From Identical Particles to Frictionless Flow

John Chalker discusses how the laws of quantum mechanics lead us from the microscopic world to macroscopic phenomena. The notion that atoms of a given isotope are indistinguishable has profound consequences in the quantum world. For liquids made of identical bosons, indistinguishability forces the particles into a quantum condensate at low temperature, where they all dance in perfect synchrony. Treated gently, such a condensate has no viscosity: once it is set in motion --say around a circular pipe -- flow will persist indefinitely (so long as the fluid is kept sufficiently cold!).