Text: Fermions are subatomic particles such as protons, neutrons, and electrons that have half-integer spins (1/2, 3/2, etc) and atoms comprised of odd numbers of the particles [such as three]. [Electrons are fermions.] Unlike bosons, another form of elementary particle that have integer spins (1, 2, 3, etc), identical fermions are prevented by the laws of quantum physics from sharing the same state of being. For example, identical fermions cannot share the same location or momentum. But photons, which are bosons, can - which is why lasers work. Two fermions that bind strongly into a molecule become a boson because their spins add to an integer value but, in the Colorado experiment, the fermions did not link that tightly. However, they behaved enough like bosons to allow them to share the same momentum for about one ten-thousandth of a second. Low-temperature superconductors carry current via pairs of electrons that are bound weakly at distances of about a thousand times the usual distance between electrons. In contrast, the relatively high-temperature superconductors are thought to work when electrons are paired at the average distance between them - and this is what was seen between the atoms in this fermionic condensate.

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