Atomic Metallic Hydrogen Made by Harvard

[FrgMstr]

Atomic Metallic Hydrogen has never existed on Earth before, but the fine folks at Harvard just remedied that as they did not want to be outdone by Berkeley! Squeeze a good old Hydrogen atom down to where the the proton and electron are closer together and apparently some really "cool" things happen that are looking to have all sorts of uses...if they can do it at room temp.

“It takes a tremendous amount of energy to make metallic hydrogen,” Silvera explained. “And if you convert it back to molecular hydrogen, all that energy is released, so that would make it the most powerful rocket propellant known to man, and could revolutionize rocketry.”

 

[mullet]

I wonder what kinda bombs could be made. hmmm

 

[dgz]

I wonder what kinda bombs could be made. hmmm

I'd be more worried about the hydrogen metal bands

 

[Rahh]

All fun and games until.....

I'll be tuning in to the progression of this indeed. Might be something to back!

 

[Qrash]

Meta stable? Wouldn't metallic hydrogen be the most reactive acid ever? How would you ever contain it?

 

[otherweeb]

I'm thinking the containment weight would substantially offset the increase in power. Who's surprised?

 

[Chebsy]

Looks like it has a lot of potential, but not everybody believes it, this is a quote from a BBC article on this subject :- "Complete garbage," is how Eugene Gregoryanz from Edinburgh University described the research. "Like everybody else who works with hydrogen at high pressures, I am appalled by what is being published in Science."

 

[jcollett69]

Supposedly, once the hydrogen becomes metallic, the temp and pressure can be relaxed as it is supposed to be stable. We shall see if this is true soon enough.

 

[Napoleon]

Solar power solid storage? Badass battery/reactor??

 

[scojer]

If it's stable and can become a super conductor at room temperature as theorized it could have a shit ton of electronic applications too.