‘At temperatures close to absolute zero atoms and molecules lose their separate identities and merge into a single ‘super-atom’. This ‘super-atom’ is known as Bose-Einstein condensate’
Like solid, liquid, gas and plasma (hot ionized gas), Bose-Einstein condensate is a state of matter.
BOSE
Velocity in a gas of rubidium as it is cooled: the starting material is on the left, and Bose–Einstein condensate is on the right. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In quantum mechanics, elementary particles can, in some circumstances, behave like waves. The waves – which are waves of probability – describe where a particle is most likely to be at a given moment. The uncertainty principle dictates that it is impossible to know the exact position of a particle. In 1924, while in Germany, Einstein predicted, based on ideas originally suggested by Indian-born Bose, that when atoms approach absolute zero the waves would expand and finally overlap; the elementary particles of which they are composed all merge into a single quantum state.
This state is now known as Bose-Einstein condensate.
TIMELINE
A History of Science 