There is no disputing Lego’s cool factor.
But researchers at Lancaster University in England have found out just how chill the plastic bricks can be.
A team of ultra-low-temperature physicists cooled a Minifigure and a four-block stack to the lowest temperature possible, in an experiment that could prove useful in the development of quantum computing.
Strapped inside a custom-made (record-breaking) dilution refrigerator—the most effective fridge in the world, capable of reaching 1.6 millidegrees above absolute zero (-273.15 °C)*—the toys did what no human can: survived.
“Our results are significant because we found that the clamping arrangement between the Lego blocks caused the Lego structures to behave as an extremely good thermal insulator at cryogenic temperatures,” team leader Dmitry Zmeev said in a statement.
“This is very desirable for construction materials used for the design of future scientific equipment like dilution refrigerators,” he added.
Invented 50 years ago, the dilution fridge is at the center of a global multi-million-dollar industry, and is crucial to the work of modern experimental physics and engineering, including the development of quantum computers.
Researchers cooled a Lego Minifigure to the lowest temperature possible (via Lancaster University)
The use of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) structures—i.e. Lego blocks—instead of the solid materials currently in use, means that any future thermal insulator could be produced at a significantly reduced cost.
The next step is to design and print low-cost construction material for the next generation of dilution refrigerators.
“This work suggests that custom-built modular materials with even better thermal performance could be readily and cheaply produced by 3D printing,” according to the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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* That’s about 200,000 times colder than room temperature, and 2,000 times colder than deep space.
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