Nitrogen Fullerenes - Powerful Chemistry

wildsurf writes "A post in sci.energy points to recent confirmation of the stable existence of N60 , through supercomputer simulation. Large-scale synthesis of this material could form the basis for tremendously powerful rocket fuel. Here is an in-depth article on the subject. What would you do with a few million liters of this stuff?"

Comments

Re:Don't hold your breath for zero-point energy.

[Christopher Thomas]

As I understood it, the potential of zero-point energy does not lie within the extraction of the energy itself. The most promising aspect, actually, would be if we were to somehow "shield" a nucleus from this energy. Theory states that it would cause the nucleus to implode upon itself, and produce a blast that would make the H-bomb look like a firecracker.

Any scheme that extracts energy from zero-point effects, either directly or indirectly, is vulnerable to the argument I made; the possibility is what matters, as opposed to the precise mechanism.

If I understand correctly, by "shield" you mean "remove the effects of within a volume". A nucleus isn't much affected by what happens outside it. _Within_ the nucleus, the seething sea of virtual particles play a large part in keeping the nucleons bound together, but a) removing the virtual particles would cause the nucleus to fly apart, not implode, b) removing virtual particles is just a way of saying "magically cause no forces to apply", as at least the first three fundamental forces are transmitted by virtual particles, and c) good luck magically causing the fundamental forces not to apply. If we can do this, then getting free energy will be the least of the effects we could produce :).

I remain skeptical.