On my commute to work today, I had the misfortune of being crammed into a narrow tube underground.
But it could have been worse: I couldve been squished into a single dimension.
Thats what recently happened to some krypton atoms in an Ulm University chemistry lab.
A buckminsterfullerene (buckyball) solution.Photo:Wikimedia Commons
The teams research ispublishedin the journal of the American Chemical Society.
Because Kr has a high atomic number, it is easier to observe in a TEM than lighter elements.
This allowed us to track the positions of Kr atoms as moving dots.
Krypton atoms crammed in their buckyball cages in the nanotube.Gif:University of Nottingham
Its really hard to pin down atoms.
They are small, and in a gas they flit about at roughly the speed of sound.
The buckyballs acted as a cage for each krypton atom.
Once in that line, definition between each atom disappeared: they were a uniform, one-dimensional gas.
It exists in the same way thatone-dimensional strands of electronsstretch across the Milky Way galaxy.
Still, its cool.
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