On this day in physics: 20 January 1931- Happy Birthday to physicist David Lee, a nobel laureate who was awarded the nobel prize in 1996 (along with two others) for the discovery of the superfluidity of the Helium-3 isotope. [Source.] David is 85 today!
Word of the day: Superfluid- A superfluid is a state of matter which generally occurs at very low temperatures (~1 K, or 1 degree above absolute zero) where the atoms become a liquid, which has absolutely no viscosity whatsoever. They are attracted by temperature gradients (i.e. they will move from lower to higher temperatures) and seem to do so defying gravity and surface tension (i.e. electromagnetism). It also "crawls around". Imagine you have a bucket of water on the beach, and you place a small cup in the bucket. Because the cup is filled with air it will float and the water will remain on the outside of the cup, unable to fill it. If that bucket were instead filled with a superfluid helium, the superfluid would "crawl" up the sides of the cup, and fill it, creating its own equilibrium. It's a very interesting and extremely new field of physics.
Killer Resource: The Story Behind the Discovery of Superfluidity in Helium Three. The Birthday Boy's Nobel Prize-winning mate Douglas D. Osheroff gives a lecture about the story behind and the work done which earned them Science's greatest of awards.
Keywords: Nobel Prize, Superfluid, Helium
