MIT Physics News Spotlight The bouncing gas Clouds of gases that
bounce off each other could help physicists model the behavior
of high-temperature superconductors and other unusual materials.
Anne Trafton, MIT News Office April 14, 2011 Two gas clouds (one
red and one blue), each a million times thinner than air, are
seen to completely repel each other under the influence of
strong, quantum- mechanical interactions. Such gas clouds can
model matter under extreme conditions, such as neutron stars or
the quark-gluon plasma of the early universe. Image: Martin
Zwierlein When two clouds of gas meet, they normally pass right
through each other. But now, MIT physicists have created clouds
of ultracold gases that bounce off each other like bowling
balls, even though they are a million times thinner than air.
This marks the first time that such impenetrable gases have been
observed. While this experiment involved clouds of lithium atoms
cooled to near absolute zero, the findings could also help
explain the behavior