Nuclear Fusion Discovered

prostoalex writes "Both USA Today and The New York Times are reporting on research group from UCLA led by Seth J. Putterman which has discovered a form of nuclear fusion. The impact of the discovery? 'While the device is probably too inefficient to produce electricity or other forms of energy, the scientists say, egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in spacecraft thrusters, medical treatments and scanners that search for bombs.' The findings are published in Nature magazine."

Comments

great result, but not really a "discovery"

[gevmage]

First of all, humans "discovered" fusion in 1953 with the first fusion bomb, or "hydrogen" bomb. What this speaks of is controlled fusion.

Secondly, this isn't fusion on even a battery scale; this is a few thousand atoms per second or so. So unfortunately, it's not a matter of scaling up to produce a reactor. The amount of energy being put into the system dwarfs by thousands of times the energy from fusion being put out.

Third, this isn't even the discovery of table-top laboratory scale fusion. As an undergraduate, I worked on a muon catalyzed fusion experiment at TRIUMF in Vancouver. By the time I was working on the experiment in 1994, the fusion reaction in the experiment was so well understood that it was being used to analyze other properties of solidified Hydrogen.

And I'm afraid it's a little bit of a dodge to say it's "at room temperature". The article doesn't say this, but presumably this takes place in a vaccum, where temperature is basically undefined in any conventional sense.

So a very nifty result, but not a discovery, I'm afraid. It will very likely be useful to study the fusion process, or perhaps other things as well.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention that it's also a dupe from and article appearing yesterday.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[saw]

>Third, this isn't even the discovery of table-top laboratory scale fusion. As an undergraduate, I worked on a muon catalyzed fusion experiment at TRIUMF in Vancouver.

Just to be nit-picky: While the cell in which the muon catalyzed fusion takes place may fit on a normal table-top, it would take an awfully large table to hold the proton accelerator, the production target, and the system of vacuum pipes and magnets that decay the pions and select and degrade the muons.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[nietsch]

There is a feasible fusion generator that you failed to mention, invented in the '60 by the inventor of television, Philo Farnsworth.

Have a look at it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnsworth-Hirsch_Fus or

"Unlike most controlled fusion systems, which slowly heat a magnetically confined plasma, the fusor injects "high temperature" ions directly into a reaction chamber, thereby avoiding a considerable amount of complexity.

When Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor was first introduced to the fusion research world in the late 1960s, the Fusor was the first device that could clearly demonstrate it was producing any fusion reactions at all.

It has since been abandoned as a potential fusion generator, since you still have to put in more energy than comes out of it (like every other fusion technology thus far). Some suggest this may be because it is too simple and offers less ways to spend lots of money on it (and acquire status and research grants by doing so).

And humans discovered fusion in the morning, when they opened their eyes and looked at the sun...

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

>And I'm afraid it's a little bit of a dodge to
>say it's "at room temperature". The article
>doesn't say this, but presumably this takes place
>in a vaccum, where temperature is basically
>undefined in any conventional sense.

From the NY Times Article:

"In the experiment, the crystal, a cylinder about an inch and a quarter in diameter and a half-inch in length, was mounted inside the footlong cylinder and surrounded by a gas of deuterium, a heavy version of hydrogen."

The problem isn't the (lack of) vacuum, but the 50F heating. 50F + Room Temp != Room Temp. It's a heck of a lot cooler than most fusion, but 100F is where I draw my personal line at the end of the abstract notion of "room temperature" ;)

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[hplasm]

You mean Philo Farnsworth, the man who is largely responsible for television?

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, its easy for someone to overhype this, but to say it's "not a discovery" seems equally silly. These folks have demonstrated a new means to *produce* fusion. What seems to be promising here is the ability to switch it on and off. The interesting byproduct in this case is not energy (which is negligible) but a controlled source of neutrons. Neutron generators based on high voltage ion accelerators already exist, but are bulky and expensive. The tease in this case is smaller, cheaper neutron generators to combat evil wherever it exists...

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[merlin_jim]

I'd just like to add a few points.

This method of fusion has been known for at least a decade. But the energy efficiency is so low that it's just not a candidate for power generation. Like the article says, this is primarily targetted as a neutron source. It might be able to be scaled above the break even point, but not without some pretty innovative features.

The basic of it is you get a copper plate, attach it to a special crystal, heat it with a tungsten filament, and immerse it in deuterium gas. The heated crystal strips electrons from the deuterium gas, and the ions are accelerated towards an erbium-deuterium target.

I imagine most of your energy is lost as waste heat. And while this is cold fusion, this is not room temperature fusion. Cold fusion is any fusion that is not heat-pressure catalyzed. While heating is involved here, the energy from the heat pressure is not directly used to bring deuterium nuclei together...

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[TripMaster Monkey]

Yup, a dupe from a post not 24 hours old.

Apparently Zonk is shooting for some sort of record.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, the sun was embedded in a vaccum as well and no one seemed to question the ability to assign a 'conventional' temperature to it. I certainly hope you're no longer working in science. Give the guys a break, they're not even hyping this as a 'save the world' energy solution just an interesting experiment.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[fm6]

As long as we picking nits, the fusion bomb was hardly the first time anybody observed fusion. Hans Bethe demonstrated that fusion causes the sun to shine in 1939. And perhaps fusion was used to explain other natural phenomena before then. The "discovery" if you want to insist on that term, goes to whoever first postulated that fusion exists.

Of course, we're all arguing over nothing. Nobody is saying that fusion has just been discovered. It's just the usual sloppy Slashdot headline.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Andy Mitchell]

Muon catalysed cold fusion has looked like a good possibility for decades. However, as far as I'm aware, the problem is that the muons end up sticking to the fusion products too often rather than going on to catalyse the next fusion. As muons are short lived and "expensive" in terms of energy to produce this is not yet a practical source of power.

I seem to recall that in the forward to one of his books (probably 2010, or one of the other 2001 sequels) Arthur C Clarke talks about this as a possible source of power and that he describes it as working best at about 700C. Very cold compared to every other form of fusion that has been conclusively shown to actually work.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[gevmage]

Last time I checked, the sun was embedded in a vaccum as well and no one seemed to question the ability to assign a 'conventional' temperature to it.

The sun also has its own atmosphere. The temperature of that atmosphere (5000-ish degrees F) is what gives the sun its color.

In any case, my beef isn't with the scienists. They did something very useful and cool, which I expect will be very useful in the very near future. My beef is with the Times and other papers like it, which post headlines of "scientists discover fusion" without any really clear idea of what any of those words really mean.

As a matter of fact, I'm not working in "science". I finished my Ph.D., but I couldn't stand the idea of spending my first 7 years as a faculty person writing papers, serving on committees, and scrambling like mad to get tenure. So I got a job where I can real work done on a daily basis.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Philo Farnsworth the dead guy.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd bet your computer runs much hotter than 100F and that is considered room temperature.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[RealityMogul]

You must be new here. Taco has posted a dupe while the original article was still on the same front page.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[TGK]

Try a room in southern Mexico. Room temperature is generaly about 70 F. 70 + 50 = 120F. Now, I wouldn't want to hang out in a 120F room, but it's not like people don't.

Would "human tolerable temperatures" be a better phrase to use? Yes. Will life go on? Yes.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[p3d0]

And I'm afraid it's a little bit of a dodge to say it's "at room temperature". The article doesn't say this, but presumably this takes place in a vaccum, where temperature is basically undefined in any conventional sense.

Isn't it valid to relate the "temperature" of a vacuum to the nature of the radiation passing through it? That is, if you put a black box at at a certain spot in that vacuum, how hot would it become before it reached thermal equilibrium?

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

presumably this takes place in a vaccum, where temperature is basically undefined in any conventional sense.

On the contrary, temperature IS well defined in a vacuum. It's the expectation of what temperature is and does that isn't well defined.

Any vacuum (even deep space) have some residual atoms present. An ultrahigh vacuum, like 0.0000000000001 atmospheres, still has quite a few atoms bouncing around. The random motion of those atoms is measurable and will determine the temperature.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[kootsoop]

...since you still have to put in more energy than comes out of it (like every other fusion technology thus far).

Except the H bomb, I expect.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[VivianC]

So I got a job where I can real work done on a daily basis.

Get real work done, or argue physics on Slashdot. Something like that.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[nietsch]

it's a bomb, not an energy plant as such.
But yes, more energy comes out of it than you put in.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[nietsch]

Yes, many great inventions from that era are contested, as is this one probably.
But what do Nipkov and the others have to do with fusion?

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of energy being put into the system dwarfs by thousands of times the energy from fusion being put out.

We prefer to be called "little people".

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[nietsch]

I'd really hate to be the guy responsible for telivision. I do not want to bear the responisbility for big brother and the likes ;-)

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Professor Farnsworth from Futurama.

Good news everybody. I taught the toaster to feel love. Oh my yes.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[juan2074]

Well I 'discovered' fusion in the early 1970s, while staring into the sun.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[geekoid]

Great sig.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[liam193]

First of all, humans "discovered" fusion in 1953 with the first fusion bomb, or "hydrogen" bomb. What this speaks of is controlled fusion.

Actually humans "discovered" fusion in prehistoric times when the first human looked up at the sun / stars. They may not have known what it was, but they discovered that there was something there and we now know it was a big fusion reactor.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[retrev]

You should have read the articles more carefully. The /. summary was a poor one. It's a known, common fusion reaction used in many neutron sources...hurl deuterium ions at a deuterium target and you get helium and neutrons. The novel bit is how they accelerate it. They use pyroelectric materials to ionize deuterium gas and accelerate it at a target. This new method eliminates the need for large hi voltage sources, etc. allowing for miniturization of the system. (the prototype is about a foot long and a couple of inches in diameter but they are saying it should be little trouble to shrint the length of the cylinder to a few inches). Also, the reaction is started by chilling the unit slightly (even ice water should be enough) and then heating it to room temperature. It's allowing for smaller, safer, less expensive neutron sources.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[owlstead]

Yeah, and Newton did not discover gravity. All the other people did when they fell off the stairs.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[NardofDoom]

/looks at sun
//discovers fusion
///goes back to work

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

The basic of it is you get a copper plate, attach it to a special crystal, heat it with a tungsten filament, and immerse it in deuterium gas. The heated crystal strips electrons from the deuterium gas, and the ions are accelerated towards an erbium-deuterium target.

Well duh...

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[loquacious d]

As pointed out elsewhere, this is a little like saying the electromagnetic field was discovered by medieval alchemists fiddling with static-charged amber rods and bits of lint.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Black Copter Control]

Except the H bomb, I expect.

Yes. The H bomb produces much more energy than you put into it, but it turns out that capturing the energy of that specific reaction is something of a killer problem (if you'll excuse the pun).

Also: While congresscritters normaly jump hoops to get multi-billion dollar recearch facilities built in their constituencies, Nobody (I repeat nobody ) was willing to have a thermonuclear test reactor built anywhere near their ridings.
Internation arms treaties may also cause problems with such a facility.

As a result, research has been stalled for years and is likely to be stalled for the forseeable future.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[gstoddart]

The article doesn't say this, but presumably this takes place in a vaccum, where temperature is basically undefined in any conventional sense.

Wow, that's a pretty cool factoid. I almost cried bullshit then I realized I'm not qualified to, so I googled it. =)

So if I have a vacuum in a container and that container is at room temperature --- do we just simply not know the temperature inside???

I figure since the damned story is a dup, we might as well learn something out of this thread. =)

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[nogginthenog]

Or even John Logie Baird who invented the television in 1924, 3 years earlier than Philo.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[ozbird]

Yup, a dupe from a post not 24 hours old.

Slashdot hasn't discovered article fusion yet.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[ZeroZen]

Um, not as i can tell from my chemistry class.

The hydrogen bomb doesn't make energy out of nowhere. All that fuel inside is making the energy, and it does it by splitting up the atoms inside. Nothing is being made from nothing!

It's a nuclear reaction, not this magic "something from nothing" fusion stuff we all like to talk about.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Goldsmith]

Magnetically confined fusion plamas reached the "break even" point a number of years ago.

The point now is to make a fusion reactor which can get that energy out safely in a useful form for less than $1 billion in hardware. Also, they do inject high temperature ions into the chamber, it would be silly not to.

Finally, if you think expensive and complicated are what get physicists prestige, you don't know enough about physicists.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Pentavirate]

Baird invented the first mechanical television. Farnsworth invented the first electronic television, the design of which was invented in 1922. So in essence, you're both right.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

This thing scares me. The obvious applications have already be listed, however, there exist a few not-so-obvious applications.

1. neutron activation -- water can be made radioactive with enough neutron exposure... and seeing that water is an average of 33% Deuterium, someone could potentially poison entire city water sources. Of course, this is a little far-fetched. Another more frightening and realistic neutron activation would be of carbon or potassium. Stick one of these in a hidden location in the ceiling or wall and you've got yourself potentially lethal daily exposure for an unsuspecting office worker.

2. Enriching -- no need to build fancy nuclear power reactors or colliders, just enrich your Uranium with a few of these.

3. Tempurature trigger -- No need for a thermistor and an electrical trigger for your miniature weapon, just initiate your critical reaction when the temperature rises above 6 C. Embed the entire weapon in a block of ice (good neutron moderator that can aid in limiting detection) and when it thaws, pow.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[coopex]

Hey, I'm UIUC, any chance I get borrow some of your "equipment" to pla^H^H^N^Hstudy San Andreas.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[NanoGator]

"There is a feasible fusion generator that you failed to mention, invented in the '60 by the inventor of television, Philo Farnsworth."

That's probably because Professor Wernstrom stole the credit for it!

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[coopex]

Fear not.

1. Water is 1/6000 Deuterium, or .016%.
1. and 2. This produces a minescule amount of neutrons compared to buying radioactive elements off ebay and such, it's useful because it provides a neutron source that can be precisely controlled, to get any signifigant quantity of fissible uranium still requires fancy eqkuipment.
3. As for use as a trigger, I think once you've built an atomic bomb, building the trigger is not gonna be rocket surgery.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[grumpygrodyguy]

Dear Craig,

Since you're a knowledgeable physics guy, would you take a moment and respond to my question?

Is there any way to create a Bose-Einstein Condensate of 'fuseable' gas such that the density of the gas is so high that quickly transitioning the gas out of the condensate state would result in fusion?

I.e., if two tritium molecules occupy the same location in a quantum state and are quickly transitioned from that state could their 'proximity' to each other be enough to induce the fusion process without requiring them to have a lot of kinetic energy to overcome protonic repulsion?

If not, is it still possible in theory that if you packed 1000 tritium atoms into a space large enough to only contain a few dozen such atoms at ~Zero Kelvin, would fusion occur?

Thanks.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[lupin_sansei]

Sorry to nitpick but Philo T. Farnsworth invented the television tube, not television itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_T._Farnsworth#T elevision_Tube/

The inventor of the first working television was John Logie Baird http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Logie_Baird/

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Yeah, but let's face it. That's like saying someone invented the penis, but not the dildo itself.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Now, I wouldn't want to hang out in a 120F
> room, but it's not like people don't.

Not unless I was on my back and Jessica Alba (Sin City), Jamie King (same), and Billie Piper (new Dr. Who) were sweating atop me.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[ta ma de]

ey, cap'n the dilithium crystals are burnt-out, we're dead in the water. Scotty, If we don't get warp speed in 30 seconds we're all dead. ey, I can repolarize the warp engine but that will only give a second or two. Scotty, only 20 more seconds. I'm giving her all we got cap'n.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

Magnetically confined fusion plamas reached the "break even" point a number of years ago.

Any references for this? Not that I don't believe you, just want to find out more, haven't really been following fusion research.

Re:great result, but not really a "discovery"

[saskboy]

"And humans discovered fusion in the morning, when they opened their eyes and looked at the sun."

Isn't that like saying someone discovered radon gas by entering an unventilated basement with cracks in the floor? A true discovery requires some perception beyond just experiencing the object that is encountered. It could be said using my definition, that Columbus didn't "discover" North America for Europe, because he didn't know where in world he was. Hence, Columbus ENCOUNTERED North America, and these scientists ENCOUNTERED fusion in a form previously unknown. But since they realized what they were looking at, they did discover this type of fusion.

Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Coward writes "Both Slashdot and Slashdot are reporting on the same story about the discovery of a form of nuclear fusion at UCLA. The impact of the dupe? 'While the dupe is probably too inefficient to produce new discussion or other forms of insight, the editors say, it could already find uses ad revenue creation through hundreds of comments about it being a dupe.' The findings are published in anti-slash.org."

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

lol wp

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[FortKnox]

The truely frustrating part is the moment I saw this a good 15 minutes ago (using my subscription plume to see stories early), I wrote an email immediately to the requested address (daddypants -at- slashdot) and told of the dupe.

This was 'supposed' to help them clean up dupes, yet we find that they are not only failing to check dupes, tehy are also failing to check the account so that those of us (that are paying, not being paid) can help out...

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

I lol'ed

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor you, how I'm sorry for the sense of loss you must be feeling... Paying for slashdot and all.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[October_30th]

Yep, mailing daddypants doesn't work. I've tried it a few times and every time the dupe gets posted.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[maotx]

I too have complained about how the emails sent in to the editors are just simply ignored. However, on a strange note, yesterday I sent an e-mail correcting a typo in the mysterious future and acutally got a response and they fixed it! They're not ignoring all of our e-mails.

E-mail for those nonbelievers:

Mark:

Sharp eye! Thanks for noting that one.

Tim

On 4/27/05, Mark Owen wrote:
> A measurement of almost 900 neutrons per second was *observer*.
>
> Should be *observed*
>


--
>>>> edges are interesting

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

So? Some people think cucumbers taste better pickled.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

People that complain about duplicates annoy me. If you don't like duplicates, simply go to your browser and delete the bookmark pointing "slashdot.org", for the sake of the rest of us that love duplicates, kissing the editors asses, karma whoring and freaking out at others for bad spelling, or saying anything nice about Microsoft.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

People that complain about people that complain about duplicates annoy me. If you don't like complaints about duplicates, simply go to your browser and delete the bookmark pointing "slashdot.org", for the sake of the rest of us that love complaints about duplicates, complaints about kissing the editors asses, complaints about karma whoring and complaints freaking out at others for bad spelling, or complaints about saying anything nice about Microsoft.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

This was 'supposed' to help them clean up dupes, yet we find that they are not only failing to check dupes, tehy are also failing to check the account so that those of us (that are paying, not being paid) can help out...

That's because you're doing it all wrong. The staff doesn't care. But there is a solution; you mention that we're paying for this "service." Gentlemen, I give you the contact information for the Open Source Technology Group, Slashdot's parent company:

46939 Bayside Parkway
Fremont, CA 94538

Toll free: (877) 825-4689
Phone: (510) 687-7000
Fax: (510) 687-7155

E-mail: info@ostg.com [not linkified for spam reasons]

(Source: http://www.ostg.com/contact/index.htm) You want the editors to, erm, edit? Complain to their bosses.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the vice president of Editorial Operations for OSTG (most bizarre title i've ever heard) is an editor here.

Jeff "hemos" Bates
Vice President of Editorial Operations

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Coward writes "Both Slashdot and Slashdot are reporting on the same story about the discovery of a form of nuclear fusion at UCLA. . . .

That gets my vote for the best post of the year! Should be modded "truthful".

Off topic - has anybody else noticed how slow /. is getting these days? Click on "Preview" or "Submit" and it takes bloody ages for /. to respond. Slashdot being slashdotted?

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not true. I click on the links and meta-moderate all the time.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this? Tell me more about these supposed "pickled" cucumbers...

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember reading a similar story on the random slashdot story generator.

Nuclear Fusion Being Used in the PS3

Definitely a must have. The new PS3 will be using technology gleaned from research on nuclear fusion. This should put the PS3 at the top of the heap, and have their competitors scrambling to catch up. It's sure to be the hot new gizmo for all the mobile business executives who need help with total world domination.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[gevmage]

Is he? Interesting.

I would say it's still worth pinging him about it, particularly if the daddypants account is being ignored. My impression of Jeff is that although he's wierd in innumerable ways, he cares a lot about what slashdot is and what it stands for, and would be very annoyed about an editor who ignored a message about a duplicate post and posted it anyway.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

Hemos has actually replied to dupe emails I've sent.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[OverlordQ]

I've actually gotten a reply from him one time regarding a mistake in a story so although it may be rare, it does happen.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he means clicking on a slashdot.org link while at anti-slash.

I don't know if that claim is true, either.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's what I mean... I do that all the time... while logged in... with my subscription account. Right now it's even begging me to meta moderate.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't listen to him! It's really an alien wang!

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

> Hemos has actually replied to dupe emails I've sent.

You forgot to sign this "Hemos".

HTH. HAND.

Re:Slashdot: Nuclear Fusion Dupe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

anti-slash, now that sounds interesting. I am going to have to check it our. Perhaps there will be a post there about the blatant Apple "rump swabbery" that is going on here.

Fusion, time travel...

[soniCron88]

It's amazing what they're coming up with these days. Fusion, time travel... Multiple posts. Cmon.

Re:Fusion, time travel...

[dr_dank]

Fusion, time travel... Multiple posts. Cmon.

Thats what usually happens when they get Slashdot up to 88 miles per hour.

Wowzers!

[NinjaPablo]

Holy duplicate article batman!

Dupe

[bunratty]

Now if Slashdot could only fuse duplicate stories into one...

Re:Dupe

[argent]

Not only is it a dup(), but it fork()ing accept()ed the bogus conclusion from the NYT pipe() about it being an energy /src/.

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Duplicate fusion! Would the final story be slightly shorter than the original two combined?

Finally, Slashdot stories with some REAL fallout.

Re:Dupe

[Marko DeBeeste]

This is a dupe of a dupe referring to a dupe of a dupe. By a dupe, of course.

Re:Dupe

[Deinhard]

The resulting story would be slightly shorter and there would be a brief flash of brilliance as energy is released.

Re:Dupe

[ChuckleBug]

Sir, please refrain from stealing my jokes in the future. Thank you for your cooperation.

P.S. This is not a flame. It's just (-1, Offtopic) or perhaps (5, Charitable Mods).

P.P.S. Yeah, I know neither of us thought of it first. I've been here longer than most of you all, so I know what goes on, and poopy poo-poo on you. (-0.1 Lameflame)

P.P.P.S. Slow work day.

Re: Dupe

[whitehatlurker]

As predicted ...

Any bets as to when this will be re-duped?

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sorry budy, you were just a minute late. Rather being insightful you are now credited offtopic (even though you linked the right story). Thats the way slashdot goes. An eye for an eye, karma points matters.

Re:Dupe

[dracocat]

No they don't. Watch this...

Karma Burn.

Amazing ...

[Sonic McTails]

Dupe ... Yesterday's Article.. Wasn't even 24 hours since this one was posted ...

First Dupe!

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Your own Site

The headline is wrong by the way, nuclear fusion has been discovered for a long time. Ever look up at the sun?

Re:First Dupe!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever look up at the sun?

That's why the editors can't see the dupes.

Re:First Dupe!

[DaveCar]

Ever look up at the sun?

Why, wha...MY EYES! Zee goggles zey do naathing!

Re:First Dupe!

[ThunderBucket]

I wish I had mod points to give you. But zet are only for DIPLOMATS WITH ZE HIGH SECURITY CLEARANCES!

Potenital?

[Anonymous Coward]

"This development, which scientists heralded as "amazing," has no practical application at the moment but lots of potential."

"but lots of potential." (sound of back being patted)

Am I the only one that heard that during bad points in School?

Re:Potenital?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one that heard that during bad points in School?

Yes...everything I worked on is now commercially available and I'm rolling in dough.

Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[Anonymous Coward]

scanners that search for bombs

Heh. It's kind of a funny to watch us scientists who're interested in some particular natural phenonmenon to come up with the weirdest reasons why further research on the subject might help in the WAR AGAINST TERRORISM(!!1!one!).

No, actually it's not funny. It's sad.

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[joeldg]

If you want any federal funding, you gotta say it could be used to "find bombs" and be "anti-terror" in the current atmosphere.
Really..

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[Anonymous Coward]

What is your point? That there isn't a threat? Or that the threat is exaggerated?

Considering that some buffoon continuously mouths off about the destruction of the West from some cave, and has actually succeeded in killing 3000 Americans and is wont to do more...

I will side with those looking for ways to stop him and his brethren. When thousands have already been killed it is hard to exaggerate the danger.

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? That's scary.

It really is.

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that some buffoon continuously mouths off about the power of God in the West from some fancy building with an underground bunker, and has actually succeeded in killing 1500+ Americans and is wont to do more... hrmph.

I guess the only upside is that he's gone in 2008. But that's only if he doesn't use the Climate of Fear(tm) to alter the constitution and extend his presidency or allow him to run a 3rd time.

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[ScentCone]

come up with the weirdest reasons why further research on the subject might help in the WAR AGAINST TERRORISM

So, being able to detect WMD materials being smuggled through ports or airports fails to help stop terrorists how? What part of guys who want to kill you smuggling in, say, refined uranium, is it not useful to stop? How is it not helping a scientist, or his institution, to point out something that obvious, and to benefit from having more people and resources interested in his research?

So, let me guess: if John Kerry had been elected, there'd be no need to find ways to detect fissile material in shipboard containers, right? I'm astounded, though shouldn't be, that you were modded insightful for that little bit of partisan ranting. Science and security are not mutually exclusive, and some of the best funded science programs on the planet enjoy defense dollars as part of the recipe. Stoop so low. Man, that's the pot-head calling the kettle black.

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[Anonymous Coward]

You moron.

Let me spell it out for you. I was not objecting at scientist participating in precious homeland (god, do you people realize how orwellian that term is?) security projects.

I was objecting at the people who keep on doing whatever they've done for the last 20 years but who now ask for more money because - surprise, surprise - their research miraculously MIGHT help detecting bombs, muslims or people of other faith in general even though it's fundamentally about something completely else.

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[silicon not in the v]

And if you want to get a technology banned, it just takes some cleverly placed editorial elipses in the story.

"egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in spacecraft thrusters, medical treatments and scanners that search for bombs."

"egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in[...]bombs."

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[ScentCone]

you people

And, from where in anything I said to you do infer that I think the phrase "homeland" was a better choice of phrase than "domestic" or "border." Didn't say it, imply it, or give you any reason to infer it. You seem to hate the idea that someone might wrongly form a rash opinion of another culture, but you're happy to bark BS ad hominem attacks at me while imagining me to be your ideal hate target. What political party am I in? What color am I? Am I religious? Am I wealthy? You sure seem to know who my "people" are. Love the irony!

people who keep on doing whatever they've done for the last 20 years but who now ask for more money

Right, because more direct and immediate uses for a technology outside of pure research usually places a larger burden on the research team or the institution that houses them. If you've got something that you know will have (in the case we're talking about) security implications, you can bet that your days as a simple gee-whiz-ain't-the-universe-cool researcher are going to be complicated by security clearances, contracts, and other things that make it more expensive just to be you. But beyond that, it's really not any different than suddenly realizing that something you're working on has immediate uses in any popular, well-funded activity, including private industry. Sure, micro-fusion devices are immediately useful for neutron-related bomb detecting, etc., but what if they had immediate cancer-fighting promise, as well (I know, bad example). The same scientists would absolutely mention that out loud, too, and absolutely hope for a cash infusion from the med-tech sector to give them more needed research horsepower. You're the one that's presuming words in their mouths or racist motives in their heads just because they recognize the utility of something they're working on.

their research miraculously MIGHT help detecting bombs, muslims or people of other faith in general

Do you even hear yourself? So, if the next Timothy McVeigh can be caught before a dirty bomb he's about to set off in Berkeley can hurt people - knowing that something you're working on could contribute to that, and looking to push funding for that work as a side project of your basic research is a bad thing? Where are you getting "people of other faith" anywhere in this, except in your own mind? Granted, it's a very small but obnoxious fraction of the people of the Muslim faith that are the most loudly screaming that democracy is evil, and which blow up people waiting in line to get a job just to make a point, but it's not only them. Technology to detect bombs is not itself race-oriented, though your comments seem drenched in that way of thinking. Oh, and please work on phrases like "objecting at" before you call other people morons. Your tone is shrill enough without making it worse, and impacting your credibility, with lousy grammar.

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[joeldg]

And in response, we have gone over and killed yet another 1500 americans trying to stop him? or, wait, weapons of mass destruction, err what happened to Afghanistan? or.. or.. AT LEAST these guys are clear about what they want.

And in the process, that bigmouth (not so different than our bigmouth, and clearly smarter, saying we can't locate him) has indirectly killed half a million of his 'own' people directly because of his actions.

See the irony here, if someone came over here and killed half a million Americans, we would be screaming to kill everyone.. If you place yourself in the shoes of these people, they are doing what they can to protect their families and their way of life. Which from your statements, I am sure feel is 'wrong' justly they feel the same about your way of life. But the fact remains, we have been screwing with these people since the crusades.

I live in Manhattan, I can still see this while people in middle-america which are in absolutely NO danger from terrorists are screaming to bomb and kill anyone who might have had anything to do with anything that might have happend around 9/11

The point of my post was:
Because the terror WORKED on people with viewpoints like yours, right now for a scientist, if you have found a new way to produce energy, they don't care (Expensive oil will last forever according to our leaders) but if you mention somewhere in a footnote that it might possibly have an application in bomb-sniffing suddenly, you are now available for funding.

These guys are just working the system, similar tests are done and have been done for a long time, they just mentioned bomb-sniffing, thuse becoming news-worthy.

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, remember, terrorists are everywhere. All the time. Your friends or family could be terrorists.. heck, *YOU* could be a terrorist, and you wouldn't even know, so subtle and devious are their methods!

Be vigilant, citizen.

Re:Sad to see scientists stoop so low

[Anonymous Coward]

My God, you are dumb. It is called politicking, whatever works. Just get the money and do good with it.

Dupe

[karvind]

I discovered it yesterday

Batman Reference

[dykmoby]

Atomic Batteries to Power! Turbines to Speed!

Egg sized thrusters

[Matey-O]

And REALLY NEAT HANDWARMERS! 2 for $19.95! and If you act now, we'll throw in shipping for FREE! (Latitude and Longitude required for instant shipping...not available in no fly zones.)

Terms, conditions and Homeland Security restrictions may apply.

Re:Egg sized thrusters

[Rorschach1]

Pfff. We've already got nuclear hand warmers. Apparently a failed Russian space launch resulted in the loss of a radioisotope heater unit. Finally turned up in a guard shack, where the guards had been using it to keep their hands warm.

Re:Egg sized thrusters

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. That is a total fabrication.

Re:Egg sized thrusters

[Rorschach1]

Been trying to find the article that mentioned it. I think it had something to do with Mars 96, but it wasn't the Mars 96 accident that provided the hand warmer.

Bullshit or not, it's funny. It's just too bad they don't have enough output to heat your coffee. Hmm, maybe if you had one INSIDE a thermos...

Wait a second...

[nighthawk127127]

What about Spider-Man 2? Precious tridium and all that? You're telling me that that wasn't proof of fusion? And on the big screen, no less!

Re:Wait a second...

[jacksonj04]

Ah, but that one went wrong didn't it? Everyone knows you need a swirling blue tube to create power on the big screen.

Re:Wait a second...

[guitaristx]

That'd be tritium, an isotope of hydrogen with two neutrons, making three particles at the nucleus -- two neutrons and one proton (hence the 'tri' in tritium). The fact that it's radioactive makes it an interesting point in the area of nuclear fusion.

Re:Wait a second...

[nighthawk127127]

So there was actually some scientific basis to the whole fusion thing in Spiderman 2? Sweet!

Some more details

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately it requires a chunk of palladium, some heavy water, and two guys named Fleischman and Pons.

Isn't this the same as....

[CrimsonAvenger]

Didn't we see this article earlier today under the headline "Room Temperature, Small-Scale Fusion at UCLA"?

Re:Isn't this the same as....

[Anonymous Coward]

No. You must be insane.

Any more rhetorical questions you need answered Captain Obvious?

Re:Isn't this the same as....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the other article didn't make it clear that this marks the discovery of "nuclear fusion". I hear there's another research group working on something called a "laser".

Re:Isn't this the same as....

[devillion]

YES. This is dupe.

Admins should create a system which counts how many same words stories have and AUTOMATICALLY show headlines of similar already published stories to the people how make decisision what to publish.

Or even better. Automatically make it impossible to publish stories which are too similar (use some simple count number of same words thing).

Re:Isn't this the same as....

[aardvarkjoe]

Or even better. Automatically make it impossible to publish stories which are too similar (use some simple count number of same words thing).

Or even better, fire those people who don't bother to read their own website.

Re:Isn't this the same as....

[Anonymous Coward]

No.
No, we did not.
Your mind is obviously defective.
Please report immediately to the nearest brain reprogramming centre, citizen.

We have always been at war with Kuro5hin.

Also reported on Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

This story was also reported on Slashdot a news site that IMHO receives too little credit for breaking hot stories. Seriously - Slashdot is something that users - and editors - of this site might want to check out once in a while.

Again?

[MaestroSartori]

Can you really discover something twice on consecutive days???

"My god, that discovery is even better than it was yesterday! I'm glad we discovered it again. Let's discover pepperoni pizza next!"

Only on Slashdot ;)

Re:Again?

[mogalpha]

This reminds me of Civ 3, where your advisors would tell you stuff like,
"Let's work on discovering the alphabet! Then we can learn how to write and do mathematics!"

Repost

[shamowfski]

Doc Brown: "Marty we've gone back in time!" Marty: "No Doc, It's just a repost."

Re:Repost

[Anonymous Coward]

That's heavy.

Re:Repost

[pinkocommie]

Great Scot!

Re:Repost

[shamowfski]

1.21 jiggawatts!

From the wrms-your-heart dept.

[fname]

A UCLA collaboration (Seth Putterman, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski) appear to have developed a fusion device powered by a pyroelectric crystal, a type of crystal used in cell phones to filter signals. When heated, such a crystal produces a large electric charge on its surface. The UCLA researchers placed a lithium tantalate (LiTaO3) pyroelectric crystal so that one side touches a copper disc. A tiny tungsten probe is then placed at the center of the copper disc. When the crystal is subsequently heated, a very large large electric field is produced at the end of the tugsten tip, ~25 billion volts per meter. This field gradient is so high that it strips the electrons from nearby deuterium atoms. The ionized deuterium atoms then accelerated by this field towards a solid target of erbium deuteride (ErD2). They collide with it at such high energies that some fuse with the target. A measurement of almost 900 neutrons per second was observed. This is 400 times the background! Although the amount of energy produced in this initial experiment was miniscule (~1E-8 jules), this technology could be used for things like microthrusters. There are pictures and movies on the UCLA's physics site. Reader richmlpdx adds a link to coverage at MSNBC.

Re:From the wrms-your-heart dept.

[Foolomon]

Aren't "Microthrusters" what Bill uses when he and Melinda have sex? Only stands to reason since he did name the company Micro-soft. :D

Weird

[AKAImBatman]

I would have thought that the editors would have gotten enough complaints about this being a dupe. Oh well.

What this device really is, is not so much of a fusion generator as it is a neutron source. Nuclear physicists use sources such as these for processes such as starting atomic reactions and changing elements. (e.g. You can make lead into gold with enough radiation. Although plutonium production is a far more useful change.)

A nuclear physicist I know suggested that the Sonofusion concept might be useful for the same reasons. Unfortuntely, we are quickly piling up ways of using fusion as neutron sources, but have yet to come up with a single one to produce energy. :-/

Please, oh please...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, oh please, READ YOUR OWN GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING SITE, or we will be forced to ... read it ... for ...you?

Time travel?

[Ira Sponsible]

Obviously this discovery can also allow previously posted articles to Travel Through Time and appear a day later.

Wow.

Re:Time travel?

[AndroidCat]

I manage to travel through time and appear a day later without any discovery or device at all.

Re:Time travel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. It's ridiculously easy to travel through time, provided you're happy with the current time vector that you're on. It's far less trivial to modify that vector, apparently.

Re:The impact of the discovery?

[Anonymous Coward]

that is called ConFusion.

Bombs

[MattGWU]

...does EVERYTHING these days have to have 'Homeland Security' applications? Didn't RTFA but can it REALLY find bombs, or are they just saying that for future funding? Is anybody funding pure research anymore?

Re:Bombs

[merlin_jim]

There are several ways to use a neutron source to detect radioactive material.

You can use it to calibrate a neutron detector to sniff out radioactive materials that way. Or you can use it in an x-ray machine type format; not many materials are good neutron shields; any nuclear weapon that passes the neutron leakage test would have to include pretty good neutron shielding, not to mention that nuclear materials themselves tend to absorb neutrons; but they emit more than they absorb (it is this reaction that causes a fissionable sample to go critical... get the surface area to mass ratio high enough and the emitted neutrons will tend to cause more reactions rather than be emitted... in a spherical configuration this is called the "critical mass")... I imagine that this would be pretty measurable.

Re:Bombs

[SmokeHalo]

These days, research is required to be funded by large corporations with an overwhelming urge to squeeze every last penny out of anything they get their hands on. Pure research has been outlawed because of the possibility that something useful might eventually be made generally available to the public for low or no cost.

Re:Bombs

[Anonymous Coward]

Human beings: If you can't fuck it or blow it up, what's the point?

Evolution, I'm afraid, doesn't go as far as people think.

Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[RootsLINUX]

Why don't the /. administrators install some software that will help prevent these dupes from happening? For example, before allowing a /. admin to post an article, require a search of the past x days/weeks/months of /. posts and use document clustering to rank the top 5 or so most likely pages that are similar to the one about to be posted. Then before the /. poster makes his final decision, force him to look at the titles and summaries of those previous articles to make sure that he (or she..?) is not creating a dupe post. It's a simple and effective solution.

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[avandesande]

they already are breaking new ground here.... this has to be the worst dupe EVER

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[DarkHelmet]

Hasn't it ever occured to you that the slashdot editors don't like us?

That they post duplicate stories to get a rise out of us slashizens?

That poor spelling is just them thumbing their noses at our poorly spelled comments?

That inserting opinions into the articles will sucker people into flamebait?

That not rendering correctly on firefox is really them buckling down to Microsoft advertising on their site?

Now hold on... my tin hat isn't strapped on correctly.

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[Chmarr]

Actually, we can make it even EASIER. All the system has to do is check the URLs in all the previous stories, and if they match, either exactly or just closely, with the URLs in the story-to-be-posted, a flag is raised that the poster has to review and confirm before the story's posted.

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[Reignking]

Except that these sources are different...

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[teamhasnoi]

I think they've been waiting for Automator and Spotlight, which will herald a new era of beautiful dupe-free Slashdot, or the most terrible rain-of-dupes the world has ever seen.

I quiver in anticipation.

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[Chmarr]

Okay, maybe it wouldn't have caught THIS dupe, then, but it would have saved many others.

Then again... the editors might not care.. people are still viewing the duped article, and therefore, people are still (mostly) looking at ads :)

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is far simpler than that.

The editors need to merely read the damn webpage themselves! How hard is that, all of us do it every day, THEY CAN'T?!?!?

It's pretty clear that the people running the show are far less interested in the site than most of the people that visit it.

I can only imagine that they probably would rather just shut this shit-hole down completely and get on with their lives, but due to sheer momentum, it not possible. So instead they do the worst possible job of running and maintaining the site, hoping the the entire thing collapses on itself one day.

I mean what other POSSIBLE exlaination could there be?!?!?

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, all the "editors" have to do is check their "daddypants@slashdot.org" email address to see if any subscribers have mentioned that the story is a duplicate.

Easypeasy.

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[petermgreen]

i see rendering issues in firefox over on wikipedia from time to time its a known bug with the rendering system. (its some kind of race condition with the way firefox incrementally renders the page afaict)

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

it would have saved many others.

Like what? Show me some it would have saved.

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[budgenator]

this story was the Free as in beer and speech version; yestredays' linked to nature, not-free as subsciption required, and msnbc as in Microsoft not free

Re:Seriously now, let's do something about this...

[Trogre]

There are lots of improvements that have been suggested over the last 5 years and never implemented. In fact, when was the last major improvement to Slashdot? To Slashcode?

How long is a project allowed to stagnate before it is declared abandoned?

The next story will be available soon...

[gellenburg]

... Subscribers can get a chance to see it early!

Unsubscribers can get a chance to read it yesterday!

Re:The next story will be available soon...

[pg110404]

How about:

... Subscribers can get a chance to see it early!

Unsubscribers in the meantime can get a chance to re-read yesterdays posts as new, waiting for the next real story!

Re:The next story will be available soon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot will be making a movie soon, "Groundhog Day II"

Dupe

[nanoakron]

Dupe on the SAME FUCKING PAGE!

Well, maybe if we all paid for subscriptions this kind of shoddy editing would disappear... /me turns blue holding breath.

-Nano.

Energy

[Veinor]

This is only of interest if it puts out more energy that you put in to initiate whichever reaction produces energy in it. This doesn't violate conservation of energy, since there is an implicit potential energy in fusion. It's similar to when 2 hydrogen atoms come into contact with an oxygen molecule. Energy is released, but no sciencists say that this violates the conservation of energy.

WHY??

[MondoMor]

Why are you paying THEM to tell them they're posting duplicate stories? Shouldn't they pay YOU, or better yet, concentrate on being EDITORS instead of mindless story-publishing bots who use their unlimited mod points to remove posts they don't agree with?

Re:WHY??

[Anonymous Coward]

who use their unlimited mod points to remove posts they don't agree with?

Can you describe how moderation actually removes posts? Unless the code has changed recently, the post always is extant, but can have a score of no less than -1.

Re:The impact of the discovery?

[Thud457]

That's fission. Fusion would lead to fewer dupes.

i don't mind all of the dupes

[circletimessquare]

slashdot is a great site and a few dupes every now and then is NOT the end of the world as some spastic types would suggest

the only thing that puzzles me about dupes though is how it is possible that me, a very casual reader, is easily struck by their appearance, when an editor, supposedly editting their own website, fails to be struck by the duplication

i don't understand the mechanism by which that works

Re:i don't mind all of the dupes

[Veinor]

Simple: you only read the ones that interest you; editors must read much more. Therefore, editors are more likely to miss any given mistake than you are.

Re:i don't mind all of the dupes

[ari_j]

You're just slightly off. I only read the ones that the editors think will interest me, and they evidently think that dupes accomplish that better than any of the stories they reject.

Re:i don't mind all of the dupes

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, then, is slashdot the ONLY site with dupes? I don't see other sites with dupes and some of them are larger than slashdot. Can you say New York Times?

Re:i don't mind all of the dupes

[Gabrill]

That's because the New York Times posts "Now News". They don't post it if it didn't happen yesterday or today. Slashdot posts "Any News." Their range of coverage dates are much larger. If two different sources post original stories on the same subject, then two different versions can be submitted to Slashdot that appear to be different stories.

Don't flame me. I'm just playing Devil's advocate.

Re:i don't mind all of the dupes

[gstoddart]

slashdot is a great site and a few dupes every now and then is NOT the end of the world as some spastic types would suggest

No, not the end of the world. You're right.

But it really seems that the dup level is way beyond a few every now and then. Hell, the whole "this story is a dup" mantra seems to occur more often than I notice posts about Portman/Grits.

We've all seen the frontpage have the same story posted on it twice --- sometimes as consecutive stories. And it seems increasingly 3-4 days a week will have a duplicate from the previous day posted on them.

i don't understand the mechanism by which that works

Neither does anyone else. Especially the editors apparently.

Forget fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Could we use pyroelectric materials to generate power from Internet flamewars? This would provide an unlimited, never-ending source of power.

For more information

[waldoiverson]

I remember reading an article in Wired back in 1998 that was fascinating. It talked about Cold Fusion, the historical *ahem* problems with theories, and the current research. I am not a physicist but still found this to be informative and interesting. Thanks to the internet, you can still find it here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.11/coldfusion .html?pg=1

Let's see

[khrtt]

First of all, this is a dupe

Secondly, they haven't discovered fusion, they have invented a new type of fusion-based neutron generator. Several types of neutron generators are commonly known, and some are simple enough that you could build a working one in your garage. All of them use the same principle, more or less - high voltage, on the order of 100kV, accelerates deuterium ions into a deuterium (or tritium) containing target. So does this one.

The novelty is that they used a pyroelectric crystal to generate the high voltage. This makes the device small and self-contained, with no need for high-voltage electric machinery. All you do is heat-cycle the crystal with some 50 degree C temperature span, and you get fusion neutrons.

Note that like all fusion devices to date (other than bombs), this gadget produces a lot less fusion energy than is put in, and brings us no closer to having a fusion-based power source.

But it's a neat idea. And it makes a neat cheap laboratory neutron source.

Re:Let's see

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the first dupe in a long time...

Re:Let's see

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you define two weeks as a long time?

Re:Let's see

[Tongo]

On slashdot??? Yes, two weeks is a long time w/out a dupe.

Re:Let's see

[budgenator]

how about putting one of these things inside a fissionable shell, inside a berillium neutron reflector, and you could engineer a fision reactor that was non-sustaining in it's natural state; turn off the electricity and the reactor stops, rather than trying to jam control rods in a heat warped core.

Fusion discovered??

[Anonymous Coward]

Great news! Now we'll have a way to power the Sun!

Nothing To See Here - Move Along

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been dozens of such discoveries over the past twenty years, and most of them have turned out to be bogus or no one can provide any proof whatsoever that fusion has actually occurred. Even then, whatever process they went through is not re-producable and even if it was it can't be translated into anything useful.

These are just scientists trying to boost their egos and their research grants. Move along.

iPod

[Virtual Karma]

Nuclear powered iPods... Mr. Jobs, are you listening?

Sweet!

[teamhasnoi]

Maybe this discovery can power the beowulf cluster server that will run the 5 lines of perl that will replace

10 Print "Story from Yesterday"
20 Goto 10
30 REM back to WoW

Yay for sarcasm!

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

10 Print "Story from Yesterday"
20 Goto 10
30 REM back to WoW

The subtlety of the sarcasm is exquisite, because you never get back to WoW....

Looking at the sun made them lazy and stupid?

[MondoMor]

That's AWESOME!

Wow...

[Sialagogue]

It seems like somebody's discovering cold fusion just about every day now. . .

Pyoelectric != Piezoelectric

[rhizomania]

pyroelectric crystal [wikipedia.org], a type of crystal used in cell phones to filter signals.

The type of crystals used in cell phones are piezoelectric. While all pyroelectric crystals are piezoelectric, I suspect the converse may not be true.

Now THAT is funny!

[Cryofan]

you have a gift!

Mumbo Jumbo

[HansKloss]

You don't believe in this mumbo jumbo?

Do you?

Re:Mumbo Jumbo

[geekoid]

"Mumbo, perhaps. Jumbo, perhaps not." -- Futurama.

Re:Mumbo Jumbo

[HansKloss]

Humorous remake of the original movie where the above comment came from.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0120053/plotsummary

Dumb & Dumber?

[crimson30]

"We landed on the moon!"

Sadly enough, that's exactly how I picture some slashdot editor all excited over "Nuclear Fusion".

Let me see if I got this right....

[pg110404]

article postings = 3 = 2 duplicates
comment postings saying its a dup...... well certainly a WHOLE LOT MORE than 2

C'mon guys, anymore than 10 comments saying it's a dup is not just redundant, it's redundant, overrated and annyoing.

I need a dup filter.

Re:Let me see if I got this right....

[dfn5]

C'mon guys, anymore than 10 comments saying it's a dup is not just redundant, it's redundant, overrated and annyoing.

It's almost like a self sustaing chain reaction. Oh wait, that's fission.

Re:Let me see if I got this right....

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully annoying enough to the editors that they SOME DAY GET THEIR COLLECTIVE SHIT TOGEATHER!

Seriously though, it's like the /. editorial staff themselves are nothing but a bunch of trolls. Posting and reposting shit, making up UTTERLY FUCKING STUPID headlines etc, just to get a rise from people.

From submitters to editors to 50% of the posters, /. seems to be nothing more than one giant troll palace these days :(

Scanners that search for bombs?

[kahei]

How about just 'bombs'?

Imagine how safe we'll be when there are egg-sized objects requiring no hard-to-find heavy metals, that destroy a whole city in one go!

As weapons miniaturization proceeds, freedom will become harder and harder to protect, I tells'ee.

Re:Scanners that search for bombs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tantalum is a hard-to-find heavy metal, and a required part of this device. Not that this device puts out anywhere near enough neutrons to make a bomb anyway, of course - nor could it be scaled up.

And humans discovered fusion in the morning, when

[dpilot]

Given the state of the modern patent system...

After patenting fusion, would you try to license or sue:

God, for infringing on your patent, with "billions and billions" of offending instances?

Everyone else on Earth, for receiving the benefits of the unlicensed fusion source?

homeland security applicatins

[khrtt]

It took me a while to realize what the heck neutron sources might have to do with homeland security. I think what they have in mind is detection of fissile material (i.e. uranium and plutonium, as in nukes).

You irradiate the baggage/cargo (or whatever) with neutrons, and check the outgoing neutron flux with a geigerzahler or some other neutron detector. If there is fissile material in the baggage, some of it would split, generating detectably more neutrons.

If you want to get cute about it, note that fission neutrons have lower energy than fusion neutrons. Then use a neutron detector that can differentiate neutrons by energy.

Now, you can probably detect neutron flux from spontaneous fission without any irradiation, but depending on type of fissile material and amount of shielding that flux might be too low to detect reliably. And you wouldn't be able to tell an isotopic neutron source from fissile materials. Not that isotopic neutron sources shouldn't raise suspicion if found in cargo/baggage.

The only real problem with a detector based on neutron irradiation is that you have to keep people the hell away from it:-).

Re:homeland security applicatins

[Your Pal Dave]

Neutrons can be used to detect a whole variety of high explosives. Google on "neutron explosive detection" and you'll get a bunch of papers on the subject.

Explosive detection could easily become the major commercial use for this tech.

Re:homeland security applicatins

[Anonymous Coward]

You irradiate the baggage/cargo (or whatever) with neutrons, and check the outgoing neutron flux with a geigerzahler or some other neutron detector. If there is fissile material in the baggage, some of it would split, generating detectably more neutrons.

Does anyone else out there think it might be a bad idea to purposely irradiate suspect cargo? You wouldn't need a neutron detector to detect the impending boom. Instead, get the K9 unit out, and tell him to sit. If he doesn't melt, it's probably safe.

Re:homeland security applicatins

[budgenator]

neutrons are a lot better for producing radiographs, for instance if you X-Ray a bullet you can see the bullet itself, the cartrige caseing, and a bit of the primer, with neutrons, you can easily see everything the X-Ray saw, but even the gun-powder grains grains inside the bullet's cartrige.

The difference is enough to tell the difference between a CD player boom-box, and a bomb inside a boom-box even when the explosive are hidden inside the batteries or capacitors.

A far as detecting fissile material I doubt that they need any help; when I had a thallium stress test, there was a sign telling us not to cross the border for a couple of days, without telling customs we had just had a stress test because they'd detect the radiation we were giving off.

Re:homeland security applicatins

[Andy Dodd]

Another reply to your post already commented on this, but neutron sources can be used directly for imaging of non-radioactive materials in a manner very similar to X-ray imaging, except that the capabilities of neutraon imaging are far greater. (For example, neutron imaging can find small stress fractures in metals that X-ray imaging cannot find.)

For a few decades, Cornell University ran a low-power fission reactor (unpressurized, approx. 100-200KW output power), and neutron generation for just such imaging techniques was the primary use for the Ward reactor.

Sadly, the reactor, one of the only low-power research reactors in the country, was shut down around 2000-2002. (I can't remember exactly, but it was the last half of my time as an undergrad there.)

Looking down into the containment pool to see the Cerenkov radiation coming from the core below was one of the most amazing sights I will ever see. (Cerenkov radiation is a bluish light that is emitted when a particle travels faster than the speed of light in the medium it travels through. In this case it was neutrons passing through the water at the bottom of the containment pool.)

Movie poster

[GQuon]

Here, and here.

Not made by me.

OT: Slashdot index page screwed up?

[aero2600-5]

Is it just me, or do any other logged in Slashdot members see a giant vertical Empire Earth II banner pushing down the articles on the main page? If I log out, it goes away. When I log back in, there it is again. Anyone else see this?

Aero

Re:OT: Slashdot index page screwed up?

[aero2600-5]

Nevermind. It's gone now..

Aero

Re:OT: Slashdot index page screwed up?

[Sandman1971]

It was happening to me too.. then I decided to install the adblock and flashblock plugins for Firefox, and away they went. Great little plugins :)

Re:OT: Slashdot index page screwed up?

[aero2600-5]

I actually don't mind most banner ads. As long as they're not blinking, they're okay. I just like the built in pop-up blocker in Firefox. Pop-ups suck.

Aero

You mean they did it again, today!?

[frank_adrian314159]

Wow! And just yesterday they were... Oh, never mind.

Yes, but...

[xactuary]

can the experiment be duplicated?

"I was hoovering in the nude and..."

[pandrijeczko]

egg-size fusion generators

Who wants to be the first person who walks into a hospital A&E and tries to give a sensible excuse as to how one of those got lodged up his bottom?

Lead into gold ???

[willCode4Beer.com]

I think it would be easier to turn gold into lead.

Gold having an atomic number 79 compared to 82 of lead. Isn't it easier to fuse on extra protons and neutrons with an accelerator than it is to split off just a few. With the atomic weights 197 (Gold) and 207(Lead) You'll need to hit the gold with a hydrogen, a helium, and some extra nuetrons to turn it into lead.
To turn lead into gold, you need a way to strip off this little bit, or split, split, fuse, fuse, and pull out the extra in the middle step.

Just MHO.

I am not a nuclear (or nuclar for those from the red states) physicist. I will not be held responsible if you destroy the planet.

Re:Lead into gold ???

[AKAImBatman]

Turning gold into lead would be easier, but it's not as much fun for pointing out what neutron sources can be used for. :-)

BTW, I dug up an article on the process. Here's a more technical explanation.

Re:Lead into gold ???

[EvilTwinSkippy]

You are going to be making a lot of radioactive gold, if you don't get the isotope right.

Re:Lead into gold ???

[ehiris]

When posting about splitting and fusing sub-atomic particles please don't forget the obligatory: DON'T PANIC!

And...

[writermike]

scientists say, egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in spacecraft thrusters, medical treatments and scanners that search for bombs.

And bombs.

Sorry. Had to be said.

Re:And...

[PigleT]

I always find this kind of journalism rather banal. "Could be used for..." never happens. Rather, things either fade into oblivion, or generally exceed expectations. (Consider what would've happened if someone had said "the space mission... could be used to promote the digital watch", wouldn't that just be lame?!)

neutrons and cells

[micromuncher]

Though I find the (dup) article very cool, there are a couple things about neutron emitters...

1) as a propulsion source, ion emitters are cheaper/safer
2) from a safety PoV, neutrons don't interact too well with living cells (in any amount) - producing free radicals - almost impossible to shield against

Re:neutrons and cells

[wantknowledge]

Speaking of safety, the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster was two days ago (April 26 1986). Here is the a summary of the events from This Day in History: http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?month= 10272956&day=10272991&cat=10272946 - wantknowledge

not only a dupe

[Lawrence_Bird]

but probably one of the worst headlines ever

/. is just now something to check when eating lunch or dinner
sad

A new weapon?

[digitaldc]

"The Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funds the research."

Why not the Department of Energy fund this? Why does it always have to be weapons research?
Hopefully we can all use this technology to create a cheap source of energy before too long.
It is ironic that this fusion device could be used to screen baggage, while at the same time has ingredients to make a dirty bomb.

Re:A new weapon?

[Jim_Callahan]

Why would you waste a perfectly good fusion device to make a dirty bomb? Especially a fusion device which absorbs more power than it produces. The point of a dirty bomb is to, you know, explode. I guess you could powder the device with cesium and then hit it really, really hard with a sledgehammer...


Oh, and the department of defense funds this because the department of energy has no interest in higher-sensitivity methods of detecting fissile materials. They can find their fissile materials just fine with the technology they have, thanks.

Karma whoring

[digidave]

I'm going to go find the best comment from the previous story and re-post it here, thereby making myself look like a genious and simultaneously increasing my karma into the 'humongous' range.

I'll be right back.

Re:Karma whoring

[digidave]

I really shouldn't have spelled 'genius' incorrectly. Luckily for me somebody in the previous story spelled 'accelerator' three uniquely incorrect ways in the same comment, so I'm still ahead of that guy.

Nuclear doesn't create electricity

[Anonymous Coward]

If I might comment on the actual article: there is no way that nuclear fusion -- or fission, for that matter -- produces electricity. All they do is create heat to boil water (which thus creates steam, which turns a blade turbine, which is attached to a generator, whose spinning rotors DO generate electrical current). When you understand what a nuclear power plant does, you realize that nuclear energy is a helluva stupid way to boil water!

Arguments in favor of nuclear energy are self-serving industry bullshit, lulling the public into thinking that they are getting electricity from nuclear fission (likewise, the coal and other fossil fuel industries like to create a similar false impression). Clear-headed technologists should be puzzling over the best way, within the constraints of sustainability and low pollution, to spin that generator ... or, alternately, otherwise move electrons as in a fuel cell. THAT'S where the challenge is.

Re:Nuclear doesn't create electricity

[Anonymous Coward]

YOUR challenge appears to be thinking logically. fuck off

New Scientist Article

[physman]

In this weeks New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7315 including links ot the people involved and their papers.

Useful for neutrons, not power (and it's hot)

[digidave]

The following is *not* an informative comment by radtea from the previous story. I wrote this just now. Really.

What these guys have done is found a novel application of a relatively well-known means of generating extremely high electric fields. This is good, and may produce more compact, robust neutron generators than we currently have.

But it is clear from the article--and the basic physics--that this isn't a practical means of generating fusion power. This is just another hot fusion mechanism--it isn't "room temperature". The deuterium ions from the gas discharge are accelerated by the field and smash into the ErD surface with high energies.

The interaction cross-sections are such that virtually all of the D ions will slow down without fusing, and the energy that went into accelerating them will be only recoverable as heat, with the usual thermodynamic (in)efficiencies. The DD fusion cross-section just isn't high enough to overcome those losses.

Cool experiment, though.

Discovered.

[Anonymous Coward]

I discovered my ass!

Dupes are OK

[Anonymous Coward]

not everyone checks slashdot all the time. Stories that are of great interest can and in some cases should be duped. IMHO.

It's not cold fusion

[khrtt]

"Cold" fusion is when the nuclei fuse at "low" temperature. Not just the outside of the reactor that is cold, but the actual nuclei that fuse are "cold". When you're talking about the temperature of atoms, or nuclei, the temperature is the same as energy. This reactor accelerates the ions to high energy, so it's not "cold fusion".

The original "cold fusion" apparatus (the one that didn't work, or at least no one was ever able to replicate the experiment) used an electrolytic cell with palladium electrodes in an electrolyte. Nowhere in the apparatus were the deuterium nuclei accelerated to high speed. The theory was that the current somehow induces the deuterium to infuse into the palladium electrode, where the deuterium nuclei get close enough to each other to fuse, without you having to clash them together at high energy.

That was the cool thing about it (pardon the pun). You didn't have to put much energy into the system, so you had more energy coming out than you had to put in, making it a feasable power source. If it worked:-).

Re:It's not cold fusion

[prefect42]

The definition I've seen of Cold Fusion is "the name for any nuclear fusion reaction that may occur well below the temperature required for thermonuclear reactions (millions of degrees Celsius)"

Sonoluminescence was one of the holy grails of cold fusion that had a rough ride, yet that proposed that the collapsing bubble *did* accelerate the deuterium, and I've yet to be convinced by any that don't claim to accelerate the particles in some way.

Re:It's not cold fusion

[merlin_jim]

I thought cold fusion was one where the working medium contained less energy than would be required for fusion at the pressure of the medium; some 2.1 billion electronvolts at 1 atm, I believe.

Re:It's not cold fusion

[igny]

This reactor accelerates the ions to high energy, so it's not "cold fusion".

When gravity accelerates the cold Niagara's water, doesn't the water stay cold? When the vacuum cleaner accelerates the cold air, doesn't it stay cold? When a frozen asteroid speeds up when falling onto the Moon, doesn't it stay cold? I believe the temperature is the thermodynamic state variable (so is enthropy), which reflects chaotic movement of the molecules relatively to each other, rather than just speed(energy) of the substance. In this experiment, particles keep some order when they are ionized and accelerated by the electromagnetic forces. One can still argue it is rather cold when compared, say, to Sun's core or a thermonuclear bomb.

Re:It's not cold fusion

[crumley]

People are often sloppy when referring to temperature. According to thermodynamics, in a plasma temperature really refers to the width of the energy distribution of a population of particles.

A single particle doesn't really have a temperature, it has a kinetic energy. A mono-energetic beam of particles has a temeperature of 0 K, but what is usually referred to is the beam energy. The particles in a real beam don't have exactly the beam energy, but instead have a spread around it. A cold beam is a beam in which the particles are nearly mono-energetic (the spread is small compared to the beam energy). A hot beam is one where the spread in energy is large compared to the mean beam energy.

Cold in terms of cold fusion isn't as well defined, but personally I wouldn't call this cold fusion. I would call it table top fusion or a table top accelerator. This experiment is cold compared to the center of the sun, which is part of the reason that fusion yiled is so tiny.

Re:It's not cold fusion

[Andy Dodd]

In the example you describe (and the one described by this article), the definition you state for "cold fusion" does not hold.

In both cases, there is significant local heating. An atomic nucleus accelerated to relativistic speeds (article's example) can be considered to have an extremely high temperature.

In the case of sonoluminescence, the contents of the oscillating bubble become superheated due to adiabatic heating (If you compress a gas without energy loss to the outside, it will heat up. In the case of sonoluminescence, the bubble oscillates rapidly and its volume changes so rapidly and so significantly that the gases inside it become superheated.)

Re:It's not cold fusion

[villageidiot357]

As I understand what happened was not that the results were not reproducible, but that the amount of radiation given off had not been correctly calculated. There were also some mistakes relating to electrochemical effects in the system. In the end there was no good evidense of nuclear fusion, but there was some type of physical-chemistry type reaction occuring. Something related to the desorbption of tritium from the palladium.

Mispeled

[Anonymous Coward]

You mispeled evar.

Fusion for energy is always 20 years in the future

[WillAffleckUW]

And it has been since I did my tv show on energy in B.C. back in the late 70s and early 80s.

However, the New Scientist article on this shows this is not going to be usable for that, either.

Trust, but verify with peer review.

Some corrections to the parent

[Jace Harker]

The amount of energy being put into the system dwarfs by thousands of times the energy from fusion being put out.

They're not claiming it's self-sustaining. They're just claiming that it's novel, which it is, and that it's a neutron generator, which it is.

A commentary article in the current journal of Nature points out that "...portable neutron generators have found a wide range of applications, including welllogging for oil exploration, and the screening of baggage for airline security," but that "high-voltage power is required, and the apparatus is fairly complex."

This device is much simpler and more straightforward.

Third, this isn't even the discovery of table-top laboratory scale fusion.

True, but it is probably one of the simplest and most compact fusion/neutron generating techniques invented to date.

And I'm afraid it's a little bit of a dodge to say it's "at room temperature". The article doesn't say this, but presumably this takes place in a vaccum, where temperature is basically undefined in any conventional sense.

Please RTFA before you critique it. This method uses a pyroelectric crystal, heated presumably up to 100-200 Celsius or so, and a thin deuterium gas and a target made of erbium deuteride, both of which are presumably at or near room temperatures.

In any case, by "cold" fusion we typically mean "at temperatures easily maintainable in a lab," to distinguish from "hot" fusion which occurs at many thousands or millions of degrees.

Also, you should know that even in a "perfect" vacuum, temperature is and can be well-defined, usually by thermal radiation equilibrium with the enclosure. Even outer space has a well-defined thermal radiation background, which I think is within a couple degrees of absolute zero.

well

[geekoid]

it's about time.

Damn lazy scientist, another 10 years without a discovery like this I would of had to do it myself.

Deuterium + Dithium Crystal = Antimatter reaction

[jbtule]

rather than a fusion reaction, duh.

Although I may need to watch more Star Trek to be sure.

I got an even easier solution for you

[geekoid]

for every bar of gold you give me, I'll give you a bar of lead.
It would save you a lot of money with your electric bill.

but

[DarkTempes]

then there wouldn't be any stories to read!

PT Barnum

[geekoid]

has some words about people like you.

Actually

[geekoid]

Humans proved fusion in 1953. They knew about it before then.

You can be a pendantic ass, so can I.

"but presumably this takes place in a vaccum,"
and if it doesn't?

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can be a pendantic ass, so can I."

But apparently, you can't spell it. Unless you were referring to something on your body pending into your ass, I don't know.

I wish Slashdot would discover "fusion"

[bombadier_beetle]

... and fuse this duplicate story with the one from yesterday.

I mean, come on, Slashdot editors - if you don't even read your own website, why would you expect anyone else to? At least I don't feel guilty about adblocking ads.odsn.com.

Wow

[tsa]

But the device may one day become a cheaper and more precise way to screen airport baggage or to propel small spacecraft, say the device's creators.

If someone claims two applications of a new technology that are so exteremly unrelated to each other in one sentence I find it hard to take him/her serious. But hey, maybe it can be used to propel a car, cheaply and environmentally friendly.

Re:Wow

[argent]

If someone claims two applications of a new technology that are so extremely unrelated to each other in one sentence I find it hard to take him/her seriously.

Yeh, it's easy to respond to someone says or the care they take with their messages, instead of digging deeper, and get the wrong impression.

Screening airport baggage would be a lot easier with a small portable radiation source that could be used to make the existing scanners lighter. This is a smaller neutron source than ones currently used.

The efficiency of a reaction drive in a spacecraft is better the higher the velocity of its exhaust, other things being equal. Again, a small light radiation source could be used in a low-power high-impulse drive. As I understand it, this device isn't particularly efficient at the moment but that might not be an inherent problem.

I don't think I see how it could be used for automobile propulsion, perhaps you might elaborate on that.

Re:Wow

[budgenator]

The spacecraft propulsion would be an ionic drive, just heat the crystals in space and the intense electical fields would strip electrons from the ambient gasses and repell the ions and thus propelling the spacecraft. This would be perfect for keeping satelites in orbit by countering atmospheric drag induced orbital decay.

Summary of the actual nature article

[francisew]

Their setup: The 'crystal' mentioned in the mainstream articles, is a z-cut lithium tantalate crystal (LiTaO3), with the negative axis facing outward onto a hollow copper block. A tiny tungsten probe (80 microns long and 100 nm wide) is then attached to the other crystal face. This probe acts as a tiny mast for the electric field so that there is a powerful electrical field at the tip of the probe. Then there were a bunch of fancy neutron-counters and single-photon counters bundled around it.

What they did: First they added deuterium gas (at 0.7 Pa) and then cooled the crystal down using liquid nitrogen (to 240 K). Then they used a little heater to increase the chamber temperature slowly.

What happened: Less than 3 minutes later, and still below 273 K (0 degrees Celcius), the neutron signal rose above the background level. There were x-rays coming from the probe tip, and a whole bunch of neutrons. After a few more minutes, the electric field was so strong that it caused arcing between the probe tip and the enclosure (because they kept heatingthe crystal, and the field thus kept getting stronger). The arcing stopped the process (and I'd guess it damages the crystal?).

They added a few links in the article to previous papers: a pdf describing the concept they are trying to harness, another pdf with more about how they use the crystals with the deuterium gas, and a brief abstract.

I think this is pretty cool. I bet/hope that before long (within 10 years), this will be powering small extrasolar probes.

Pretty neat stuff. I don't even mind dupe posts when they're on such important stuff.

Re:Summary of the actual nature article

[Muad'Dave]

This probe acts as a tiny mast for the electric field so that there is a powerful electrical field at the tip of the probe.

IANANP, but why bother putting electrical energy into a heater to warm a crystal that generates (gasp) electrical energy? Wouldn't it make more sense to create the high electrical field with conventional voltage multipliers instead of messing about with electricity -> heat -> crystal voodoo -> electricity?

Re:Summary of the actual nature article

[francisew]

Because then you don't need to worry about running 50kV wires in and out of the enclosure which is sealed. That would also *change* the electric field in the enclosure. This is a REALLY elegant way of getting a huge voltage in there. It also makes it pretty easy to regulate. It also makes it easy to mount the mast.

Imagine trying to get a stable 50-100kV step-up DC converter, and slowly ramping it up in a controlled manner (see EMCO HV power supplies. With one end of the wires in a -50 C container, there would be a lot of condensation on the wires. Also, if there was ever an arc, it would kill a whole lot of complicated power supplies.

The point of using the crystal wasn't to save energy. When running experiments, we're about as concerned about saving energy as wasting O2 while breathing (in all fairness, there are some scientific branches concerned with this, but not the majority).

But IANANP either, I'm a chemist.

YEEEHAW

[Hard_Code]

Future Technology #1, here we come baby!

Eat THAT Hammurabi.

Apr 1st

[TrevorB]

Y'know, the dupe thing is getting so repetative that having all of April 1st stories be cleverly rewritten versions of all the March 31st stories would actually be *funny*.

Nice Headline

[SoCalEd]

In separate news, Apple invented the operating system today...

A Related Headline

[k96822]

In a related story, drunken, suicidal sailors have recently discovered the Earth is, in fact, round. I guess old news is better than no news.

wow

[cahiha]

Just a few days ago, there was another breakthrough in fusion. I distinctly remember seeing it on Slashdot. With not one, but two such methods, who knows how far we can go...

True enough

[ciphertext]

Take the "penny" for instance. You can use it to buy items with (used to be easier, now you need a huge sack of them) as well as bridge the gap on a circuit box! Two very unrelated uses of the penny.

A crystal that produces electricity when heated...

[Khyber]

We've known about this for hundreds of years. The crystal is tourmaline, and originally the electrical properties of this crystal were recognized by the Europeans, who would use this crystal after getting it charged to remove and clean the ashes out of their pipes. It'd still seem somewhat unfeasible, since you have to put a lot of energy/heat into a tourmaline crystal to even get much of a charge higher than static electricity.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

When can I buy a Mr. Fusion?

Palladium fusion may not be dead

[coyote-san]

I haven't investigated the claims, but some people are claiming that reputable universities have verified anomolous results with the palladium setup.

Re:Palladium fusion may not be dead

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/sep0 4/0904nfus.html

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/techalert/dec04/ta121 504.html

Some people claim to be able to replicate the reaction 100% of the time now, based on carefully controlling the concentrations of deuterium in the water, with a steep dropoff in the energy generation as the concentration changes. Enough evidence of *something* exists to have gotten a DOE review, but the DOE essentially said it was keeping its hands off.

picture of such a device. Shiny!

[nietsch]

picture here.
It comes from this blog.

Also have a look here: fusor.net

And there are obvious ways around it.

[Anonymous Coward]

And there are obvious ways around it.

Just embed the material in paraffin or another moderator normally used for slowing down neutrons for detectors.

Homeland security is not about making people actually safe, it's about making them feel as if they were safe.

- A

Experimentalist

[Anonymous Coward]

You could, of course, have been an experimentalist.

You know, get a PhD in Physics and actually get a real job?

+1, Underrated! n/t

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

FBI's gonna knock on your door, buddy

[Anonymous Coward]

>Just embed the material in paraffin or another moderator

What the fuck? And you just had to post that sensitive piece of information on a public forum?

For your sake, I hope you're not an American since I just forwarded your post to the FBI.

Poor

[XDataBurn]

This was covered yesterday.

.XData

Re:Poor

[Lord Crc]

This was covered yesterday.

I think you left out "dis" before "covered" :)

Re:Poor

[XDataBurn]

Nope.

Moderation

[phorm]

Wouldn't it be much nicer if you could have a dupe-moderation score. If enough people mod an article as dupe, you can skip by having a threshold in your user settings....

Who's being partisan?

[alienmole]

You're the one inserting your simplistic binary political filter into the situation. In so doing, you become part of the problem.

Re:Who's being partisan?

[ScentCone]

You're the one inserting your simplistic binary political filter into the situation. In so doing, you become part of the problem.

Really? What party am I representing? Certainly I'm not the party that refers to scientists as "stooping so low" as to get funding for their research, or assumes that they're Muslim-haters for doing so. I'm sure you find the earlier poster's articulate meanderings to be nuanced examples of open-minded wonderfulness, of course.

But out of curiosity: how does having a solid opinion about something contribute to "the problem?" You seem to have a solid opinion about me, so are you part of the problem?

Re:Who's being partisan?

[alienmole]

It's not a question of having a solid opinion -- it's jumping to conclusions about the implications of what the OP said, and distorting the discussion along your predefined political lines, which seem highly simplistic -- e.g. what does John Kerry have to do with this? You're part of the problem in the sense that you don't contribute anything, you only distort along entirely predictable, but utterly misguided, lines.

Go and re-read the post you responded to, and try to remove your filter for a second. Can you interpret it so that the poster isn't concerned about partisan politics at all? Exercise that brain, for pity's sake!

To give you the benefit of the doubt (belatedly, I admit), perhaps you're unaware of just how many proposals come out with "could be used against terrorism" tacked on the end nowadays. There was another one on Slashdot yesterday, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The OP has a point -- it is sort of sad. One reason it's sad is that it's so often dishonest -- it's like the games where adding something like "in bed" to the end of a sentence is supposed to make it funny. Adding "could be used against terrorism" is supposed to make it fundable.

The funny thing is, who's being fooled here? Not the people granting the funds -- they're not stupid, they have good advisory panels. No, the only people being fooled are citizens who take these things at face value.

Re:Who's being partisan?

[ScentCone]

It's not a question of having a solid opinion -- it's jumping to conclusions about the implications of what the OP said, and distorting the discussion along your predefined political lines, which seem highly simplistic -- e.g. what does John Kerry have to do with this? You're part of the problem in the sense that you don't contribute anything, you only distort along entirely predictable, but utterly misguided, lines.

The post I responded to could not have been simpler (in its ridicule of some scientists) or more obvious in its sarcastic reference to (in his caps) "THE WAR ON TERRORISM". So, let's see: we have the poster saying "It's kind of a funny to watch us [my emphasis] scientists..." meaning that he includes himself in that group (of scientists). But through his obvious disdain for those scientists that "stoop so low" as to consider how to increase their funding, he's immediately making the thread an adversarial one, and doing so against the backdrop of the conflict that's occurring on the current administration's watch. Without articulating anything that would broaden the observation beyond the direct denigration of some scientists, or suggest that his take on fighting terrorism is anything other than partisan, the person I replied to went (through an obviously considered brevity) to a lot of trouble to be "filtered," "binary," and entirely political. Political about funding research, political about a conflict which (despite his implications), because of the unconventional nature of the attacks we face, rely hugely on science and technology to expose threat details, minimize the need for the use of traditional military tactics, and get behind the scenes to the sorts of people preaching medeival theocratic nonsense to young suicide bombers.

I didn't jump to conclusions about the post, I read between the (short) lines. Short of assuming that he considers Islamist (and every other flavor) terrorism no big deal (if that's his take, then all bets are off, here, rational-conversation-wise), and short of assuming that liberalized, democratized states in the middle east are too much to expect of the people living there and would have no impact in mitigating the threats to the west, I can't imagine that the original poster's tone was anything other than partisan. It's not simplistic to boil this down to the basics - it's the only way to get people to put their cards on the table. Tap dancing around one's contempt for, say, the Bush administration, by making snarky comments about other scientists - it's not elevated, unbiased, unfilterd, unbinary, or anything else other than thinly veiled flamebaiting, and I treated it as such. Shouldn't feed the trolls, I know.

Re:Who's being partisan?

[alienmole]

So if you're a Bush supporter, it's not possible to be skeptical about the specific ways in which the war on terrorism is being practiced, for example?

Is Pat Buchanan a Kerry supporter? (He disagrees with Bush on much of his foreign policy.)

Your reading between the lines and jumping to conclusions is not "the only way to get people to put their cards on the table", it's a singularly unproductive way to discuss anything at all. However, politicians know this, and they try to frame issues in a "you're with us or against us" way, so that instead of having honest debate about issues, everything is twisted into us vs. them jihads.

How does it feel to be a jihadist, albeit a rhetorical one? For you, the infidels are apparently Kerry supporters, and anyone who states an opinion which might be held by a Kerry supporter is the enemy, to be attacked regardless of any actual merits in their specific opinions. Again, that's why I said you were part of the problem.

The post I responded to could not have been simpler (in its ridicule of some scientists)

You seem to have taken the original post almost personally. I took it as being aimed more at the overall system, which is certainly worthy of some ridicule. Even if the OP holds all of the political opinions you imagine he does, it still isn't particularly relevant to the original point.

Re:Who's being partisan?

[ScentCone]

So if you're a Bush supporter, it's not possible to be skeptical about the specific ways in which the war on terrorism is being practiced, for example?

But there was nothing granular at all about the OP's message - he paints with a broad brush and invites the drawing of certain conclusions as much by the sort of information he doesn't bring up, as by the snarky tone and sarcasm.

it's a singularly unproductive way to discuss anything

We'll have to disagree, here. I can't think of anything more appropriate, when someone tosses around adolescent rhetoric about science and defense/security, than to poke a stick at him to find out what his motivation is for insulting what (we must presume to be) his fellow scientists.

to be attacked regardless of any actual merits in their specific opinions

But the OP's the one doing exactly what you're critiizing. He's the essence of the jihadist mindset: a sweeping condemnation including a few carefully chosen polarizing words, and a deliberate avoiding of any rational discourse to back up the slam. Calling people on what they say is hardly rhetorical jihadism - it's having a low threshold of tolerance for people who flail around, idealogically, on emotional topics and with deliberate blindness to the depth of the issues at hand.

"Comabatting Terrorism = A Scam!", "Scientists With Possibly Related Research = Money Grubbing Stooges!" The sensibilities that produce comments intended to make those points, or that make the original comments knowing that there will be little room for a different interpretation, are driven by either a woeful underappreciation for the actual threats we face (which is just embarassing), or are driven by a particularly short-sighted and venomous political hatred, which I think is closer to the mark.

You seem to have taken the original post almost personally

Clearly his disdain was intended as a comment on the people he was describing (the low-stooping scientists). That you saw him commenting on the system, rather than taking his words as he used them, suggests that you have a view of a broken system, and heard some piece of your thoughts reinforced by what he said. Absent the nuances of a face to face conversationn in this venue, and lacking a number of the conventional mechanisms by which comments are shown to mean other than what they say, it's fair to interpret his post more or less at face value.

Predictions, predictions..... why?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I love the way the scientists make rash predictions about any discovery: "one day an egg-sized thruster...". Remids me of superconductors in the 1980s.

Sure, superconductors have proven useful for a **few** niche uses, but the big hype was all about superconducting power lines etc... Twenty years on and the only place I've really seen superconductors has been in my flying car.

Why do scientists, supposedly conservative types, make these wild predictions? Is it to hype for funding?

Re:Predictions, predictions..... why?

[sr180]

Thats because they were making predictions about room temperature superconductors, which still dont exist yet.

Re:Predictions, predictions..... why?

[infonography]

Somebody's been reading Larry Niven lately.

Ob. Snoop Dawg

[xRelisH]

I think what they have in mind is detection of fissile material (i.e. uranium and plutonium, as in nukes).

Are you fo shizzle about the fissile?
...
Sorry:)

Re:And humans discovered fusion in the morning, wh

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither.

Both look like SCO's (no doubt patented) proprietary business model.

Still smaller

[swordfishBob]

Yes, it's only about creating a controlled stream of neutrons, with a device the size of a toaster. It's a good step forward for that though.

aparatus for identifying unknown substances non-invasively can now be made cheaper and more portable.

Make it smaller still, and perhaps you could swallow a radiation source to treat bowell cancer on the way through, instead of irradiating your whole body from the outside.

see through rock

[Anonymous Coward]

so wait this thing makes a it easier to see through hard objects...say this thing would be great to put on the end of a drill that could find oil under the ground....

clean fussion used to help find and drill for oil. :)

stendec@gmail.com

Fusion powered laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anytime soon?

Re:Fusion powered laptop?

[GnarlyNome]

A neutron source on your lap next to the family jewels?..ouch

Re:And humans discovered fusion in the morning, wh

[Clith]

And, of course, the patent-holder for fusion would be Sun.

Going briefly over the available documents on this

[coopex]

Going briefly over the available documents on this, it appears that this technique consumes orders of magnitude more energy than it produces. This would preclude energy generation as one of the potential applications, which is usually regarded as the most promising potential application of cold fusion. Most of the other potential applications mentioned in the articles use this as a neutron generator, but there are other well known ways of achieving that...

Re:Going briefly over the available documents on t

[Anonymous Coward]

The only other ways to achieve neutron flux (that I'm aware of) are to (1) use a particle accelerator collision to release neutrons (i.e.: spallation) or (2) to use a radioactive source (or running nuclear recator) and guide the flux of exiting neutrons. Both of these are quite large and not very portable.

Although this research is not going to give us energy production, it is the smallest neutron source I've heard of (palm-sized according to article). This in and of itself is quite exciting, and it would have numerous applications in industry. Neutron sources right now are used to image industrial materials (it can be used to map the internal stress distribution in pipes, aircraft components, etc... and it can get images through materials that would block x-rays). Having portable neutron-imagers would be useful to industry for doing stress analysis/imaging on components while they are in actual use. I can think of lots more applications, but I'll leave it at that.

For those interested, here is the abstract of the Nature article in question (the article is already available online, to subscribers, even though it officially releases in tomorrow's issue of Nature):
Nature 434, 1115-1117 (28 April 2005) | doi: 10.1038/nature03575

While progress in fusion research continues with magnetic[1] and inertial[2] confinement, alternative approaches--such as Coulomb explosions of deuterium clusters[3] and ultrafast laser-plasma interactions[4]--also provide insight into basic processes and technological applications. However, attempts to produce fusion in a room temperature solid-state setting, including 'cold' fusion[5] and 'bubble' fusion[6], have met with deep scepticism[7]. Here we report that gently heating a pyroelectric crystal in a deuterated atmosphere can generate fusion under desktop conditions. The electrostatic field of the crystal is used to generate and accelerate a deuteron beam (> 100 keV and >4 nA), which, upon striking a deuterated target, produces a neutron flux over 400 times the background level. The presence of neutrons from the reaction D + D --> 3He (820 keV) + n (2.45 MeV) within the target is confirmed by pulse shape analysis and proton recoil spectroscopy. As further evidence for this fusion reaction, we use a novel time-of-flight technique to demonstrate the delayed coincidence between the outgoing alpha-particle and the neutron. Although the reported fusion is not useful in the power-producing sense, we anticipate that the system will find application as a simple palm-sized neutron generator.

Re:Going briefly over the available documents on t

[Anonymous Coward]

The only other ways to achieve neutron flux (that I'm aware of) are to (1) use a particle accelerator collision to release neutrons (i.e.: spallation) or (2) to use a radioactive source (or running nuclear recator) and guide the flux of exiting neutrons. Both of these are quite large and not very portable.


You forgot Muon-catalyzed fusion [wikipedia.org].

Re:Going briefly over the available documents on t

[Anonymous Coward]

muon-catalyzed fusion would only viably occur in a particle accelerator setup, which I already mentioned (where else are you getting the muons from). In any case (as far as I know) no such thing is actually used today at neutron facilities.

For examples of neutron-beamline research facilities that exist today, I refer you to NIST [nist.gov], HMI [www.hmi.de], and the Spallation Neutron Source [sns.gov] (still being built).

Time to Discover Shit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, that's right, it's that time again! Time to discover shit!

This week, I'll be discovering some shit I left in my yard awhile ago! Also, I'm gonna go discover my own ass and then I'm gonna discover a chair to use it with!

Re:Going briefly over the available documents on t

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted, for all pratical purposes you will need an accelerator as muon source. Trying this with cosmic muons will not get you very far.

I mainly brought this up because it annoys me that this existing and well understood cold fusion process always tends to get overlooked.

nature....

[Anonymous Coward]

any one else notice that Nature is a journal, not a magazine? the most prestigous scientific journal, i might add?

Superconducting wires?

[Trinition]

the big hype was all about superconducting power lines etc...

Don't give up hope, nanotubes are the new superconductor!

Also look at...

[andreyw]

Also look at the Farnsworth-Hirsch fuzor, in terms of controlled fusion (but still not efficient enough to produce more than it requires in terms of energy) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnsworth-Hirsch_Fus or

wrong crystal

[andylievertz]

Of course the device is so inefficient! Everyone knows these things need Trilithium. Sheesh.

Re:And humans discovered fusion in the morning, wh

[dpilot]

I guess some people *would* say that McNealy always thought he was God.

Re:And humans discovered fusion in the morning, wh

[quarkscat]

Good golly no! Absolutely no need to patent anything like this. All that's needed is a NDA and licensing similar to MSFT's EULA. Tampering with the device to reverse engineer it will result in all safeguards/reaction controls to be disabled. Then self-immolation will kick in to preserve the IP. Pretty simple, really.

You forgot the target!

[Phronesis]

A single particle doesn't undergo fusion. Two particles must collide. The energy width of the beam is not relevant because you're not talking about collisions within the beam. For fusion, the relevant system is the system in which the collisions are occurring: the beam plus the target.

When you look at this system, you have an energy distribution (two narrow peaks, widely separated) that's manifestly out of equilibrium so it's neither low-temperature nor high-temperature. Temperature is not defined.

You could take a temperature to be whatever would produce a Boltzmann distribution with a width equal to the width of the particle distribution (target + beam), so for a keV beam hitting a stationary target, you'd take a width of 500 eV, or about 6 million Kelvin. I'd call that hot fusion.

slash needs 1 800 - dot dupe

[cheekyboy]

Imagine if they had an 1800 # for reporting dupes, wooooooooooooooooooo

better still a 1900 # might earn them tonnes of $$$$ for reporting dupes at 55cents/minute.

What do they do as employees?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta ask yourself, what the frick are they doing all day for their money, if they can't be bothered to read their own site?

Could This Lead To Do-It-Yourself Nukes?

[cybrpnk2]

This "new" approach of achieving fusion using strong electric fields is of much greater significance than just academic interest in fusion research. It may well lead directly to EM-pulse-based clean-fusion bombs that don't need a fallout-producing plutonium atomic-bomb trigger. There are a LOT of ways to produce REALLY strong electromagnetic fields for a fraction of a second and let's face it, many of these can be done in your basement. So...are homemade nukes closer as a result of this discovery?

wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

this is funny shit...what is wrong with you people.

you all fucking hack fuck all of youuuu.

stendec@gmail.com

incredible possibilities here....

[nilbog]

'While the device is probably too inefficient to produce electricity or other forms of energy, the scientists say, egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in spacecraft thrusters, medical treatments and powering your time traveling delorean.'

Hellooooooo MR. FUSION!