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Physics

The force of fluctuations

Nature volume 451, pages 136–137 (2008)Cite this article

Strange forces and effects dominate the world at the microscopic level. One such force, rooted in the random fluctuations of matter, has only now been accurately measured — 30 years after it was first predicted.

On page 172 of this issue, Hertlein et al.1 present the first direct evidence for a force, known as the 'critical Casimir force', that is caused by the continual fluctuations of matter. The discovery is not a surprise: Michael Fisher and Pierre-Gilles de Gennes had predicted2 the existence of the force in 1978, and indirect evidence for it had already been found3,4,5. Yet this new, strong evidence is extremely impressive — not least because of the weakness of the force that the authors have uncovered.

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Figure 1: Critical fluctuations.

C. HERTLEIN ET AL.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sébastien Balibar is at the Laboratoire de Physique Statistique de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris, France. balibar@lps.ens.fr ,

    Sébastien Balibar

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  1. Sébastien Balibar
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Balibar, S. The force of fluctuations. Nature 451, 136–137 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/451136a

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