Extreme Conditions

A metal’s electrical resistance, or how much it impedes the flow of electricity, is determined by a number of factors. But, according to the new research, if a superconducting metal — one that doesn’t impede electrical currents at all — is heated past the temperature at which it can still superconduct, it becomes a strange metal. At that point, its resistance is determined only by temperature and two fundamental constants — the same three factors that determine many qualities of a black hole.

“The fact that we call them strange metals should tell you how well we understand them,” Olivier Parcollet from the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Quantum Physics said in a press release. “Strange metals share remarkable properties with black holes, opening exciting new directions for theoretical physics.”