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."

Comments

Sure.

[papasui]

"...In many ways it sprang from slashdot." Because copying a story makes you responsible for the discovery of a theory that breaks modern physics.

Don't get excited...

[meta-monkey]

Just because NASA gives money to somebody to research something doesn't mean it's not a crackpot idea. They set up a project to try to verify Podkletnov's horse manure, too, didn't they?

Oh God, not these Blacklight loons again...

[meringuoid]

Strange how we've never spotted the emission line corresponding to transitions to this below-ground-state in the hydrogen spectrum, isn't it?

Strange how a bunch of perpetual motion merchants wave Quantum Mechanics around the place for the explanation of how their gadget works. Sometimes. When no actual physicists are looking, but often when potential investors are around.

Strange how many cranks the NASA Breakthrough Physics Program gives respectability to. NASA's least-funded irrelevant sideshow picks up every nut that comes along, investigates their claim, and nothing comes of it. Nut carries on with career saying 'Yep, NASA were interested, and then they covered it up! Big oil interests leaning on the gub'mint, see, don't care for the little guy, with one of these you could be rich!'

I suppose NASA have to be doing something Trekkish - the man in the street expects them to be working towards the Starship Enterprise, after all. Just a shame about the fallout.

Personally, I'm backing Schrodinger to win this one :-)

Re:Oh God, not these Blacklight loons again...

[nusuth]

Strange how many cranks the NASA Breakthrough Physics Program gives respectability to. NASA's least-funded irrelevant sideshow picks up every nut that comes along, investigates their claim, and nothing comes of it.

The common property of all those nuts coming along is:

a) They are usually credible guys and real scientists. Their specific theories may not have the same credibility, but most often than not they would agree with other scientists and vice versa.

b) Their ideas are not entirely incompatible with modern physics. Usually they are investigating non-orthodox interpretations of the current theories. In non-limiting cases, their theories and current theories lead to same observations.

c) They make experimentally testable claims. Most experiments are also low budget.

d) If their claims are found to be true, resulting utility is enormous.

This is what I would call a good gamble. But it is not my money, so it is not my call.

this won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

A simple way to look at the hydrogen atom from quantum theory point of view is this:

Quantum mechanics says, that in order to confine anything (here electron), you need to give momentum which increases as you shrink confinement radius. Who supplies the necessary momentum to confine electron in an atom? It is electrical attraction force between proton and electron. However, the enery needed for momentum increases as square of 1/r, while the amount of enery you can generate from electrical attraction only increases as 1/r. There is a balance at some value of r, and that is the radius of hydrogen atom.

Now, if you want to shrink hydrogen radius further, you would need to SUPPLY more enery to it, rather than being able to get from it. What complex quantum mechanics equation says is that there is no stable radius below ground level. But even if there is a stable radius below ground level, you still cannot get enery by compressing hydrogen atom. It is like a spring. If it is stretched, then you can retrieve energy by slowly retracting it. But that doesn't mean you can get energy out by compressing an unstretched string.