Tuesday, February 16, 2010

4 Trillion Degrees

Smash together two gold nuclei at nearly the speed of light, and that's the temperature of the explosion you get. Hottest temperature ever heads science to Big Bang.

...In comparison, "The predicted melting temperature of protons and neutrons is 2 trillion degrees. The temperatures at the core of a typical type-2 supernova is 2 billion degrees," he said.

The center of our sun is 50 million degrees, iron melts at 1,800 degrees and the average temperature of the universe is now 0.7 of a degree above absolute zero.

This research may shed light on why the early universe had more matter than antimatter, and may allow us to build devices that run off of particle spin, rather than only current flow.

The "spin" involved, is not the kind of spin that comes out of Washington DC, however. It's a property of most particles.

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