What does weird quantum mechanics actually LOOK like?

This video is a clip from "Sonda", a Polish science program broadcast in 1980's. It beautifully demonstrates what superfluid helium (a Bose-Einstein condensate) actually looks like and how it behaves on a macroscopic level. This is exceptionally rare video, I have never seen video of a superfluid anywhere else, ever. The whole thing is in Polish and I can't understand a word but I think I can explain what the video shows anyway.
It opens with a shot of a quadruple walled transparent vacuum (dewar) flask with liquid helium in the inner flask jacketed by bubbling liquid nitrogen in the outer annular flask that acts as a cold shield. The outer flask is topped up with nitrogen at :10 and the view switches back to the full LN2 jacket with LHe in the inner flask until :48. At this point you see LHe in the inner flask in the normal liquid state and you see it boiling at 1:00 as the pressure above it is reduced and it is forced to cool even lower than its normal boiling point of 4.2 kelvin. At precisely 1:07 the liquid transitions into the superfluid state at 2.17K and all boiling immediately ceases as its viscosity drops to exactly ZERO, where the liquid becomes frictionless. Conventional boiling is forbidden in superfluids because the liquid acts, in a sense, like one single huge atom. All the individual atoms of helium in the flask now occupy a single, coherent, quantum mechanical wave function. Next, a small beaker with a ceramic bottom is filled with normal liquid helium (1:30) that, like all other liquids, cannot pass through its ultrafine pores. The liquid He is brought to the superfluid state at 1:42 and can thereafter flow freely through the ceramic since pore size is irrelevant if flow is frictionless. The weirdest phenomenon of all is shown at 2:25, a Rollin film, the ability of a superfluid to flow UP and out of its own container! The Large Hadron Collider will be completely bathed in this bizzare liquid when it turns on later this year.

Load Comments...

Send this Article to a Friend



Separate multiple emails with a comma (,); limit 5 recipients






Your email has been sent successfully!

Manage this Video in Your Playlists




notify when someone comments
X

This website uses cookies.

This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using this website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

I agree
  
Learn More