Physics. Helium-3 shortage could put freeze on low-temperature research

The elements in group 18 are noble gases (helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon). They earned the name “noble” because they were assumed to be nonreactive since they have filled valence shells. In 1962, Dr. Neil Bartlett at the University of British Columbia proved this assumption to be false.

Consider an adiabatic system composed of two chambers, A and B, designed such that no heat flows into or out of the system. Initially, chamber A is filled with a gas at a fixed temperature T1, pressure p1, and volume V1, while chamber B is evacuated. The gas is then gradually forced through a rigid, porous barrier to chamber B, ultimately reaching temperature T2, pressure p2, and volume V2. A piston on the right side maintains a constant pressure (p2), which is lower than p1. The significant...

The number of independent ways a gas molecule can move along straight line, rotate, and vibrate is called its degrees of freedom. Supposing d represents the number of degrees of freedom of an ideal gas, the molar heat capacity at constant volume of an ideal gas in terms of d is

The definition of temperature in terms of molecular motion suggests that there should be a lowest possible temperature, where the average kinetic energy of molecules is zero (or the minimum allowed by quantum mechanics). Experiments confirm the existence of such a temperature, called absolute zero. An absolute temperature scale is one whose zero point is absolute zero. Such scales are convenient in science because several physical quantities, such as the volume of an ideal gas, are directly...

Werner Heisenberg considered the limits of how accurately one can measure properties of an electron or other microscopic particles. He determined that there is a fundamental limit to how accurately one can measure both a particle’s position and its momentum simultaneously. The more accurate the measurement of the momentum of a particle is known, the less accurate the position at that time is known and vice versa. This is what is now called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. He mathematically...

The volume occupied by one mole of a substance is its molar volume. The ideal gas law, PV = nRT, suggests that the volume of a given quantity of gas and the number of moles in a given volume of gas vary with changes in pressure and temperature. At standard temperature and pressure, or STP (273.15 K and 1 atm), one mole of an ideal gas (regardless of its identity) has a volume of about 22.4 L — this is referred to as the standard molar volume.