Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You_ A Guide to the Universe - Marcus Chown [37]
Clearly, viscosity can manifest itself only when one part of a liquid moves differently from the rest. At the microscopic level of atoms, this means that it must be possible to knock some liquid atoms into states that are different from those occupied by other liquid atoms.
In a liquid at normal temperature, the atoms can be in many possible states in each of which they jiggle about at different speeds. But as the temperature falls, they become more and more sluggish and fewer and fewer states are open to them. Despite this effect, however, not all atoms will be in the same state, even at the lowest temperatures.
But things are different for a liquid of bosons such as liquid helium. Remember, if there are already n bosons in a particular state, the probability of another one entering the state is n + 1 bigger than if there were no other particles in the state. And for liquid helium, with countless helium atoms, n is a very large number indeed. Consequently, there comes a time, as liquid helium is cooled to sufficiently low temperatures, when all the helium atoms suddenly try to crowd into the same state. It’s called the Bose-Einstein condensation.
With all the helium atoms in the same state, it is impossible—or at least extremely difficult—for one part of the liquid to move differently from another part. If some atoms are moving along, all the atoms have to move along together. Consequently, the liquid helium has no viscosity whatsoever. It has become a superfluid.
In superfluid liquid helium there is a kind of rigidity to the motion of the atoms. It is very hard to make the liquid do anything because you either have to get all of its atoms to do the thing together or they simply do not do the thing at all. For instance, if you put water in a bucket and spin the bucket about its axis, the water will end up spinning with the bucket. This is because the bucket drags around the water atoms—strictly speaking, the water molecules—that are in direct contact with the sides, and these in turn drag around the atoms farther from the sides, and so on, until the entire body of water is turning with the bucket. Clearly, for the water to get to the state in which it is spinning along with the bucket, different parts of the liquid must move relative to each other. But as just pointed out, this is very hard for a superfluid. All the atoms move together or they do not move at all. Consequently, if superfluid liquid helium is put in a bucket and the bucket is spun, it has no means open to it to attain the spin of the bucket. Instead, the superfluid helium stays stubbornly still while the bucket spins.
The cooperative motion of atoms in superfluid liquid helium leads to even more bizarre phenomena. For instance, the superfluid can flow through impossibly small holes that no other liquid can flow through. It is also the only liquid that can flow uphill. Interestingly, helium has a rare, lightweight cousin. Helium-3 turns out to be a normal, boring liquid. The reason is that helium-3 particles are fermions. And superfluidity is a property solely of bosons.
Actually, this isn’t entirely true. The microscopic world is full of surprising phenomena. And in a special case, fermions can behave like bosons!
ELECTRIC CURRENTS THAT RUN FOREVER
The special case, when fermions behave like bosons, is that of an electric current in a metal. Because the outermost electrons of metal atoms are very loosely bound, they can break free. If a voltage is then applied between the ends of the metal by a battery, all the countless liberated electrons will surge through the material as an electric current.
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Electrons are,