Laboratory equipment manufacturers told 'scale models work'

New research could offer support to laboratory equipment manufacturers whose systems aim to emulate large-scale scientific processes.

Conducted by scientists at the University of Chicago, the study looked at processes taking place on vast scales and within laboratory-sized dimensions.

The findings apply only to very specific systems - such as two-dimensional cold-atom gases - but suggest that some laboratory equipment manufacturers could be able to simulate massive reactions on a compact scale.

Cheng Chin, associate professor in physics at the university, says: "There are only a few systems in nature that can display this kind of scale invariance."

However, by linking these systems with one another, more phenomena can be studied within a single environment.

"Now they can be fully described using the same language," the professor adds.

In some cases, it seems such detailed scientific analysis can be overwhelmed by individuals' instinctive beliefs about their environment.

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business recently revealed that people's perception of global warming is influenced simply by whether they feel hot or not.