Introduction
All of us are familiar with the 3 states of matter namely; solid, liquid and gas. But have you ever heard of the ‘Superfluid’ state of matter? Yes you read it right, it’s a superfluid but not a kind of water than can cure cancer or can fly, it has nothing to do with superheroes. But this state of matter has some extraordinary property which is unusual to normal liquids, one of its extraordinary property is that it does have a zero viscosity.
Viscosity
The resistance of a fluid is called viscosity, lower viscosity means lower resistance and higher viscosity means higher resistance. Let’s take for example water and honey, water has a lower viscosity than honey and in that way you can guess what viscosity means, in Filipino language we call it “Lapot”, a fluid with lower viscosity can flow easily than a fluid with higher viscosity.
Superfluid
Since a superfluid doesn’t have viscosity then it doesn’t have friction too, it means that it can escape on small holes that a normal fluid can’t surpass. The most common superfluid is the Helium-4 (2 neutrons and 2 protons), when it was tested in a container it forms a super thin film of fluid about the size of 30nm (Nanometer) under the surface to “escape” its container.
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z6UJbwxBZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmvlIdNXxjM
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