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This week's Science Friday had a segment about someone creating a small sample of Metallic Hydrogen.

Created between two diamond (man-made diamonds) anvils. Only a few microns of it.

They talked about how it might be meta-stable after it was created, and might being "room temp" super-conducive material.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:This week's Science Friday had a segment about someone creating a small sample of Metallic Hydrogen.

Created between two diamond (man-made diamonds) anvils. Only a few microns of it.

They talked about how it might be meta-stable after it was created, and might being "room temp" super-conducive material.

In the interest of accuracy, Dias and Silvera's claim to have produced metallic hydrogen in their Harvard lab using a diamond anvil press at around 500GPa has not been verified and the results have not been replicated in repeatable experiments. Not even Dias and Silvera have attempted to repeat the experiment, and published on the results of a single allegedly successful test... which is fantastically bad scientific practice.

It's no different from the half-dozen other unsubstantiated claims of having created metallic hydrogen in laboratory conditions that've been made since 1996. There is a small outside chance that they actually observed metallicity in hydrogen under extreme pressure, but so far the opinion in peer review is that Silvera and Dias are taking the **** or mistook the alumina coating on their diamond press for the hydrogen taking on metallic properties.

*shrugs* it's not like I was making the claim. Fortunately I was just point out that there was something related to the rt2 in the science news. And where I heard it so others could listen to it too if they so desired.

However, the way they were talking on the show, it sounded like they still had their sample under pressure so they couldn't run the experiment again with the same equipment.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:*shrugs* it's not like I was making the claim. Fortunately I was just point out that there was something related to the rt2 in the science news. And where I heard it so others could listen to it too if they so desired.

However, the way they were talking on the show, it sounded like they still had their sample under pressure so they couldn't run the experiment again with the same equipment.

having read a somewhat more detailed set of articles, the method they are using to generate it and test for the result is currently unique to their lab, but that isn't all that unusual. so confirmation from other labs might take a few years as they arrange to lease that hardware, or build their own.

the compressed substance they created meets the calculated physical traits of Metallic Hydrogen, at least so far as they can measure. they are not currently set up to test some of them (like conductivity), so when they finish this run they'll have to build some new sensor systems and run it again.

currently they are holding the sample at pressure. they want to observe it over time to see if it's physical traits change (which would be a sign they did not find it after all, or that the calculated results are incomplete) and then they want to gradually release the pressure to see if the stuff is metastable. since they are the only lab that has this particular non-explosive based Diamond Anvil Cell right now, they can do this. (most others use some form of explosive event to push the parts of the diamond anvil cell together to generate the needed pressures.. only for an instant, which has made examination of the results difficult in those cases.)


the skepticism their claim has met is pretty much normal for claims of this magnitude. though some of the detractors are guilty of putting cart before the horse themselves. claiming that the readings cannot be right because they don't match that scientists own pet theory about a substance we haven't found yet is more ego than science. all that has been claimed so far is that they have these readings, and that they match up well to the common models for the stuff, indicating a strong probability it is MH.