Scientists have created liquid with “negative mass” inside of a laboratory, according to new results published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Negative mass refers to a confusing concept that defies how most of us interact with the world, Newsweek reports. When a soccer ball is kicked, it moves away from the kicker. The opposite is true with negative mass: If the same ball contained negative mass, it would move toward the kicker when kicked.
This phenomenon defies Newton’s Second Law of Motion, which says that when an object is pushed with a given force, it will move away at a given speed, depending on the object’s mass, force, and friction.
“That’s what most things that we’re used to do,” lead researcher Michael Forbes explained in a statement. “With negative mass, if you push something, it accelerates toward you.”
Read more here about the complex process the scientists used to create the negative mass, as well as how it could be used to study mysterious forces in the universe, including black holes and dark energy.
Read the complete findings in the Physical Review Letters journal.
—RealClearLife
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