The past two decades have seen great progress in our understanding of the properties of condensed helium 3. Research on He3 in our lab (see figure 1 for its modern form) began in 1958. At that time the properties of the more abundant isotope, helium 4, were rather well known: A phase transition at about 2 K transforms it from a normal liquid to a superfluid, a liquid that under some conditions will flow without viscous drag. The explanation for this behavior is rooted in concepts from the condensation of an ideal Bose–Einstein gas. But He3 obeys Fermi–Dirac statistics; would it show any likeness to a Fermi gas or liquid? Would it also exhibit a transition to superfluidity?

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