A "Universal Truth" that we were all told about in school has been overturned, and this is a very non-intuitive change. But I guess that's just how quantum physics works anyhow. Scientists have recently observed a phenomenon not easily resolved with our collective common experience. "Absolute Zero"- the temperature at which particle motion was supposed to stop- may not be so absolute after all.
A report published in Science shows that potassium atoms in a solid state, when cooled by lasers and magnets, have the ability to switch into a "negative" temperature on the absolute scale. An article in Wired gives a good mouth-wetter into the material presented, but two other reports by NPR and Nature give more full explanations on what is going on. I'll save the gritty details for the link, but it effectively involves a matter of "inversion" within the distribution of energetic states of the atoms that makes the cold atoms really hot.
The NPR podcast ScienceFriday interviewed Vladan Vuletic, a physicist at MIT to help explain what this all really means. The Nature article help expand the narrative how this came about, and gives some possible applications of this new finding to science in general (spoiler alert- antigravity is invoked). Give a listen, and let me know what you think!
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/below-absolute-zero/
http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-gas-goes-below-absolute-zero-1.12146
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6115/52
http://sciencefriday.com/topics/physics-chemistry/segment/01/04/2013/negative-temperatures-that-are-hotter-than-the-sun.html
+Joseph Meany
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