{"id":286490,"date":"2025-07-23T23:59:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T23:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286490\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T23:59:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T23:59:23","slug":"physicists-blow-up-gold-with-giant-lasers-accidentally-disprove-renowned-physics-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286490\/","title":{"rendered":"Physicists Blow Up Gold With Giant Lasers, Accidentally Disprove Renowned Physics Model"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists equipped with giant lasers have blown up gold at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory<\/a>, heating it to 14 times its boiling point. For a chilling second, they thought they broke physics, but they fortunately did no such thing.\u00a0That said, they broke something else: a decades-long model in physical chemistry having to do with the fundamental properties of matter.<\/p>\n

In an experiment presented today in Nature<\/a>, researchers, for the first time ever, demonstrated a way to directly measure the temperature of matter in extreme states, or conditions with intensely high temperatures, pressures, or densities. Using the new technique, scientists succeeded in capturing gold at a temperature far beyond its boiling point\u2014a procedure called superheating\u2014at which point the common metal existed in a strange limbo between solid and liquid. The results suggest that, under the right conditions, gold may have no superheating limit. If true, this could have a wide range of applications across spaceflight, astrophysics, or nuclear chemistry, according to the researchers.<\/p>\n

The study is based on a two-pronged experiment. First, the scientists used a laser to superheat a sample of gold, suppressing the metal\u2019s natural tendency to expand when heated. Next, they used ultrabright X-rays to zap the gold samples, which scattered off the surface of the gold. By calculating the distortions in the X-ray\u2019s frequency after colliding with the gold particles, the team locked down the speed and temperature of the atoms.<\/p>\n

\"SlacFor the study, the researchers used the Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) instrument at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a tool for scientists to investigate the extremely hot, dense matter at the centers of stars and giant planets. Credit: Matt Beardsley\/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory <\/p>\n

The experimental result seemingly refutes a well-established theory in physics<\/a>, which states that structures like gold can\u2019t be heated more than three times their boiling point, 1,948 degrees Fahrenheit (1,064 degrees Celsius). Beyond those temperatures, superheated gold is supposed to reach the so-called \u201centropy catastrophe\u201d\u2014or, in more colloquial terms, the heated gold should\u2019ve blown up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers themselves didn\u2019t expect to surpass that limit. The new result disproves the conventional theory, but it does so in a big way by far overshooting the theoretical prediction, showing that it\u2019s possible to heat gold up to a jaw-dropping 33,740 degrees F (18,726 degrees C).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very thankful that I get to blow stuff up with giant lasers for discoveries. And that\u2019s my job, you know.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at the data, and somebody just said, \u2018Wait a minute. Is this axis correct? That\u2019s\u2026really hot, isn\u2019t it?\u2019\u201d Thomas White<\/a>, study lead author and physicist at the University of Nevada, Reno, recalled to Gizmodo during a video call.<\/p>\n

To be fair, this superheated state lasted for a mere several trillionths of a second. Also, it blew up. But that\u2019s still \u201clong enough to be interesting,\u201d White said, adding that \u201cif you could prevent it from expanding, [theoretically speaking] you could heat it forever.\u201d To which he added:\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m very thankful that I get to blow stuff up with giant lasers for discoveries. And that\u2019s my job, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

This conjecture will have to withstand follow-up experiments with both gold and other materials, White noted. But from a practical standpoint, the superheated gold kept itself together long enough such that the team was able to directly capture its temperature using their new technique, Bob Nagler<\/a>, study senior author and staff scientist at SLAC, explained to Gizmodo in a video call.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, it\u2019s a funny thing; temperature is one of the physical quantities that humans have known for the longest time\u2014but we don\u2019t measure temperature itself,\u201d Nagler said. \u201cWe measure something that temperature influences. For example, a mercury thermometer measures how temperature changes the volume of a blob of mercury.\u201d<\/p>\n

This could pose a problem when studying some real-life examples of hot, dense matter in extreme states, such as the center of a star<\/a>, the nose cone of a spaceship<\/a>, or the insides of a fusion reactor<\/a>. Knowing the temperature\u2014a fundamental physical property\u2014of matter in such situations could greatly inform how we investigate or, for the latter two, manipulate them to our benefit.<\/p>\n

\"DebrisDebris from a Starship rocket over Turks and Caicos. Understanding the temperature profiles for spacecraft surfaces could help improve our engineering technology. Credit: The Independent\/YouTube <\/p>\n

Often, however, these systems operate on temperature-dependent variables that are difficult to gauge, Nagler said. Technically, you could reproduce them in labs, but they\u2019ll \u201cvery quickly explode,\u201d he noted\u2014notwithstanding the fact that you\u2019d still have to know the real-life temperature of the system being replicated to ensure the experiments are valid.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you have a chicken-and-egg problem,\u201d he said. That\u2019s why the scientists are eager to inspect how their new technique could help in this regard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the most exciting thing about this work\u2014we now have a thermometer for all these crazy experiments we\u2019ve been doing,\u201d White said. For example, the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory uses a gold cylinder in its nuclear fusion experiments.<\/a> Firing lasers at this cylinder causes it to emit X-rays, which then drives the fusion reactor<\/a>, White explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re also thinking of doing directly fusion-related experiments now,\u201d he said. \u201cTo recreate fusion conditions, or the materials that make the fusion reactors, and just measure their temperature\u2014which, actually, has been a long-standing question [in physics].\u201d<\/p>\n

The team is already applying the technique to other materials, such as silver and iron, which they happily report produced some promising data. The team will be busy over the next few months analyzing what these metals could be telling us, the scientists said. The project, for sure, is in full ignition.<\/p>\n

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the National Ignition Facility\u2019s nuclear fusion experiments fire X-rays directly at the gold cylinder (known as the hohlraum). Rather, the experiment fires lasers at the cylinder, which then emits X-rays that drive the fusion reactor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists equipped with giant lasers have blown up gold at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, heating it to 14…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3845],"tags":[23408,327,33061,33412,74,70,16,15,12376],"class_list":{"0":"post-286490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-accelerator","9":"tag-gold","10":"tag-nuclear-fusion","11":"tag-physical-sciences","12":"tag-physics","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-x-rays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114905269126672921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}