Behold! A new candidate for the world’s highest melting point

[n2doc]

Hold on, hold on! We may have a new world record here.

Researchers from Brown University may have found a substance with a melting point that beats out the previous record by a few hundred degrees.

The candidate is a combination of three elements: hafnium, nitrogen and carbon, and it's expected to have a melting point of about 7,460 degrees Fahrenheit — about two-thirds the temperature of the sun.

At that level of heat, the substance would beat out the long-time melting-point champion, tantalum hafnium carbide, which was found to have a melting point at 7,128 degrees in 1930 (sorry bud, you had a good run).

Now before we break out the champagne, there's still research left to be done. The discovery, published this week in the journal Physical Review B, has only been done on paper based on math. The researchers inferred the melting point while simulating the substance at the atomic level, using the law of quantum mechanics.

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/28/behold-a-new-record-for-the-worlds-highest-melting-point/?postshare=9571438083265236

[gvstn]

1. A think that sun temperature is a bit misleading.

http://www.space.com/17137-how-hot-is-the-sun.html

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Now, if only they could find a container to melt it in ...

(I know, I know, they use water-cooled crucibles for that ... only the center of the mass melts completely.)

[Flying Squirrel]

3. I can hardly wait

Till we find something with a higher melting point than the sun's temperature, so we can build a spaceship out of it and go visit the sun!

[hobbit709]

4. The problem is in dissipating the heat. And that's not even counting the radiation.

[Flying Squirrel]

5. I think that's the easy part of the problem

The harder part would be making it a visit instead of a one-way trip!



Well, maybe we could ride a solar flare back out!