With our current technological capability to what degree could we compress matter to increase it’s density noticeably.
Obviously nothing like matter compressed by various types of star collapse but could we use a powerful hydraulic press for example to compact something, similar to the way cars are crushed but significantly smaller and denser.

Could this method be used on larger objects

http://gizmodo.com/5902892/how-to-shrink-a-quarter-using-electricity

What other methods could we use ?

Cymek said:

With our current technological capability to what degree could we compress matter to increase it’s density noticeably.
Obviously nothing like matter compressed by various types of star collapse but could we use a powerful hydraulic press for example to compact something, similar to the way cars are crushed but significantly smaller and denser.

Could this method be used on larger objects

http://gizmodo.com/5902892/how-to-shrink-a-quarter-using-electricity

What other methods could we use ?

or build it from small upwards?

I remember hearing about work being done regarding creating materials under high pressure that had potentially useful properties…

2007 – 25 GPa and 2400 K – multi-anvil apparatus.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08957950601092606?journalCode=ghpr20

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_physics#Creating_high_pressures

http://news.berkeley.edu/2010/09/23/post_perovskite/

There is a picture of a diamond anvil in this article.

Cymek said:

With our current technological capability to what degree could we compress matter to increase it’s density noticeably.
Obviously nothing like matter compressed by various types of star collapse but could we use a powerful hydraulic press for example to compact something, similar to the way cars are crushed but significantly smaller and denser.

Could this method be used on larger objects

http://gizmodo.com/5902892/how-to-shrink-a-quarter-using-electricity

What other methods could we use ?

I can remember reading about the initial consternation when it was first discovered that the matter of some stars was denser than platinum. Initially this didn’t make sense to astronomers because the Pauli exclusion principle stops matter from being significantly more dense than heavy elements on the surface of the Earth. I even remember the name of the star, a nearby red dwarf binary called Kruger 60, which is just one and a half times as far away as Sirius.

Then it was realised that if you could heat matter up so hot that it lost all its electrons, was ionised, then what you were left with was bare atomic nuclei, which could be compressed almost indefinitely provided you could overcome the electrostatic repulsion (and bathing it in a sea of hot electrons helps there).

So, to really compress something, first heat it up until it has ionised and then apply a lot of pressure, for example using a diamond anvil loaded by an explosive force.