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Force Field. No, Really
tqft points out news of "a working force field, using plasma. Now to scale the sucker up." Here's the
Brookhaven press release.
I can think of so many uses for this.
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Finally, a solution to the "Dad, he keeps touching me!" dilemma.
There was a guy down the street from me who was in a force field. Can't remember his name but he had a black and white striped shirt, white face paint and he didn't speak that much.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I asked the guy how he did it, but he won't tell me.
Hasn't anyone explained to him the wonders of open force?
-JDF
They use the word plasma so many times in the last sentence of the first link, that for some strange reason (closely related to my sense of humor, I'm sure), I'm reminded of Monty Python and Spam:
A much faster, more complex version of a previously introduced "spam window" (see New Scientist, 12 April 2003), the spam valve is the latest example of novel uses of spam for particle-beam applications; other recent ones include spam acceleration of antimatter (Update 634), a spam lens (Update 508), and spam deflection of high-energy beams (Update 540).
Niiieeeeeeeeeeeeee!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Just what I need in my server room. Another heat source at 15,000 Kelvin. . .
15,000 over 50 is 300.
300 Kelvin is about 26 Celcius, 80 Fahrenheit.
Does that help?
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
2) The plasma valve is INSIDE a copper container.
If you think this is a "force field" then you might also be interested in the "ray gun" in your television tube.
An interesting story nonetheless, spoiled only by the fatuous ignorance of the submitter and editor.
i know you are trying to be funny, but realistically, the amount of energy a high-temperature "thing" contains can be a lot less than you think.
for example, some ions trapped by the earth's magnetic field goes up to some 14 MILLION kelvins (notice it's hotter than anywhere on, around, or inside the sun). However, as there are maybe one or two such high-temperature particles per cubic centimeter, you will still freeze to death standing (erm, floating) in the middle of it.
just a pedantic monday morning, i guess. I'll stop now.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
This thing is for use in sci-tech research only, for creating air tight vacums. It can't be used to protect / encase eevryday objects. For example, I quote:
At 15,000 degrees Celsius (27,032 degrees Fahrenheit), the plasma valve is about 50 times hotter than room temperature when measured in degrees Kelvin. This intense heat makes the ionized atoms and molecules move around and collide with air molecules so rapidly that the ions block any air molecules that might pass through the plasma valve.
In short, don't expect this force field to be in use at your neighborhood brig / jail anytime soon :) A really cool advancement though.
Now, the high voltage shock might give you pause before touching it again though...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Except this wall has a very small, negligable mass.
Thus, you could also make a balloon with extra lifting capasity just by vacuuming out the inside of a field. It could also fly closer to space than any other balloon, since it has a vacuume(essentially 0 density).
Or you could have containment for mass-sensitive matter (antimatter, etc.)
How about a see-through wall with zero heat transfer by contact?
How about a wall that cannot melt, because there is nothing there to melt? We may finally have something we can melt diamond/carbon in
Sometimes you have to think outside the ridgid plasma cube
- Sig
Or how about we don't convert away from an absolute temperature scale before dividing things all over the place?
If you convert to C first, you've just assigned an arbitrary zero to the scale and cut off about 90% of room temp, but only about 2% of the force field temp, so of course when you then go dividing by 50 it doesn't work out.
Remember kiddies: arbitrary scales are all well and good for addition and subtraction, but don't go messing around with multiplication and division; you'll end up a pregnant murderer who supports terrorists.
And it IS Awesome!
I worked on the pre-cursor to the plasma valve at BNL, the Vaunted "Plasma Window" (ooooh, ahhh)
The thing really is incredible, and yes, I accepted the project because I read the description, and went..."Holy C*ap! That is just like the shuttle bay!" And it is, well...if the shuttle bay were ~4-6mm in diameter =)
And about the 15K Kelvin thing, yes plasmas do get that hot, but lets get real here, the thing is tiny...I bet the lights above your head get just as hot in the middle of their plasmas.
Anyway, the project I worked on was very robust and partially scaleable, just would require a boatload of power. It was very "loud" but not "noisy" as we could put very sensitive equipment right next to it and there would be no interference (you physics types should get this) and when you take a collimated beam of light...in one case a green laser, it will shine clear through it with next to no loss, which is a huge improvement over any other method of separating Atmosphere from Vacuum.
Mind you, this would be only the first stage in a series of differential pumping to get down to UHVacuum.
Gratz to Ady, he is one helluv a guy!
-Chris
I've got a good picture of it here.