F, the boiling point of helium? These temperatures are incredibly hot compared to the atom gases I work with as a graduate student in Professor Brian DeMarco's lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We do experiments with atom gases cooled to only 10 billionths of a degree above absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees F). Atoms at room temperature move at about... [read full story]