compress hydrogen so much with more pressure than we can exert at the center of the earth, you can compress it so much that hydrogen turns into a metal. and at harvard, professor silvera and his post-doctoral fellow, a guy named ranga dias, they say they successfully did that. they created a new metal. it took, like, 40 years of work but for the first time in the history of the universe they made this new thing. they made hydrogen metal. they made metallic eid general. harvard just published the news about it today. in an interview with professor silvera it was really exciting. ranga was running the experiment and we thought he might get there but when he called me and said the sample is shining i went running down there and it was. metallic hydrogen. the next big step will be to figure out whether metallic
machines. they think it could be the world s most important superconductor. so if you made power lines out of this new metal, theoretically you could convey electricity from one side of the country to the other without losing any of it in transit. but whether or not any of those applications work out, it s also just exciting there s a new thing under the sun. there s a new metal. there s a brand new thing that never existed in the universe until ranga dias and professor isaac silvera figured out how to squeeze hard enough to make it happen. so behold, new patron saints of pressure. the sample is shining. and pressure turns out to be one of the most important things that we have all learned as a country, that we have all learned in the news in this first week since we swore in a new president, since we started sliding in american politics into a tire-screeching out-of-control full-speed
it s basically like a vice where the two sides of the vice are specially polished specially coated synthetic diamonds and inside the vice grip they can create inside that little device they have figured out a way to produce almost unimaginable pressure. 72 million pounds of pressure per square inch. that is greater pressure than the pressure at the center of the earth. in that tiny little device. and by inventing a way to squeeze stuff that hard, they say, these researchers from this lab at harvard, they say they have created a whole new thing on earth. the first element in the periodic table is hydrogen. in normal circumstances, hydrogen is a gas. if you cool it to low temperatures hydrogen becomes a liquid. if you cool it down more than that it can become a solid. but if you take that solid and put it into professor silvera s magic squeezing device you, according to what they say, according to what they think they have just done, they think they have figured out a way to
that is greater pressure than the pressure at the center of the earth. in that tiny little device. and by inventing a way to squeeze stuff that hard, they say, these researchers from this lab at harvard, they say they have created a whole new thing on earth. the first element in the periodic table is hydrogen. in normal circumstances, hydrogen is a gas. if you cool it to low temperatures hydrogen becomes a liquid. if you cool it down more than that it can become a solid. but if you take that solid and put it into professor silvera s magic squeezing device you, according to what they say, according to what they think they have just done, they think they have figured out a way to compress hydrogen so much with more pressure than we can exert at the center of the earth, you can compress it so much that hydrogen turns into a metal. and at harvard, professor silvera and his post-doctoral fellow, a guy named ranga dias, they say they successfully did
he ended the day by banning the acceptance of all refugees into this country. dan drezner is columnist for the washington post, a professor of international politics at tufts. he posted this remark tonight on twitter he later apologized for the profanity. he said dear potus, on holocaust remembrance day my synagogue told me that the syrian refugee family we re sponsoring is not coming. then he ended with a profanity. he later apologized for it. pressure gets to us all in different ways and dan drezner joins us next. just like the people