The Holy Grail of Physics

Friends, the days are not far when the fusion reactors and single stage rockets will no more be the theoretical things as the Harvard researchers have confirmed the discovery of the so called “holy grail of physics – Metallic hydrogen”. Well, that may seem to be a bit strange but the idea is not from any science fiction movie or novel. The idea was proposed about 80 years ago.



In 1935, Eugene Wigner and Hillard Bell Huntington predicted that at a pressure of 25 gigapascals (GPa), solid molecular hydrogen would turn into a metal. As this pressure was impossible to achieve at that time, their claims remained unverified. But with the advancements in matrial science and quantum physics, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Isaac Silvera and post-doctoral fellow Ranga Dias finally confirmed that they have successfully created the first ever sample of metallic hydrogen at 495 GPa which is far greater from the 360 GPa pressure at the earth’s core. They were able to obtain such a high pressure by crushing the solid hydrogen between the flattened tips of two synthetic diamonds. To prevent the diamonds from cracking, the tips were carefully polished to remove surface defects, heated to remove any residual internal stresses, and coated in alumina, an extremely hard compound of aluminium and oxygen that hydrogen can’t seep through.
The reason for this discovery being so important is that the metallic hydrogen can be a room temperature superconductor and thus opening hundreds of new scopes. It can be very useful in electricity transfer at zero power loss, manufacturing of cheap and efficient electromagnets and particle accelerators etc. One more important contribution of the metallic hydrogen can be toward the fusion reactors and plasma researches. The current problem of handling the plasma can be efficiently tackled after this discovery. The fusion reactors once successfully developed will solve the energy problems of the world for once and forever. The scientists are also looking toward the development of single–stage and inter-planetary space vehicles. The opportunities are not limited and they will be soon converted into reality too but for now, stay amazed because


“Yeh Science ki duniya hai….Nd Yaha aisa hi hota hai….!!!!”

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