Slashdot Mirror
NASA to Investigate Hydrinos
An Anonymous Coward writes "A new NASA program might once and for all settle the "hydrino" question. The concept of the hydrino -- hydrogen shrunk below its normal state with the resulting release of extreme ultraviolet light -- has been derided by the physics establishment and surprisingly embraced by many engineers and people with deep pockets. Slashdot hashed the hydrino pretty vigorously in December 1999. Now NASA is funding independent research into making a rocket from this novel idea. If it works, we could be seeing a sea change in physics. If it fails, hydrinos might finally just float away. There's an active study group of several hundred users (including some prominent scientists) devoted to debating the possible existence of hydrinos. In many ways it sprang from slashdot."
If you only take the electro-magnetic force into account, then it's impossible. If you introduce some other force, it's possible. Some atoms, such as Kr-81 can actually partly "collapse" - it's called "electron capture" and is caused by the Weak Force. This is not possible for hydrogen, because the resulting neutron would be heavier that the original atom. We don't know any such force that would result in a lower energetic state for hydrogen.
The BlackLight Rocket link on Wired isn't slashdotted, it's just wrong. Here's the real page and a much more informative writeup of the whole concept at space.com, April 2000 , where Wired seems to have gotten most of their story. Sigh.