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| Science & Technology |
| Scientists at the DoE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory create..... something, something. (Per #9, Subject line corrected) |
| 2017-06-03 |
| [phys.org] When scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory focused the full intensity of the world's most powerful X-ray laser on a small molecule, they got a surprise: A single laser pulse stripped all but a few electrons out of the molecule's biggest atom from the inside out, leaving a void that started pulling in electrons from the rest of the molecule, like a black hole gobbling a spiraling disk of matter. Within 30 femtoseconds - millionths of a billionth of a second - the molecule lost more than 50 electrons, far more than scientists anticipated based on earlier experiments using less intense beams, or isolated atoms. Then it blew up. The results, published today in Nature, give scientists fundamental insights they need to better plan and interpret experiments using the most intense and energetic X-ray pulses from SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray free-electron laser. Experiments that require these ultrahigh intensities include attempts to image individual biological objects, such as viruses and bacteria, at high resolution. They are also used to study the behavior of matter under extreme conditions, and to better understand charge dynamics in complex molecules for advanced technological applications. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #15 "Did they find that Malaysian airliner?" Don Lemon - on a bender |
| Posted by: Frank G 2017-06-03 20:26 |
| #14 At what point do you get when there is no distance light can travel in a measure of time? Hillary's brain. |
| Posted by: Sholuter Unase9222 2017-06-03 19:43 |
| #13 Shortest measurable length of time - news leak in DC. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2017-06-03 16:36 |
| #12 I think I'm just a tad beyond my 50 year old High School physics class here. ;^) |
| Posted by: AlanC 2017-06-03 16:28 |
| #11 Still cool as hell! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2017-06-03 15:25 |
| #10 Oh forgot to add, it's "like a black hole", describing the behavior of electrons moving from outer orbits to inner orbits. Elections are wont to do that, they fill in the innermost orbits first, then fill the rest as additional electrons becomes available. The article never said it was a black hole. |
| Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance 2017-06-03 14:51 |
| #9 I had a long explanation, et. al. all written up in response, then I read the actual article Besoeker linked to. Talk about misleading headline, one word got left off which changed the entire impression. I deleted most of what I wrote as it's now pointless. But not to deride the achievement, the takeaway can be summed up in the following: The results, published today in Nature, give scientists fundamental insights they need to better plan and interpret experiments using the most intense and energetic X-ray pulses from SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray free-electron laser. Experiments that require these ultrahigh intensities include attempts to image individual biological objects, such as viruses and bacteria, at high resolution. They are also used to study the behavior of matter under extreme conditions, and to better understand charge dynamics in complex molecules for advanced technological applications. "For any type of experiment you do that focuses intense X-rays on a sample, you want to understand how it reacts to the X-rays," said Daniel Rolles of Kansas State University. "This paper shows that we can understand and model the radiation damage in small molecules, so now we can predict what damage we will get in other systems." The above alone is indeed a major achievement. |
| Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance 2017-06-03 14:47 |
| #8 At what point do you get when there is no distance light can travel in a measure of time? If we knew that, we'd have a unified field theory. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-06-03 13:34 |
| #7 At what point do you get when there is no distance light can travel in a measure of time? Probably at less than the Planck time of 5.39 × 10−44 seconds where the quantum effects predominate at distance and time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time |
| Posted by: Pearl Spatch3340 2017-06-03 11:31 |
| #6 http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v4/n10/full/nphoton.2010.175.html Google isn't your friend but it can be useful. |
| Posted by: Angusock Chuting6110 2017-06-03 11:17 |
| #5 30 femtoseconds - millionths of a billionth of a second - A femtosecond is the SI unit of time equal to 10−15 or 1/1,000,000,000,000,000 of a second; that is, one quadrillionth, or one millionth of one billionth, of a second.[1] For context, a femtosecond is to a second as a second is to about 31.71 million years; a ray of light travels approximately 0.3 µm (micrometers) in 1 femtosecond, a distance comparable to the diameter of a virus. - wiki At what point do you get when there is no distance light can travel in a measure of time? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-06-03 09:30 |
| #4 AC, Well done. That was a packed sentence.I'll memorize it and pop it out in a group and see how that goes over. |
| Posted by: Dale 2017-06-03 09:15 |
| #3 30 femtoseconds - millionths of a billionth of a second - How can you measure that length of time without being confounded by various and sundry quantum effects? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2017-06-03 07:48 |
| #2 Relax Mullah, when was the last time a sensational discovery in physics was announced which didn't turn out to be an experimental error? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-06-03 07:21 |
| #1 On the molecular level, this could prove useful in the future for some technologies, like medical or metallurgy, for removal of undesirable bits and pieces. Would have to have the way to contain the action before it got out of hand, though. That would be ugly. This technology also borders on the realm of Lex Luthor or Blofeld stuff if in the wrong hands. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2017-06-03 07:18 |