A new phase of matter emerges when atoms are laser cooled to nearly absolute zero. This novel substance, a Bose-Einstein Condensate, was predicted in the mid-1920s, at the beginning of the era of quantum mechanics, but it took seventy years before a Bose Einstein condensate could be observed in a laboratory in 1995. At the ultracold temperatures that produce this exotic state of matter, atoms no longer exhibit classical, thermal physical behavior, acting like tiny billiard balls that bounce off each other or the walls of their container – instead, the tens or hundreds of thousands of atoms in a condensate behave in an extremely quantum mechanical fashion, with all the unconventional phenomena that accompany this wave-like state of matter.
For twenty years, scientists have talked about building an apparatus in outer space to produce Bose-Einstein Condensates free from the pull of gravity. There, condensates will be able to be produced at even colder temperatures, allowing us to study phenomena inaccessible even in the most carefully controlled laboratory environments on earth. The NASA Cold Atom Lab project will send a sophisticated Bose-Einstein experiment to the International Space Station to achieve this goal – and Maine’s Bates College is part of this nationwide effort.
For twenty years, scientists have talked about building an apparatus in outer space to produce Bose-Einstein Condensates free from the pull of gravity. There, condensates will be able to be produced at even colder temperatures, allowing us to study phenomena inaccessible even in the most carefully controlled laboratory environments on earth. The NASA Cold Atom Lab project will send a sophisticated Bose-Einstein experiment to the International Space Station to achieve this goal – and Maine’s Bates College is part of this nationwide effort.