Ben Miller experiments with superfluid helium - Horizon: What is One Degree? - BBC Two
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
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As part of his quest to understand what one degree of temeprature really is, Ben Miller visits Oxford's Clarendon Laboratory. Here scientists produce temperatures just a few degrees above absolute zero. Ben Miller explores the bizarre effects of these temperatures on helium.
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This is the coolest thing I've seen this year so far.
ImGonnaShout2000 is this a pun? Im not sure
it is most likely the coolest thing you could ever actually see ;)
now i see what you did there
Really?
ba dum tsss*
Seeing the actual passion and curiosity in that man's eyes reminds me there is still hope for humanity.
bet you're regretting that comment in 2024; wait till you see 2034 you won't believe it!
@@TheLuminousOne I believe in the validity of that comment now more than ever
"We're made of weird stuff like this..." I love that.
Superfluid He does some other really strange things, they should have shown more.
things is, we aren't made of stuff like this, like someone else already said, this is just a weird helium isotope
@@andreatavaglione6459 It's the regular helium isotope you find in balloons and what not. The weird helium isotope requires much lower temperatures to become superfluid.
@Flat Earth Florida lol
It's probablly He4
everything breaks down to metaphysics when the locus floats to the furthest fringe.
edit, for the inevitable contrarians who imagine they know absolutely everything: what i mean is that reality, as we know it, is made through a concert of interacting principles, all perpetually unfolding and interacting with one another. What affects the motion and direction of this concert (at its root) is in the realm of metaphysics.
I remember watching this as a teenager. This type of thing got me interested in science as a young kid, hopefully one day I can afford to get back to school and get a degree so I can follow my real dreams
you don't need to do that now. I went to a shit school where I wanted to learn but couldn't.. so during lockdown I spent my time learning all the stuff I wish I'd learned then... watched science vids non stop or listened to podcasts (highly recommend BBC sounds) when I had to do other things.
@@ChrisOrganic and did you get a job in university or research org where you could do more experiments and discover unknown things?
@@ChrisOrganic you were just watching youtube videos, don't make it all sound so amazing. You still need to go to some university-like place to actually do real scince and research
@@spacesheep6547 😂😂
hope youre following your dreams man
at 2:43 ben was so intrigued that when the scientist said something to him it startled him
2:40
Ha! I didn't notice that before but you are absolutely right. Good eye!
he really was just off in his own little world wasnt he. what an innocent moment to catch on film, you could see his inner child there for a second, completely enthralled in the moment.
Imagine, a fluid that flows out of its container. It's literally magic, but we call it science because we understood the cause and effects, and how to reproduce it. Amazing.
Literally? It is absolutely not literal magic. You choose words poorly and that aside, make a terrible point. Magic is made entirely in the minds of people.
This is the universe. *This* is literally science, but some may call it magic because they do not understand nature in that sense. Be assured that for any want that the common man could dream of, we definitely do understand this phenomenon that you refer to as Magic. I know this will sound negative, but honestly calling something Magic, or Aliens, or God, or whatever is lazy and unimaginative. Ask any physicist worth their salt why this works and why they think it is cool, and you will see that you are really talking backwards here to anyone that has studied these physics.
Of course we only ever have best theories on why anything is or works the way they do, until the next experimentally proven theory comes along that explains nature as best as possible. But, we do not know nothing, we know enough to exploit, employ, or demonstrate these phenomenon well enough to make insanely accurate predictions that are proven correct.
Think about this: This video is novel because it displays a purely quantum mechanical phenomenon. Same as magnetism, lasers, all these sorts of crazy things that feel like magic. Because they are not laws we can generally ever see. They are the laws of the particles and subatomic particles only. If we were electrons this would see ordinary and mundane from that perspective. When macroscopic beings like you and I see these demonstrations, it is strange and weird because these are a previously invisible alternate set of rules the universe is following. But we also get to see this due to an increased understanding of this undefeated model that we use it to predict and test with. This means you can count on these models too when it brings you things like GPS, Internet, Computers, Displays, Batteries, Optics, and almost countless parts of your everyday life.
If you want to think it's Magic that's up to you, but it is 100% definitely not literally magic. Magic is trickery on display to the unknowing. Science cuts through all that as part of it's axioms.
@@owlredshift Wow, never seen someone get so absolutely triggered because another commenter decided to describe something as "magic".
Dont get me wrong, I'm a cynic and dont believe in magic, but its true that technology that is sufficiently advanced enough could be considered basically magic to a layman. Not really something you should pull your hairs out and destroy your keyboard for.
Maybe wait 5 minutes after writing a comment before posting it so you can really think about if you really should post shit like that cus you're making yourself look like a very bitter person who isn't fun to be around.
@@owlredshiftget a life
Was that really necessary? of course he knows its science but its still amazing, magical, i didnt even read ur whole thing koz its a waste of time @@owlredshift
@@owlredshift Have sex incel
glass... it leaked through some type of quark looking plug. Basically, the plug is porous (glass is not), but the surface tension caused by the helium's viscosity kept it from travelling through the pores. Superfluid helium has no viscosity so the individual atoms are able to travel through the pores unhindered.
Thanks for the explanations. But I was expecting something more like Helium climbing the wall of a glass container...
Eventually it might even seep through the glass when it finds some invisible microscopic fracture in it
But why all others liquid doesn't flow from the container to the floor?
@@kakarot2430 I answered this in my post. superfluid helium has no viscosity. that means it doesn't stick to itself. therefore, it can travel through the pores one atom at a time. before the helium is cooled, it is not a superfluid. once it cools, it loses its viscosity. other liquids cant flow from the container to the floor because they are not superfluids. they stick to each other and that clogs the holes.
@@qdaniele97 I have never worked with superfluid helium so I have no idea how common that is, but it's in a larger glass container, and there's no leak, so it doesn't seem like its likely. plus my entire post was about the video saying "the glass bucket could hold the liquid before but superfluidity breaks down the notion that anything can be solid." however, it's held in a giant glass cauldron so obviously it's being held by a solid barrier despite superfluidity.
Odd to think that Ben Miller played an insane man who lived in a shack with a 6ft squirrel named Anthony, and yet has half of a PhD in Solid State Physics.
Ben: Concludes with profoundly philosophical statement.
Scientist replies: It's also cold - like really cold! 🤣
“Which one is the bucket?”
“This one here (pointing the second cable).”
“Okay… (lifting up the first one).”😂
The scientist never really answered the question of _why_ absolute zero can't be reached, just reiterated the phenomenon of getting practically "infinitely" close and not reaching it. The answer is because all particles have a fundamental Quantum spin and vibration that no matter how much energy may be drained are absolutely impossible to remove. It's a property inherent to particles on the smallest scale.
I don't know any of this. Could it be that back then there was no real answer to the question why it can never reach 0?
3:42 the joy of realisation
colder than my ex's heart?
Rajat Shrestha hahahaha
Lol
●
Nah
No
Finally a drink refreshing enough
I think if absolute zero was reached something crazy would happen. Like it would mess with the fabric of reality.
Well, they purposely don't say what the "plug" has been made of. It's porous but the pores are super-tiny, so no normal liquid could ever go through. They also don't show a far more astonishing effect, the liquid creeping up the sides of the container and escaping through the top. Watch Alfred Leitner video on YT, it's much much better.
If only Ben Miller finished his PhD in Solid State Physics. I would’ve loved to have reviewed his thesis “Novel quantum effects in low-temperature quasi-zero-dimensional mesoscopic electron systems.”
So when all of them are at same energy level and this is the beauty we get
So if it drips through of the bucket, why doesn't it drip through the container holding all the helium?
I'm not sure (I'm not a physicist) but I think it's because the outter container is warmer than 2 Kelvin due to the temperature outside of it...
(I imagine it to be similar to this: If you are inside your house in winter the room temperature might be 20° Celsius inside, while it's -10° Celsius outside - the thing protecting you from temperature exchange is your window, which should be neither +20° nor -10° but somewhere inbetween.)
Cretium I think its because the glass is completely sealed and is a special type of glass, while the bucket actually has a plug at the bottom, which allows the helium to crawl through the ever-so-tiny spaces between the plug and the glass, while a normal liquid won't go through the space because the attraction of other molecules (aka viscosity) is keeping it from going in. The superfluid has no viscosity, so there is no force to keep the helium inside allowing it to flow down.
Cretium If any of you listened or did chemistry at school. Helium can be held in a container with very small holes at the bottom of it (preferably a ceramic base). At higher temperatures, helium acts like a normal liquid since it's viscosity is a lot higher than of 2 degrees K above 0. This means that it normally isn't able to drip through the bottom. However at around 2 degrees Kelvin above 0, it's viscosity becomes 0, meaning that it can pass through extremely tiny areas where normally in an average human world, the materials would be considered as impermeable, this is why it's called a superfluid. The reason why the helium doesn't pass through the container with ALL the helium is because the bottom of the second container is completely glass sealed.
Germas369 Lol dude I'm fifteen I'm about to get my second year of chemistry at school. Almost all my knowledge comes from the internet ;)
Cretium Why is it so hard to understand common sense then? Im seventeen i have one more year of chemistry left then I will go to university. Nothing special about me, so why start boasting about your education?
wonderful .. hope to see the full show .
BBC is really awesome . incredible programmes and informative play equally significant part in its shows
well done
My ex just needs a good stare at that thing and watch it go to zero in a nanosecond...
thats cold
Oh shit, wanna key her car together?
This is (not entirely but in the direction of) what all of Schroedinger's cats look like before you "open the box" (really before the cat waves run into the environment, air, background radiation, etc., long before the box is opened; and it all decoheres into either separate cats, each in their own world, or into just one cat in our world and the rest just disappear, depending on your favored quantum interpretation).
That's what's stunning about this. You're seeing the equivalent of the 10^20 Schroedinger cats simultaneously in the box as one cat-wave, some "in there" alive, some dead, some leaking out of the box and flowing down the sides--which is so rare we'd never see it--but you're seeing it here because you're seeing all possibilities in all possible worlds, all together at the same time, all in superposition and spreading out as a wave that we can actually see (at least the results of).
They were mind blown, but even then I don't know if they sufficiently communicated just how mind blowing this is.
This is the coolest thing I've seen this year so far. 1/19/2020
Hehe
why doesn't helium flow out of the bigger container but only just from the small bucket?
as far as i can tell, is because the chamber were sealed
Patty Megahan because of the amorphic structure of glass
it doesn't flow through, but along the walls up on the inner side and down on the outer side. When it goes up the bigger container - the top portion of it is at higher temperature and helium is no longer superfulid...
In the original experiment, a capillary filter was used in the bottom of the bucket. The holes were too small for liquid helium 1 to pass through but the liquid helium 2 superfluid could pass through it. It's used as a test to prove zero viscosity.
92tpeter I think it is because of the temperature difference. It stops being a superfluid the moment it tries too seep out of the larger bucket
Who the fuck kind of people unlike such videos??
Religious nutjobs.
GummyBoar okay that make no absolute sense and just so you don't be me to it so does religion, dumb wannabes and kids who don't understand this dislike it not religious people this has absolutely nothing to do with religious. EDIT
j.c man I'm guessing English isn't your first language. Religion is the cancer of humanity, manipulating children into believing fairy tales.
GummyBoar nope English is my first I'm just way to lazy to care about grammar.
GummyBoar no humans are cancer to earth even us atheist are fucken a holes we are just a bunch of hypocrites going off at each other. If there was a god/ alien race beyond our knowledge they'd be laughing their asses off just looking at us.
The helium atoms are so light that even at very low temperatures they vibrate, so the solid don't get organize. The solid helium only exists when applying an external pressure that keeps the atoms close enough one each other. Superfluid helium is a phase, as exists gas phase, liquid phase and solid phase, exists superfluid phase in some substances.. also there's some substances that have a lot of different solid phases... I think that is the easier way to explain (:
now try to explain that to one of your friends without showing him this video, he'll think you are making up BS. like ''wtf are you saying? if a liquid gets cold enaugh it'll just run trought everything? gtfo out here!''
It does not run "through" anything, thats where they tricked me too. It runs over the top of the container, and drips at the bottom. It's cool, but not as cool as I thought.
Shame it wasn't longer, i chilled right out watching this.
Truly amazing. Sadly though, I know this may sound demented...but I really wanted to see someone just poke it. Just their fingertip, IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE. XD
Doubt anything will happen. Leidenfrost effect will prevent the liquid from touching your skin. But if a drop somehow gets through the skin, it would most likely blow a chunk off since the expansion ratio of liquid helium is over 700 times, and since it's super fluid, there wont be an entry hole for the gas to escape from.
Already taught me something new. Thank you! :D
Just the tip!
XDDDDD
Its probably a good job that its a sealed container, humanity or rather male humans have a tendency to try and stick our penises into everything. Only a matter of time before someone sticks their dick in superfluid too!
I wonder what would happen if you were to try and hold that stuff
aside from your hand freezing off could you feel it moving through you?
That was the first time that I saw exactly what y professor of Physics in high school was meaning when he said that supercritical fluids can go through solids as if they weren't there!
It cant. The report mis phrased it. It flows over the top
@@sal78sal I think it might have been a porous solid
I absolutely love how that scientist sounds like a 1930s radio presenter haha
yes i can see that boff
Thank you very much for uploading.
With the explaination at 0:36 you could also assume, that achilles never reaches the turtle
now can i hook this device up to a pressurized nozzle and make a cryothrower?
And sell the blueprints to the military for billions.
Vim aqui pelo Ciência todo dia!
I swear the guy trying to explain the physics to him doesn't really know how any of it works? He just gives really shoddy explanations!
+Michael Edlin he does that, because the spectators and the oher person have to understand what he is saying
Martijn klop
why heisenberg? everything i found about superfluids and superconductors doesn't have anything to do with heisenberg. At least he is mentioned nowhere.
I think it is a breaking bad reference/joke
Probably not.
It's not a Joke. Heisenberg is relevant because if you actually could get to 0K you could potentially know the exact position of all the atoms in the substance in space since they wouldn't be vibrating at all anymore. If you know the exact position in space of a particle then Heisenberg uncertainty states that you could know nothing at all about its momentum, and if you cannot know anything about its momentum it could conceivably be traveling at the speed of light - an impossibility for particles with nonzero rest mass because it takes an infinite amount of energy to accelerate massive particles to the speed of light and the amount of energy in the universe is finite.
I was expecting ' This equipmnet is absolutly priceless'
*breaks*
Does absolute zero apply to quantum physics? Because quantum physics usually does whatever it wants.
Shane Gaglione actually it's because of quantum physics you can't reach absolute zero. its a really cool concept that I honestly can't explain, but you should be able to find it on UA-cam.
Shane Gaglione Quantum physics is simply the study of how very tiny things behave. As you might imagine, those tiny things behave differently than the things we observe on a macro scale.
But no, zero point energy is the lowest possible energy state that a system can be brought to, and that state isn't absolute zero.
@@austindrapen8959 Well you also can't reach 0 classically.
I love Ben Miller!!
* Patrick voice* touch.
What he means by "cool it down a bit more, and cool it down a bit more" etcetera is that in order to cool a material (in this case a fluid) you have to add something that is cooler. When you are at 0.01 Kelvin, you'll have to add something of 0.001 Kelvin, and so on. That's why you can't get to absolute zero kelvin.
By the way: According to other resources they are wrong in this video saying the Helium runs thróugh the bucket. It doesn't. It is a thin film running over the edge of the bucket.
okay... so what is that thing that can contain helium at that temperature?
'cause obviously something can...
but now i started wondering about super ferrofluids, and all the possibilities... :)
Glass
I love how this guy doesn't even bother putting on gloves as he reaches into his container of liquid nitrogen.
So boss!
Man you could see how excited he is by seeing how dilated his pupils are.
SCIENCE!!!
@Meman136 Via a mathematical linear extrapolation. When all molecules cease movement. Based on the basic gas laws. The reason why we can't reach them is because, as with all gases, they become liquids at a certain point. There's a wikipedia article on absolute zero.
😂 Wikipedia
Hah at 2:20, he was so into the helium he jumped when the other guy called him...
That’s awesome!!! The space between the atoms is so vast that the superfluid falls through the solid glass.!
Well, that "scientist" didn't really explain why you can't cool something to absolute zero (or why we think you can't).
The reason is, that, according to second law of thermodynamics, the heat will always only move from hotter enviroment to the cooler one. You'd need something that has absolute zero heat to cool something else.
I wonder however, why didn't the helium escape the big container when it could escape the small one.
I wondered that too. I think it just heated up beyond it's superfluid state.
Because the only cold part was the place they experiment on
Can we use this to Stop the terminators?
A super liquid is defined as a drink so cool, you will never feel warm ever again.
Someone needs to edit this into a clip to Alexander Armstrong saying " destroy them" into a desk mic right at the end.
lmao this guy just pouring out liquid nitrogen without a glove.
Total fuckin legend.
the bung would have impurities meaning the helium can flow through the gaps, whereas the glass is manufactured to not let that happen
I really wanted to put my hand there
9 years ago
480p
Great👌
@ZzRvXzZ Well, it's well below zero in Celsius and Fahrenheit, yes.
When they're referring to zero in the video, they're not talking in units of Celsius or Fahrenheit anymore since it's too cold. They're using Kelvin, where the unit is more appropriate.
They make quantum tornados with this now
It leaks upward, a superfluid can creep up the walls of it's container, since the small one has no lid it is able to escape.
The tube in the liquid isn't distorted when the liquid stops. Cool! The atoms aren't moving to distort and refract/bend the light!
Does the Helium go through the container like he stated? I thought it crept the container's walls unopposed by friction.
It can do both, so good question.
over the edge
47: Zeno's paradox
That was pretty cool and informative. I loved the video.
Thank you, Bough
@justkatelyn
Seeing as how temperature is the measurement of particle movements, if there are no particles, there is no temperature.
Measuring an area with absolute 0 is absolutely impossible for us, however, seeing as how even if you were in a complete void with no particles, not even light, there is still the measuring instrument which contains particles which will bounce off of the main mass and therefore create a temperature.
Camera man focused more at Ben Miller than Superfluid Helium
Because the Larger Container is a solid container (atleast at the bottom). Meanwhile the bucket isn't a solid container and therefore it has joint/joints :)
Witnessing quantum tunneling irl must be an amazing sight
it's not necessarily quantum tunneling but it is indeed a quantum effect
As a simple biologist I have to ask what is no doubt a stupid question.
Would changing the material they used as a "plug" alter or even prevent the passage of the Helium? I am really very curious about this and I hope someone who understand the physics may offer me an answer I can understand.
Exactly! Idk if they are even claiming whether its going around the pluor straight through it. ‘He’ is monatomic and smaller than diatomic H2, does that mean it can literally pass through the gaps of other solids?
Well, now how to explain?? Okay see imagine water in plastic bag. It doesn't fall throw it because the molecules of plastic bag do not have gaps bigger enough to let the water go through. For water to go throw that it will need a bigger enough hole that can let water molecule flow with force bigger than surface tension of water. So if you the cotton cloth now with big enough holes it will fall throw that. Same happens here. At tem. Bigger than 2k the helium-4 has surface tension enough to hold helium together but weirdly below that it behaves as if it does not have viscosity and it falls through tat porous plug. But doesn’t go through glass because it doesn't not have holes big enough.
Since E=mc^2, and something at absolute zero has an E of 0, that would mean that it had 0 mass. Therefore, literally only nothing can have absolute 0
Close to absolute zero degrees Kelvin, reality of the Universe starts to reveal itself !! The liquid Helium can no longer be held by the container??!! MIND BLOWING!!
@wowkidlrn2play Only in holywood mate. The liquid would boil off without even touching your hand for quite some time before doing what you said. Used to have an initiation test for new PhD students in the lab where we would drop a rubber bing into a dewar of N2(l). So long as they didnt take too long rummaging around for it, they could pull it out with ease. The only thing that risked burning their hand was the sub-zero bung, not the N2(l)
I may be a dummy, but what is the superfluid temperature of the glass vial? Also, if the vial were to reach it's superfluid state, would it become part of the helium? If it could, and you brought the solution back to room temperature, what would happen to the separated molecules of the vial?
"that is actually colder then outer space" good last words
@alekojlime its running through the tube because of one of its properties that allows to to seep through holes that are an atom in diameter
Outer space is not a vacume. it's the opposite its a pressurised system helium rises until its pressurised to liquid form and turns to a liquid at absolute zero.
The reason it's dripping off the bottom isn't actually because it's going thru the glass, instead, the liquid is escaping the glass from the top and flowing off the bottom. It is veryyyy odd but because it has 0 viscosity, the liquid is defying gravity and escaping the glass from the top and running down the sides to drop off the bottom.
it also drips through microscopic cracks in the bucket tho
that one hell of a shot
From the old B&W vid with the ceramic bottomed beaker you could see it crack across the bottom making it leak, so how do we know it's not just the ceramic shrinking at a higher rate and separating from the glass and creating a leak.
Don't know if you're being serious, but one of the main principles of science is repeatability. I assure you, this experiment has been repeated MANY times, and it leaks every time. So your observation is flawed, it could be correct if this was the only time it was ever done, it wasn't.
Sorry for disturbing you months after your post, but I hope this actually helps ......
Spacetime is a Superfluid!
Caveman has 2 sticks. Second caveman rubs 2 sticks. 2 sticks now on fire. Century later, lab tech leaves wood in a furnance and finds charcoal.
3:35 The video is rather confusing - is it a little container or just a tube with a plug on the bottom?
@aman32757 The equation E=MC^2 is used when converting matter into energy, it does not show how much matter there is based on how much energy it has, Absolute zero is theoretically possible, but it wouldn't be able to be observed, because observations require putting more energy into the system.
So as helium prices up from the surface of Earth and as it ascends it gets colder and colder in the less pressure... Waters above...
So that little bit of helium turned into Kitty Pride and passed through solid matter?
Mind=BLOWN! O_0;
They do. Look closely. There are practically "2 containers" holding the helium. The outer container has fluid at the bottom. That is the very thin film of helium going out from the atom-like holes of the first container and gradually sliding down to the center.
It does but as it starts leaking through half way it warms and floats back up
"iTh" "Partitions" of "The Punctuation" of "The Business Decryption keys"
Depends if your dipping your finger into the beaker or pooring it onto your hand
Is the helium escaping between the glass edge and the plug? Or is it passing directly through the plug?
I know they test leaks with helium gas because the monatomic molecule: ‘He’, is so small it can pass through most seals.
THAT WHAT IM SAYING
I honestly am questioning thermal dynamics. Can we even calculate a timeline of a universe heat death if everything slows down so much near absolute zero?
2:40 - Competely hypnotized 😂
@d809 Not really, it's the same as trying to approach the speed of light, you can get closer but you'll never quite make it.
Zero could only exist as a pure static vacuum space. Though since the vacuum implies energy upon its conception, this means that radiation is necessary to sustain it. Therefore to reach absolute zero, reality would have to annihilate itself. To negate radiation is to collapse the vacuum in its wake.
You also wouldn't be able to measure it, because measurements can only be relative in its relation and therefore would need something above zero to relate to itself in that way. The best you could do is imply it in relation to sustaining something at its lowest temperature, but even then you couldn't assume zero.
What do they mean when they say it has no viscosity? When it was pouring out of the bucket, it formed drips. I'm probably misunderstanding surface tension.
They mean that it isn't sticky or able to bond with the molecules around it. So the smaller molecules that are helium is able to slip though the cracks of the solid and leak out. As oppose to when it was a gas and the molecules could hold together and therefore couldn't slip through due to being to big collectively or even trying to slip through different parts at once (which is impossible).
@aman32757
It's all correct except for that temperature is a kinetic energy, so there is no "mass of a temperature" to begin with, so we are on the left side of that equation (E), so that energy can be transformed or transferred, so in theory all of that kinetic energy could be transferred to another system. Third law of thermodynamics is the best way to explain why no system can exist at 0 temp.
Whoa! Super fluid!!!
i had no clue about that, thanks for the info