Super-cool liquid that defies laws of physics

A LIQUID that seems to defy the laws of physics has been created by scientists.

Under Isaac Newton’s second law of motion, if you push something it will accelerate away from you.

But the bizarre fluid created by scientists at Washington State University behaves in the opposite way.

When pushed, it bounces back, accelerating towards the direction the force came from. The bizarre phenomenon, known as ‘negative mass’, is described in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Professor Peter Engels created the fluid by cooling atoms of the chemical element rubidium to almost absolute zero (nearly -273 degrees centigrade).

The substance became what is known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. In this state, particles move very slowly, and flow without losing energy.

By targeting the rubidium atoms with lasers, changing the way they spin, this created negative mass in the fluid.

Michael Forbes, an assistant professor of physics at WSU, said: ‘With negative mass, if you push something, it accelerates toward you. It looks like the rubid- ium hits an invisible wall.’

The physicists believe their research will give researchers new tools to engineer experiments to study similar behaviours in astrophysics.

These could include neutron stars and cosmological phenomena like black holes and dark energy, where experiments are impossible.

‘What’s a first here is the exquisite control we have over the nature of this negative mass, without any other complications’ said Professor Forbes.

‘It provides another environment to study a fundamental phenomenon that is very peculiar.’

In an interview with the website Live Science he added: ‘These types of negative-mass conditions can arise in a variety of contexts.’

There have been hints of similar behaviour where light travels through materials with special electrical properties, as well as in certain types of crystals.

‘It looks like it hits an invisible wall’