We are all familiar with liquids such as water and intuitively know many of its basic properties. But what happens when a liquid is moving at 99.9999% the speed of light? What happens when we heat it up to the hottest temperatures ever reached on Earth? What happens when the liquid forms the smallest droplet known to humanity? To answer these questions, physicists have been performing reverse alchemy. Instead of turning lead into gold, scientists have been working for the past 20 years to turn gold ions into the smallest, hottest, and fastest flowing droplets of liquid created on Earth- the Quark-Gluon Plasma. In this talk, I will explain how we can study such an extreme liquid and explain why it can provide insight into the Early Universe and potentially what lies inside a neutron star's core.
Learn more about Professor Jaki Noronha-Hostler here on the Physics website: https://physics.illinois.edu/people/directory/profile/jnorhos