Helium... Playing a vital role in physics
Helium is colorless, odorless, non-toxic and inert. initially look it'd sound sort of a rather boring element. nevertheless, He is anything but — it's quite merely the life-blood of physics.
Helium is made in massive quantities in stars through the fusion of H. On Earth it's the product of radioactive decay from U and Th isotopes within the Earth’s crust and can be found cornered underground in natural gas reservoirs. helium is non-renewable — once free from the ground as a mixture with natural gas, it escapes into the atmosphere. Shortages of helium, therefore, became regular occurrences in recent years once the uses of the gas have enlarged which means it remains an expensive and precious commodity.
Despite this, He remains a necessary component of the many physics experiments. Its cooling properties are accustomed to chill materials to near absolute zero permitting their fascinating properties to be studied. helium is also used to cool superconducting magnets that are employed in several big-science facilities, particularly high-energy physics. for instance, CERN’s massive hadron collider needed a hundred thirty tonnes of the things to chill the twenty-seven km-circumference accelerators to 1.9 K. faraway from basic science, He conjointly plays an important role in healthcare by cooling the magnets in magnetic resonance imaging machines and is employed within the manufacture of microchips and optical fibers. My initial encounter with the chemical element — besides the odd birthday-party balloon — was throughout my Ph.D. weekly I went to the on-the-spot liquefier to gather a 100-liter dewar of liquid helium and pushed it back to my science lab where it was used to cool a cryostat to measure the warmth capability of various materials. it was during this point when I became tuned in to its fascinating low-temperature properties '' says a certain Ph.D. graduate.
The most common isotope of He is helium-4, which consists of 2 neutrons and 2 protons. He has just one other naturally-occurring isotope — helium-3 (containing 2 protons and one neutron )
Within the Earth’s atmosphere, there's one helium-3 atom for around every million helium-4 atoms.
Both isotopes of helium share one freaky property: superfluidity. Below 4.2 K, helium-4 becomes a liquid but thenat 2.17 K it's a superfluid, permitting it to flow while not losing kinetic energy. this enables it to virtually climb up walls. the weird physics of He has led to several Nobel prizes in physics, highlighting its importance to the sector.
Lev Landau shared the 1962 Nobel prize for Physics for developing the theoretical framework of superfluidity whereas Pyotr Kapitsa shared the 1978 Nobel prize for his experimental work on the superfluidity of helium-4, that he carried out within the late Nineteen Thirties. the discovery of superfluidity in helium-3 at 2.49 mK within the early Nineteen Seventies led to the 1996 Nobel prize for Physics being awarded to David Lee, Douglas Osheroff and Robert Richardson while in 2003 Anthony Leggett shared that year’s prize for his theoretical work on helium-3.
Helium not only has fascinating properties and is crucial once it involves great discoveries in physics, but it's also the things of stars and helps saves lives too.
Helium is made in massive quantities in stars through the fusion of H. On Earth it's the product of radioactive decay from U and Th isotopes within the Earth’s crust and can be found cornered underground in natural gas reservoirs. helium is non-renewable — once free from the ground as a mixture with natural gas, it escapes into the atmosphere. Shortages of helium, therefore, became regular occurrences in recent years once the uses of the gas have enlarged which means it remains an expensive and precious commodity.
Despite this, He remains a necessary component of the many physics experiments. Its cooling properties are accustomed to chill materials to near absolute zero permitting their fascinating properties to be studied. helium is also used to cool superconducting magnets that are employed in several big-science facilities, particularly high-energy physics. for instance, CERN’s massive hadron collider needed a hundred thirty tonnes of the things to chill the twenty-seven km-circumference accelerators to 1.9 K. faraway from basic science, He conjointly plays an important role in healthcare by cooling the magnets in magnetic resonance imaging machines and is employed within the manufacture of microchips and optical fibers. My initial encounter with the chemical element — besides the odd birthday-party balloon — was throughout my Ph.D. weekly I went to the on-the-spot liquefier to gather a 100-liter dewar of liquid helium and pushed it back to my science lab where it was used to cool a cryostat to measure the warmth capability of various materials. it was during this point when I became tuned in to its fascinating low-temperature properties '' says a certain Ph.D. graduate.
The most common isotope of He is helium-4, which consists of 2 neutrons and 2 protons. He has just one other naturally-occurring isotope — helium-3 (containing 2 protons and one neutron )
Both isotopes of helium share one freaky property: superfluidity. Below 4.2 K, helium-4 becomes a liquid but thenat 2.17 K it's a superfluid, permitting it to flow while not losing kinetic energy. this enables it to virtually climb up walls. the weird physics of He has led to several Nobel prizes in physics, highlighting its importance to the sector.
Lev Landau shared the 1962 Nobel prize for Physics for developing the theoretical framework of superfluidity whereas Pyotr Kapitsa shared the 1978 Nobel prize for his experimental work on the superfluidity of helium-4, that he carried out within the late Nineteen Thirties. the discovery of superfluidity in helium-3 at 2.49 mK within the early Nineteen Seventies led to the 1996 Nobel prize for Physics being awarded to David Lee, Douglas Osheroff and Robert Richardson while in 2003 Anthony Leggett shared that year’s prize for his theoretical work on helium-3.
Helium not only has fascinating properties and is crucial once it involves great discoveries in physics, but it's also the things of stars and helps saves lives too.
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