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Build Your Own Cyclotron
mindpixel writes "Physics Today is running a story about Tim Koeth's 12 inch cyclotron. Here's a quote that says it all: 'I was sitting in Tom Devlin's modern physics lecture. He described the principle of the cyclotron. He said it required a lot of RF power. I was--and am--a ham radio operator, so RF was no problem. It needed a big magnet; I knew I could find one of those. How tough could a vacuum system and chamber be?'"
n. A circular particle accelerator in which charged subatomic particles generated at a central source are accelerated spirally outward in a plane perpendicular to a fixed magnetic field by an alternating electric field. A cyclotron is capable of generating particle energies between a few million and several tens of millions of electron volts.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Already done.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
Actually, you can do some preatty neat stuff with microwave oven parts... poke around billb's website for more info.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Folks,
Go out and get yourself a copy of "The Amateur Scientist" collection on CD.
For those of you who are too young to remember the column, or before it was dumbed down, Scientific American had a column called "The Amateur Scientist" - they had plans for a cyclotron, a SERIOUSLY high power CO2 laser and LOTS of other things that could get you hurt in a real hurry. And they showed REAL experiments, and REAL science in that column.
Of course, that was before SciAmerican got dumbed down, became half ads, and became PC - you could actually find desenting views in REAL papers
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
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No man's an island, unless he's had too much to drink and wets the bed.
No man's an island, unless he's had too much to drink and wets the bed.
It's an impressive demonstration. Everytime I see it I still get spooked by the noise and spark it makes.
So it's still there? That's impressive. He put it together 14 years ago. I thought it might have busted by now.
His big problem was the switch. If you just use an ordinary switch, the capacitor bank discharges all its energy at the switch contact and ends up just destroying the switch and not crushing the can. He set up a system of two or three power transistors, where you push a button to flip the gate of the first transistor, and that one flips the gate of the next which flips the gate of the main HV power transistor that closes the circuit. He was still paranoid of getting a shock across the ten-foot lead wires so he surrounded the actual switch with lots of plastic and you pushed it down with a rubber tube. He should have used IR.
Apparently it causes nerds and geeks to get very excited and hold animated discussions about quixotic ideas that have no practical use in daily human life outside of industrial and military applications.
Chances are: if you have to ask, you probably aren't entitled to an answer...
Unless they just rehash the wikipedia link. Oh yeah... That was REALLY helpful to us lesser mortals. Apparently it cures cancer or something... That was totally +5 informative.</sarcasm> Something tells me that cancer cells react no differently to the effects of a cyclotron than non-cancerous cells, but what do I know.
It's like watching a really bad game of Mornington Crescent. They just make it up as they play along... After all... Who's got a 4 ton magnet laying around to check up on their claims?
I think this explains it:
Cyclotron
maybe.
--
"You've only got one finger left,
and it's pointing at the door."
Hahaha, it's still there. I saw it last week. Here's the lecture notes to prove it. I did wonder about the pushing of the button with the tube, I thought that was kind of interesting.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
The pole diameter is only 12 inches but the yoke and coils are included in that figure. Total weight is 4600 lbs for the magnet assembly - each coil is 800 lbs and the iron yoke and pole assembly is 3000 lbs.
http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/cyclotron/12inchmag .shtml
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
pfft, this guy built a cyclotron IN HIGH SCHOOL by himself and used it to demonstrate "particle mass resonace" he won the ISEF (used to be westinghouse) with it. Oh and he also was a consultant on accelerator technology for the show "stephen hawkings universe" shown on bbc and pbs. Not cool enough for you. Well he also built a breeder reactor to win a scavenger hunt.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
In the books "The Cylon Death Machine" and "Battlestar Galactica", Cylons are a reptilian race and they wear body armour. As they progress through the ranks, some of them would be augmented with second brains. If they had the right body type, they would be awarded a third brain, and rise to the rank of Imperious Leader.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
It definatly is fusion, that's where the neutrons come from. Unfortunatly, causing that fusion to happen in this design requires a good bit more energy than the fusion reactions release. More unfortunatly, if there is a way to fix that, it's a very hard problem.