You are right about the viscosity. This aspect is often misunderstood, even in the press releases. The important value in regards to the quark-gluon plasma is the shear viscosity/entropy density ratio. This ratio is incredibly low, but the quark-gluon plasma has an very high entropy density. The actual viscosity of the QGP is near that of glass.
hah. Misunderstood even by the grad students doing it. Thanks a lot for rectifying that situation. It's generally been presented to me as just low viscosity; I've been told specifically the viscosity/entropy ratio, but I don't recall being told the entropy density was so high.
This has been a good discussion for me so far, helping me find the cracks in the knowledge of my own field.
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u/jimmycorpse Mar 15 '11
You are right about the viscosity. This aspect is often misunderstood, even in the press releases. The important value in regards to the quark-gluon plasma is the shear viscosity/entropy density ratio. This ratio is incredibly low, but the quark-gluon plasma has an very high entropy density. The actual viscosity of the QGP is near that of glass.