A Bose-Einstein condensate is an unusual state of matter that is unlike both liquids and solids. BEC was first predicted in 1925, but it took roughly 70 years of intense theoretical and experimental effort before it was discovered in very dilute atomic gases in 1995. In essence, a BEC is a strange consequence of quantum theory regarding the wave nature of matter: atoms can act like the waves in water or sound in certain ways. At very low temperatures certain types of atoms spontaneously occupy the same quantum state. As a result, the atomic "waves" overlap, forming a giant "matter wave": each atom loses its identity, the assembly of atoms, in effect, acting as one giant atom or condensate.
The study of the BEC is indispensable to our fundamental understanding of quantum mechanics and could also be utilized in advanced "quantum computers", but very few examples have been found. Besides dilute atomic gases, the BEC is thought to occur in "superfluid" liquid helium and some forms of superconductivity. The possibility that a magnetic BEC exists in Han Purple represents a significant contribution to quantum physics. The original discovery of the BEC effect has since been confirmed by the same team using new samples prepared simultaneously by Tsuyoshi Kimura at Los Alamos and by Ian Fisher at Stanford University.
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