Team Confirms UCLA Tabletop Fusion

An anonymous reader writes "A team of New York physicists has confirmed that a tabletop contraption made at UCLA does in fact generate nuclear fusion at room temperatures, using pairs of crystals and a small tank of deuterium. But unlike less reliable reports back in the 1980s, there's no talk this time of producing endless supplies of power. Rather, the technology could lead to ultra-portable x-ray machines and even a wearable device that could provide safe, continuous cancer treatment."

Comments

Key Application Overlooked

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

Rather, the most immediate application may come in the form of a battery-operated, portable neutron generator. Such a device could be used to detect explosives or to scan luggage at airports, and it could also be an important tool for a wide range of laboratory experiments.

I'm surprised that the article didn't go into more depth on the explosives detection angle, as a neutron generator is an excellent method for detecting fissionable material, and I'm sure the folks over at Homeland Security would like a better way to guard against nuclear devices being smuggled into our country.

For more info on neutron generators and their possible application in fissionable materials detection, please look here (PDF warning).

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[NitsujTPU]

Everyone's overloaded on hearing about people blowing up airplanes. Hunting down terrorists is the depressing fact harped at us constantly in all directions. A two sentence mention in the article is about all that is really warranted, don't you think? Perhaps they should have said "nukes," or "fissionable material." Fissionable material doesn't really hit home for most people though. Nukes sounds outlandish. Explosives is a bit too broad.

Not being a scientific paper, the details of the procedure aren't germaine to the article.

Eh, it's close enough, right?

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[morgan_greywolf]

Of course such devices are only of limited use to DHS. They presume that the potential terrorist must smuggle in his or her device through an airport in the United States.

The reality is that the easiest way to smuggle in a nuclear device would be to get it first into Canada or Mexico. There are stretches of border there that go on for miles that are patrolled by a dozen or fewer officers -- often not even U.S. Border Patrol, but instead local law enforcement agencies that lack the training to properly protect an international border.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[vadim_t]

There's one thing I'm wondering, though.

Assuming terrorists build a working nuclear device, why would they want to smuggle it into the country? Surely, detonating it near the coast would work just fine.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Temkin]

You missed the other key application... A cheap ready supply of neutrons is exactly what you need to transmute elements... Sadly, this includes the most common element transmutation carried out by mankind to date... U-238 to Pu-239. Cheap tabletop neutrons means cheap Pu-239 without the cost & mess of having a breeder fission reactor...

This will make non-proliferation all the harder. :(

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Seriously Trip, you are trying waaay to hard.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[onkelonkel]

I always thought the easiest way to smuggle in a nuke would be to bring it in through Miami hidden in a bale of cocaine.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[aichpvee]

I'm sure the folks over at Homeland Security would like a better way to guard against nuclear devices being smuggled into our country.

Inspecting cargo coming into the country would be a good start.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[DerekLyons]

You missed the other key application... A cheap ready supply of neutrons is exactly what you need to transmute elements... Sadly, this includes the most common element transmutation carried out by mankind to date... U-238 to Pu-239. Cheap tabletop neutrons means cheap Pu-239 without the cost & mess of having a breeder fission reactor...

This will make non-proliferation all the harder. :(

Not really. You still have to mine and purify the uranium (a decidely non trivial task), then you have to bombard (literally) tons of U-238, then you have to extract the Pu from the U (extremely non trivial). Or, in short, while you avoid the messy step of a reactor - you still have a large and difficult (and messy) industrial process. (I.E. nation state level, not terrorist groups.)

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[CmdrGravy]

I think the best method is in a warhead attached to an ICBM

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[billjank]

Transmutate elements ... Hey, this gives me a business model:

1. BUild tabletop fusion reactor.
2. Turn lead into gold.
3. ... (Hey, don't need a step 3 here!)
4. Profit!

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[multipartmixed]

You forgot 5 -- move really far away immediately after selling the gold, so that when your customers realize their gold has turned back into lead, they can't find and kill you.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Anonymous Cow herd]

Um don't you need protons for that also? Adding neutrons would just create isotopes...

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[imsabbel]

My best guess to bring a nuke in would be in a shipping container on a cargo ship.

Mos big and important american cities are on the cost, and the harbour is close enough...

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[slashdotmsiriv]

"I always thought the easiest way to smuggle in a nuke would be to bring it in through Miami hidden in a bale of cocaine."

I thought it was through a smuggler underground tunnel from Tijuana ...

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[khayman80]

Um don't you need protons for that also? Adding neutrons would just create isotopes...

The extra neutron very quickly decays into a proton and an electron (thus conserving electric charge). The electron flies out of the nucleus, leaving plutonium behind.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Temkin]

Um don't you need protons for that also? Adding neutrons would just create isotopes...

No. You have to overcome the charge of the protons to get them to enter the nucleus. If it were easy to get protons to enter a nucleus, we would have had fusion decades ago.... Of course the universe wouldn't exist as we know it, but that's not really germane to the discusison. Neutrons, having no charge at all, fly right in and collide, unimpeded by the electron cloud or the protons.

If I remember correctly, there's a very unstable intermediate isotope of Uranium created that almost immediately emits a beta particle which converts a neutron to a proton.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[PitaBred]

*cough*Iran*cough*

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[AndroidCat]

Shhh! Don't tell the terrorist groups that. The ones that aren't killed by radiation will be easy to detect when they pass security/customs.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Temkin]

Or, in short, while you avoid the messy step of a reactor - you still have a large and difficult (and messy) industrial process. (I.E. nation state level, not terrorist groups.)

Which is bad enough. The question is, does this take it from being a nation state level threat confined to a dozen powerful players, down to a nation state threat within reach of nearly every nation harboring the desire?

You're also assuming that some kind of bomb device is the end goal. This doesn't need to be the case. You can neutron activate many common materials. I used U->Pu as an example because it has the most obvious use. But dirty weapons could be made from almost anything.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[dorkygeek]

Now just imagine a Beowulf clust... Ah well, I don't have to write it down explicitely, no? You guys can figure that out by yourself! I'm outta here *slams door*

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Elemenope]

Nope. In unstable nuclei, a neutron will decay (into a proton, electron and neutrino). The electron is emitted as beta radiation. The proton stays behind. Nobody cares about the neutrino. ;)

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[SpeakerToManagers]

No, you don't need protons. What happens when a neutron hits a U-238 nucleus is that one of the neutrons is converted into a proton, and an electron is emitted, carrying off the extra negative charge. This leaves a Pu-239 nucleus. Sorry, I don't know how that maps to events on the quark level.

SpeakerToManagers

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Dr. Spork]

The article is a bit thin about quantitative stuff, but if these devices really are cheap and they produce enough neutrons, they should prove quite practical for U238 or Thorium-to-fissile-Uranium transmutation. A lot also depends on their efficiency, and also on access to large quantities of Deuterium (not trivial).

Right now, there are two practical ways to make material for a bomb: reprocess spent fuel from a nuclear reactor, or centrifuge the hell out of UF6 to produce highly enriched Uranium. Both of these happen to be rather hard to do. Really, they are the bottleneck that keeps nuclear proliferation from spiraling out of control. Even a powerful state like Iran will almost certainly be stuck on this step for a decade if the rest of the world keeps paying attention. In comparison, separation of Plutonium from Uranium is easy: it's just chemistry.

If a bunch of college professors could build this device on a tabletop, so can Iran. If they do this on a tabletop in a very deep bunker, US-Israeli bombing threats will no longer sound very threatening.

Again, maybe this will turn out to be impractical for reasons of quantity: Maybe these devices will draw too much power, Deuterium will prove hard to get, there won't be enough neutrons, etc. But in principle, this really could be trouble.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[lgw]

Modern nuclear weapons are around 1 MT, usually a bit less, as that's the optimal size for a weapon you can target accurately. The larger nukes of old were designed to crack silos with a near miss, were extremely expensive for their mission, and were taken out of service long ago. If a terrorist gets a nuclear weapon, it's either going to be a sub-MT military weapon, or a quite a bit smaller "home made" fission only device (modern nukes are pretty sophisticated fusion-pumped-fission devices).

Let's do the math. A 1 MT nuke detonated at optimal blast height will knock down residential structures at a radius of 10 km, more solid buildings at 7 km, and at 5 km knock down reinfored buildings and kill people outright from the blast (and all other effects, such as high doses of radiation, have smaller radii). A surface blast would have a far smaller effect. The only real point of a surface blast is to generate radioactive fallout (an air blast generates surprisingly little, though it would still hinder clean-up and rebuilding).

So yes, in theory, a terrorist with a high-quality military nuke (let's imagine a few were sold out of the old USSR armory, and somehow still worked today (the tritium would have to be replaced, which is quite technical, but lets imagine a scientist came with the bomb)) could sit a couple of kilometers off the coast and destroy some structures along the coast. Good for psycological impact, but not much else, and insanely expensive to carry out. A 50 kt fission bomb, a far more likely scenario for a terrorist, would have less than 40% of the blast radius of the high quality military bomb, and would probably need to be within 1 km to be effective.

A surface blast over *land* is what a terrorist wants, because the radioactive fallout would cause a world of hurt. You'd get very little of that even 1 km off the coast, and even a ship at a dock would produce far less fallout than a bomb 1 km inland. It's *definitely* worth checking for nukes at ports of entry: the threat just goes down very fast as the bomb moves away from land.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[DieByWire]

bring it in through Miami hidden in a bale of cocaine.

You misspelled 'bricks of marijuana.'

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[DerekLyons]

Or, in short, while you avoid the messy step of a reactor - you still have a large and difficult (and messy) industrial process. (I.E. nation state level, not terrorist groups.)

Which is bad enough. The question is, does this take it from being a nation state level threat confined to a dozen powerful players, down to a nation state threat within reach of nearly every nation harboring the desire?

No, it does not. As I pointed out - you still need a substantial industrial infrastructure. (Unless you are content to produce a bomb every decade or so.)

You're also assuming that some kind of bomb device is the end goal. This doesn't need to be the case. You can neutron activate many common materials. I used U->Pu as an example because it has the most obvious use. But dirty weapons could be made from almost anything.

Certainly a dirty bomb can be made from almost anything - but it takes a lot of neutrons to activate any significant quantities of material to a significant level of activity. Inside a research reactor (which has a much, much higher neutron flux) it can take from hours to days to activate a gram or two of your typical medical grade samples.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[aminorex]

No, it does not require tons of U-238 to produce supercritical masses of Pu-239. Less than a ton will do very nicely. What it does require is a fair amount of Tritium. D-D fusion neutrons are too slow. D-T fusion neutrons are perfect for the production of Pu-239. Separating the Pu from the U is trivial. It is a purely chemical process. I did this with an IEC fusor using surplus DU from a 747 counterweight. Using the fusor it would have taken gigawatts of electric power to produce a critical mass in less than a decade, and the process was impractical for weapon production. I don't know enough about the new process to comment, but if it improved the electrical efficiency by a couple of orders of magnitude, it would result in a viable process.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[ZonkerWilliam]

I'm waiting to see a DIY project where someone contructs a small nuclear battery or reactor from transmuted Thorium 232 (Which is easily avalable) into Uranium 233, using this method. The price of these crytals are not relatively high, a 3" disk goes for $200 - $250 US.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Anonymous Coward]

Which part is the misspelling? "Miami"?

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Fordiman]

While what you say is possible, what is the possibility of using something like this as part of a nuclear waste recycling process?

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[c6gunner]

Dirty bombs are a boogyman. It'd take too long to go into detail, but basicaly, we did a threat analysis study and found that in a worst-case scenario, a dirty bomb detonated today might double the number of cancer-related death occuring between the years of 2020 and 2030. Realisticaly, with proper cleanup and containment, as well as assuming cancer treatment improves over the next 15 years, the rise in cancer-related deaths would be insignificant. And the key point is that detonating a dirty-bomb would have no immediate result - any effects it may have wouldn't be noticed untill 15 years later. For that reason alone, dirty bombs are useless as weapons for terrorists.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Anonymous Coward]

Explosives is a bit too broad.

There are possible applications to finding conventional explosives too. I suspect that was what was meant.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[NitsujTPU]

Ahh, yes. That makes sense. It kind of omits the detail of nuclear devices though. Even so, viewed in that light, I imagine their treatment to be quite appropriate. Articles of this nature really aren't intended to be in-depth looks at the applications of techniques behind the technology, but, rather, just an interesting "look what can be done, it has these applications."

Even in academic papers, unless the description is an application, one tends to merely mention a handful of potential applications and then move forward to theory, experiments, and analysis.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think you'll find that Iran only wants to process the nuclear material in order to make fuel for reactors to produce electricity.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[fbg111]

But at least we'll now be able to turn all our lead into gold!

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[DarkIye]

Neutrons are two down quarks and one up quark, and protons are two up quarks and one down quark, down quarks carrying a relative negative 1/3 charge and up quarks carrying a relative positive 2/3 charge. It's pretty simple to figure it out from there.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[el americano]

A dirty bomb would have an immediate economic and political effect. If the goal of terrorism is to cause terror, then I'd say anything remotely nuclear is the weapon of choice. Just imagine the billions inefficiently spent as politicians fall over themselves to appear in control. Then there are the ongoing costs of increased security, which are more lost dollars producing nothing.

I'd say evacuating a significant part of a major US city is more of a big deal than you think.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[lgw]

It's worth adding that the immediate radiation danger from even a small nuke is pretty bad out to 2-3 km, but that falls off with the tenth power of distance, so again if "all we do" is cause a terrorist to detonate their nuke 1 km off shore, that's still completely worthwhile.

Burn injuries from thermal radiation can be bad to some distance, but not for a ground burst, as the effect is strictly line-of-sight.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[MenTaLguY]

If your gold isotope's half-life is really that short, you probably needn't worry about your customers surviving long enough to kill you.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[khallow]

) No, it does not require tons of U-238 to produce supercritical masses of Pu-239.

He might be thinking that a large mass stops more neutrons. Another point here is that while a fusor might not be in itself sufficient to produce fisionable material, it might be enough to bootstrap creation of a neutron source that is sufficient.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[VAXcat]

It would have taken gigawatts? How many gigawatts? Maybe, 1.21 gigawatts?

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[radtea]

Cheap tabletop neutrons means cheap Pu-239 without the cost & mess of having a breeder fission reactor...

The neutron flux you get from sources like this is orders of magnitude smaller than reactor fluxes. They have no practical utility in transmutation. Even in reactors the fraction of 238U transmuted to 239Pu is miniscule, and no matter what the process of neutron production is the activated fuel is extremely radioactive, making the chemical processing for reprocessing a delicate and dangerous thing. Fortunately, we aren't likely to see anyone but a nation-state building plutonium bombs any time soon.

So the production of nuclear weapons by terrorist groups is just not a risk. However, the use of nuclear weapons by terrorist groups is an (eventual) certainty, given that we're up to our necks in the things. In round figures there are something like 10,000 nuclear weapons on the planet today, or one for every 600,000 people. With that many lying around we are bound to have one wind up in the wrong hands eventually, and when it does it will be used.

Back in the '50's it was common to argue that nuclear weapons would require a world government to regulate their use. The Cold War made that both impossible and unnecessary. Today, it is looking more plausible again, particularly as the international community is making strong and stronger moves toward violating Iranian sovereignity to prevent them from even creating power reactors.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[gargletheape]

might you cause a nice tidal wave by detonating these things a kilometer from shore?

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[slightlyspacey]

From the article (emphasis mine):

However, when a neutron flux is imposed on weapons grade uranium, sub-threshold nuclear fission occurs, and many more neutrons are emitted.

1) It seems to me that this would be NAGT (Not A Good Thing), particularly if you have a bad guy, who knowing that this generator would be used, would decide to ship a piece of U-235 just barely subcritical. There may not be much of an explosion, but it would be very dirty.

2) And how would this work at detecting PU-239? In order to sustain the proper "sub-threshold" nuclear fission, the neutrons would have to be at the proper energy level. See #1 above.

Just curious ...

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to the >$500 Million USD device already commissioned and built by
defense contractors working for Dept. of Homeland Security? Real world tests
of THAT device concluded that it made a far better kitty-litter detector than one
to detect fissible (nuclear) materials.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[sydres]

"While the nuclear device was stumbled upon inside a brick of cocaine, inside a bale of marijuana, The DEA and U.S. customs passed it since that is indeed a legitimate packing technique in many parts of the world. When questioned an official for the DEA stated on condition of anonymity that had they found heroine inside the device it would have been immediately confiscated.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[PitaBred]

I've got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in. If not, perhaps some oceanfront property in Arizona?

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[dysan27]

Except for the fact that most nuclear devices have to employ conventional explosives start the reaction.

The conventional explosives are used to compress the fissile material into a supercritical mass which then undergoes nuclear fission (and then proceeds to fusion in thermonuclear bombs).

There are also "dirty bombs" that this will detect that simply use conventional explosives to spread radioactive material (usually highly radioactive marital) over a large are as an area denial weapon.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Mycroft_VIII]

Yes, but while the mored educated about such matters won't panic, alot of common folk who DON'T know these things WILL.
    Terror is the key word in Terrorism. The wholesale killing of thousands or even hundreds works, but just making a few thousand scream and run in terror of anything that even sounds like it might be neuclear still achieves thier goal of terror, and is likely to cause deaths as people pannic and all try to exit the city at 90 in thier cars and suv's in fear of insta-cancer and glowing in the dark.
    It's not about scientific accuracy, but about perceptions of the masses.

Mycroft.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[NitsujTPU]

It's a magazine article.

You know what? When I read a car ad, I could say, "wow, that would be faster with a supercharger," but that doesn't really mean that it was an omission on the part of the advertisement.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[IvyKing]

a neutron generator is an excellent method for detecting fissionable material

True, but what is of more concern is fissile material. U-238 is fissionable (need at least 600keV neutrons) - U-235 is fissile. To be completely fair, neutron generators are useful for detecting fissile material.

and I'm sure the folks over at Homeland Security would like a better way to guard against nuclear devices being smuggled into our country.

DHS is working with several organizations to address that problem.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[KidSock]

Separating the Pu from the U is trivial. It is a purely chemical process. I did this with an IEC fusor using surplus DU from a 747 counterweight.

This is the Department of Homeland Security. We've got you now aminorex. We know your in your mom's basement - we're at the top of the stairs now. Put down the mouse and place your hands on top of the monitor.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[IvyKing]

It seems to me that this would be NAGT (Not A Good Thing), particularly if you have a bad guy, who knowing that this generator would be used, would decide to ship a piece of U-235 just barely subcritical. There may not be much of an explosion, but it would be very dirty.

There wouldn't be an explosion.

And how would this work at detecting PU-239?

Same way as detecting U-235. Shoot neutrons of any energy into Pu-239 and you will get fissions.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[connorbd]

Shyeah. Radioactive gold.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[IvyKing]

Even in reactors the fraction of 238U transmuted to 239Pu is miniscule

Depends on what you mean by miniscule. Natural U production reactors convert ~0.3% and light water reactors convert 3-5%.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[IvyKing]

Um don't you need protons for that also? Adding neutrons would just create isotopes...

U-238 + neutron -> U-239
U-239 beta decays -> Np-239
Np-239 beta decays -> Pu-239

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/02/13/marshals.cocaine /index.html

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Dantoo]

There is no need to wonder what a smallish (sic) water based nuke can do. "Crossroads Baker" an underwater shot of a Nagasaki class device should convince anybody that dismissing such a threat as trivial is ignorance/arrogance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Crossroads_bake r_explosion.jpg/ Last time I was there you could sail right up to Manhattan Island. It doesn't seem realistic that you could prevent a person that has the ability to overcome the obstacles to procuring a nuclear device from delivering it. It's those obstacles that will prevent the catastrophe not the shorline patrols.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[dodobh]

Well, all that you need is a fission device _just_ below the threshold of explosion. The additional neutrons from the fusion reactor would then trigger it off.

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[bhiestand]

I always thought the easiest way to smuggle in a nuke would be to bring it in through Miami hidden in a bale of cocaine.

I think the best method is in a warhead attached to an ICBM

Surely that's the best way to get a nuke into the country, but it's not the best way to smuggle one in. On top of that, I don't think it's even legally possible to smuggle one in by that method, even if it did somehow come undetected. Nothing illegal about waging war against the United States, unless you're an American citizen...

smuggle, verb
to import or export secretly and illegally esp. to avoid paying duties or to evade enforcement of laws

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Timberwolf0122]

marijuana's bad m'kay

Re:Key Application Overlooked

[Anonymous Coward]

Even setting it off in the middle of the pacific would make for great "PR". Who knows how many bombs you've got?

Tabletop fusion

[Bit_Squeezer]

Crystals and holy water?

Re:Tabletop fusion

[jeblucas]

No, no, you misheard. It's "wholly" water. Only more so.

Re:tabletop fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

This device looks like it's a little bit simpler than the Farnsworth fusor

Good news everyone!

Re:tabletop fusion

[multipartmixed]

> This device looks like it's a little bit simpler than the Farnsworth fusor

And significantly more useful than the Smell-O-Scope!

Re:Tabletop fusion

[AndroidCat]

It's not just that. The alignment has to be just right and requires much work by doctors of feng shu physics.

Re:Tabletop fusion

[R3d M3rcury]

What do you expect from UCLA...

Re:Tabletop fusion

[R3d M3rcury]

What do you expect from UCLA?

Re:Tabletop fusion

[fatphil]

That's method one. If you look at the poly's webpage http://www.rpi.edu/ , you'll see that they've announced _two_ methods for cold fusion this month. Number 2 is:
"""
New Sonofusion Experiment Produces Results Without External Neutron Source

Troy, N.Y. -- A team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Purdue University, and the Russian Academy of Sciences has used sound waves to induce nuclear fusion without the need for an external neutron source, according to a paper in the Jan. 27 issue of Physical Review Letters.
"""

Sound waves and crystals this month. Next month expect results from diluting deuterium oxide to proportions of 10^-30. You'll be able to detect the fusion using a forked stick.

Re:Tabletop fusion

[MrScience]

Dilithium

I predict the #1 application for this technology

[Anonymous Coward]

...will be for mood rings that give you finger cancer.

Cool

[mwace]

Impressive, I hope this works out as a decent power source - I think its what this world needs more then moderatly effective cancer treatment system.

Re:Cool

[eobanb]

I hope this works out as a decent power source

Sorry to disappoint, but it's just not going to happen. These types of methods of fusion are always going to require more energy input than output. Efficient artificial reactors may be possible in the future, but for now they remain a pipe dream--especially 'cold fusion' ones.

Re:Cool

[massivefoot]

I hate to be the pessimist, but it almost certainly won't. Most research into fusion as a power source involes performing it on a reasonably large scale (think ITER). At this sort of size you simply wont get the efficiency you need to get out more energy than you put in.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

LAWL. Yeah that's what we need. People using fusion to power their cars and then ejecting the spent fissible materials.

If you thought smog was bad, consider the radiation coming from the spent fuel rod dumps. Talk about global warming!!!!

Re:Cool

[mwace]

We're talking about a device in the not-so-distant future that can create a solution with tempratures up to a hundred thousand degrees kelvin that runs off two, maybe four AA batteries. And you're telling me they'res no way to draw from this power?

Re:Cool

[noc_man]

Per the Article, this will be able to generate 200,000 electron volts (eV).

1 wattsecond (Ws) = 6,241,457,005,723,417,000 eV (http://www.digitaldutch.com/unitconverter/)

That says 6 Quintillion* eV to generate 1 Watt of energy for 1 second.

Not much energy in this form, and as stated before it is not self-sustaining.

* http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/eighteen.asp

Re:Cool

[BattleTroll]

I take it you don't have cancer?

Re:Cool

[sickofthisshit]

Hint, anything that requires AA batteries to operate is using them because it *consumes* power.

Re:Cool

[mwace]

Yea. And nuclear power plants need electricity to power their computers and some of the components of their steam turbine equipment - a good deal more power then a couple of double a batteries. Doesn't change the fact that they still generate a ton more electricity then they consume.

Re:Cool

[mwace]

I wonder how the number of lives of cancer patience cured from radiation therapy compares to the number of lives lost in Middle East due to America's dependancy on middle east oil. Not just the Iraq war, we're talking about nearly all of the United State's involvement in middle east, which is I think is influenced primarily by America's need to maintain a steady presence in the region were their entire economy depends on.

Re:Cool

[mwace]

You guys arn't even factoring in the cost that it takes the manufacture the equipment and furnish the crystal solution. That right there, the engergy needed to set up the equipment and 'fuel' (the crystals), would probably the number one enegry 'expense', more so then the machines ineffeciency, even if it consumes more electricity then it produces.

Re:Cool

[hyc]

According to this article http://www.rpi.edu/~danony/Research/Pyro.htm the 200,000eV was when configured to produce X-rays. The neutron generator yielded neutrons at 2.5MeV. Still a tiny amount of energy of course...

Re:Cool

[nickptar]

Temperatures up to 100000 degrees... in an area less than a millimeter wide. That's not much actual power.

Re:Cool

[ChrisGilliard]

We're talking about a device in the not-so-distant future that can create a solution with tempratures up to a hundred thousand degrees kelvin that runs off two, maybe four AA batteries. And you're telling me they'res no way to draw from this power?

Not sure where you got the hundred thousand degrees kelvin from, but if what you say can happen, then yes, this would be extermely intereresting. Unfortunatly, it is probably on the order of requiring two AA batteries to output the power of 1 microwatt. The fraction of output energy to input energy is called the Q factor. This device has an extremely small Q factor. So far, we've only been able to create hot fusion nuclear reactors that have a Q factor of about 1.2 or so. That means you put in 1 watt of energy and get out 1.2 watts. This means there was a net output of energy. The only problem with these is that the net energy output only lasts for a fraction of a second. The multibillion international project ITER is to make hot fusion reactor that will have a positive Q factor or about 5 in the steady state. This means it would continously generate energy. It's not the size of a table top though. It's more like the size of a huge appartment complex. If ITER is successful, it will be a huge step forward, but it's a long ways off. Then, after ITER is completed, we need to figure out how to build more ITERs for a reasonable price. This whole thing will play out over the next 50 years, so if we don't come up with some cheap way to do Solar by then, ITER will be pretty nice because you essentially put a bucket of Deuterium in a reactor with Tritium (obtained from Lithium) and you get a HUGE supply of energy for free. The only cost is the Deuterium and Tritium (super cheap) and the cost of the facility plus maintence, etc.

Re:Cool

[mwace]

(The 1x10^(6)K tempratures were established, and I assume to be true, earlier). Hmm, sounds cool. Thanks for the info, I might do some personal study on that myself - while the thought of zapping a crystal solution with some ultrasonic sound and getting cold fusion is majestic in its own sense, they're an appeal to understanding the mechanics and nuclear chemistry of the latest developments of the ITER system. By the way, is Deuterium and Tritium - and the substances they're extracted from, such as lithium - renewable, or what is their abundance? They may be cheap, but so is petrol and we're going to run very short of such abundant hydrocarbons in the next generation or so. ...I'm still surprised nobody mentioned the cost of the equipment and solution as factors in the equipments inefficency as a power genorater. I hope this at least leads to greater developments into the understanding of nuclear chemistry!

Re:Cool

[ChrisGilliard]

By the way, is Deuterium and Tritium - and the substances they're extracted from, such as lithium - renewable, or what is their abundance?

Good question and that's the best part. There is enough Tritium that can be extracted to supply the earth with current consumption of energy for the next 1000 years. The Deuterium is even more abundant. With a hotter form of Fusion reaction, we wouldn't even need Tritium. The deuterium supply (which you can get from sea water) on earth is enough to supply us for the next million or so years at current consumption levels. Imagine literally powering the city of Los Angeles for 1 year on a bucket of sea water. That's what we can do if we can create a sustainable Deuterium fusion reaction.

has anyone seen...

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

THE SAINT

Re:has anyone seen...

[Atlantic Wall]

mod parent down, the movie sucked

Re:has anyone seen...

[multipartmixed]

All I remember about that movie was that the protagonist had a Nokia Communicator 9000-series phone.

It was a really cool phone in its day.

Re:has anyone seen...

[c_forq]

Next time include the link.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120053/

Re:has anyone seen...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, he went north. You going to chase him?

Interesting

[hey!]

It's quite an accomplishment. However, as the article noted, they don't mention even the remote future possibility of creating a self-sustaining reaction. So I'm assuming that there is no way even in principle this technology could be scaled to yield more power than it uses.

Re:Interesting

[Vellmont]

So I'm assuming that there is no way even in principle this technology could be scaled to yield more power than it uses.


From the sound of what's going on, I think that's correct. The thing about a confined fusion generator is that it works through having the plasma at enormous temperatures. At these high temperatures the particles are slamming into each other at high speed, occasionally so hard they fuse together. This fusion itself produces more heat, so there's a feedback loop that's sustaining the reaction. This device sounds like it works through just accelerating particles with an electric field to high speeds, and then smashes the particles into one another. I don't see any potential for feedback here, so a sustained reaction seems unlikely.

Re:Interesting

[SEWilco]

"no way ... this technology could be scaled"

More crystals! I need more crystals!

Re:Interesting

[BytePusher]

Perhaps the heat generated by the fusion could power the pyroelectric crystals? I'm not familiar at all with pyroelectric crystals, but I'm imagining there must be a heat differential across the crystal. If the hot side needs to be the same side that fusion occurs on, then perhaps it could be self sustaining to some degree. Then to turn it off you take the heat sink off the cold side.

        Anyone know more than I do about the feasibility this?

          Also, I noticed the author didn't provide a reference, but it appeared that he cut and pasted the article to his blog... anyone know the reference to validate?

Re:Interesting

[Jozer99]

Ya, the fusion from this device is more of a curious byproduct, which is why it has taken 2 decades for anyone to actually admit it works. However, it has low power requirements and isn't terribly radioactive when you turn it off, making it idea for medical and security systems.

Better than two

[DigitlDud]

"Our device uses two crystals instead of one, which doubles the acceleration potential," says Jeffrey Geuther

Yeah well, now I'm going to use three!

Re:Better than two

[MacUNIX]

"Our device uses two crystals instead of one, which doubles the acceleration potential," says Jeffrey Geuther

Yeah well, now I'm going to use three!

Ahh...the old "razor company" method, eh?

Re:Better than two

[that_xmas]

Hell, I'm jumping straight FIVE! That'll get you an even closer shave.

Re:Better than two

[dr_dank]

According to the Spinal Tap Principle, it's only a matter of time before someone makes one that goes to 11.

Re:Better than two

[Divide By Zero]

Funny you should mention a razor with five blades in a thread about Fusion.

Re:Better than two

[Anonymous Coward]

You laugh; but that's pretty much how the vacuum tube triode got invented to not infringe on the vacuum tube diode.

Re:Better than two

[Anonymous Coward]

I see the SUV fan here.
Too many of anything will usually create more problems that needed.

Re:Better than two

[CptNerd]

And of course all the New Agers will be saying "See? We told you!"

Oh, and don't forget, in Star Treknolgy, three warp engines is bad, but two or four is good.

Just like numbering the movies...

Re:Better than two

[SEWilco]

No, the old razor company method is to give them the crystals and then sell them the deuterium forever. Of course, you need crystals which will only work properly with your specific brand of deuterium.

Re:Better than two

[willy6743]

"Our device uses two crystals instead of one, which doubles the acceleration potential," says Jeffrey Geuther

This is the typical Gillette Shaver theory...when you need a new product, just add an extra blade - now with 8 blades for an extreme close shave!

BTW, it appears as though Gillette is also working on their own Fusion technology - http://www.gillettefusion.com/us/

Re:Better than two

[Anonymous Coward]

You really had to point out the obvious? ....

God, I hate this place sometime. Note to parent: You weren't funny, so STFU.

Re:Better than two

[XorNand]

A prophetic interview with the CEO of Gillette, two years before they introduced their "Fusion" model. NSFW words.

Re:Better than two

[raddan]

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades.

Re:Better than two

[Anonymous Coward]

why don't you just make 10 sharper?

Re:Better than two

[AndroidCat]

I'm not sure that I'd want my fusion reactor to go one louder.

Room temperature?

[sploxx]

Although the device as a whole may be at room temperature, the region where the fusion reactions occur is at a much higher temperature (10^6K or similar) - as it is needed for fusion.

Speedy particles smashing into each other have a lot of kinetic energy in the center of mass inertial system. This is nothing different than 'heat'.

Re:Room temperature?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speedy particles smashing into each other have a lot of kinetic energy in the center of mass inertial system. This is nothing different than 'heat'.

Actually, strictly speaking, heat is quite different from coherent, directed particle motion.

Re:Room temperature?

[pclminion]

Speedy particles smashing into each other have a lot of kinetic energy in the center of mass inertial system. This is nothing different than 'heat'.

Wrong. Heat is random motion. If simple kinetic energy was all it took to have heat, then any gas cloud out in space with a large velocity relative to us would be extremely "hot." But we all know intuitively that things do not change temperature just because they speed up. The air in a moving car is not hotter than the air in a parked car. Heat is the random motion of particles with respect to each other. The collision of a few particles doesn't qualify.

When gas quickly depressurizes, it cools down. Ever wonder why? It's because as the gas escapes, the particles which are near each other tend to all move in the same direction (outward) and thus their random motions with respect to each other are decreased. Thus, the temperature drops. Or consider how a rocket nozzle works by focusing the molecular motions in a particular direction (by forcing the gas through a small opening to increase the pressure and then into a cone to suddenly decrease it), thereby converting the high pressure and heat of the exhaust gas into directed kinetic energy.

Learn more before making these kinds of proclamations.

Re:Room temperature?

[arctan1701]

i wish i had some mod points. +1 parent please

Re:Room temperature?

[twifosp]

You're missing the point. The byproduct of this reaction is heat, not the other way around. Previous fusion devices use heat and/or pressure from magnetic fields, or lasers, or other methods to cause fusion. This does not.

Re:Room temperature?

[zardo]

I don't see what point you are trying to convey here. The energy translates into heat, are you saying that a bullet hitting a metal plate doesn't translate some of that kinetic energy into heat? In this case, the particles aren't being shot into a void, like your gas cloud in space example. Take a nuclear bomb for example, the neutrons are bouncing all around within a beryllium sphere, the thing explodes into a fireball. What is the difference?

No really, what is your point? I don't claim to be a genius on the subject, but it appears you misinterpreted what he was saying.

Re:Room temperature?

[pclminion]

The energy translates into heat, are you saying that a bullet hitting a metal plate doesn't translate some of that kinetic energy into heat?

It does, but that energy wasn't heat BEFORE the bullet hit the target. If an object being in motion was equivalent to heat, then the temperature of objects would depend on their relative velocities to us. That is clearly an absurd concept.

No really, what is your point?

He asserted that because the colliding particles have lots of kinetic energy, they are therefore "hot" and calling this process "cold" fusion is therefore wrong. I corrected his error.

Re:Room temperature?

[BytePusher]

I am not quite disagreeing with you, except where you called the parent 'Wrong,' but... If I have a bubble of gas moving at some average velocity and then I stop it such that it's average velocity is 0, the energy must go somewhere. If whatever energy does not leave the bubble (in a form that is not heat) becomes 'heat.' In this case, the gas is stopped by a deturium target.

Re:Room temperature?

[BytePusher]

Your error is that you lack an understanding of fusion. The desire is not heat, but in fact _energy_. If it's directed even better. If you do some reading about fusion you'll see them throwing around terms like 'MeV'(Million electron Volts, which refers to the velocity of a particle due to an electric potential field of X MeV) when talking about individual fusion reactions(only two particles) whereas when they talk about all the particles they talk about temperature. You probably ought to learn more before jumping on someone's case.
            Aside, I don't see why heat must be an aggregate of unordered motion, because the case in which all the particles move in the same direction is still within the subset of possible aggregate motions called 'random motion.'

Re:Room temperature?

[pclminion]

Your error is that you lack an understanding of fusion. The desire is not heat, but in fact _energy_.

I understand fusion fine. You, apparently, do not understand what's being discussed. The OP stated that because the colliding particles have large kinetic energies, they are therefore "hot" and the moniker "cold fusion" is inappropriate.

whereas when they talk about all the particles they talk about temperature.

They do. But none of this has to do with whether or not this qualifies as "cold" fusion, which it clearly does.

Aside, I don't see why heat must be an aggregate of unordered motion, because the case in which all the particles move in the same direction is still within the subset of possible aggregate motions called 'random motion.'

As you criticize me, you forget the basic concept of relativity. An ensemble of particles moving all in the same direction in one frame of reference, is an ensemble of particles at rest in a different frame of reference. If their temperature was solely a function of their total kinetic energy, and not the relative motions, then different objects would have different temperatures for different observers. This is obviously not true.

Re:Room temperature?

[Vellmont]

They do. But none of this has to do with whether or not this qualifies as "cold" fusion, which it clearly does.

Other than arguing semantics, I don't understand what you point is. It was my understanding that "cold fusion" means fusion that somehow overcomes the normal coulomb repulsion between charged particles without just slamming particles together. Maybe that understanding of the definition of cold fusion is incorrect, and it merely means fusion without what we normally define as "high temperature" (random particle motion, yadda yadda). I think perhaps what the original poster is trying to convey is that this form of fusion is still the normal old "get past the coulomb repulsion by slamming particles together" fusion.

Re:Room temperature?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Take a nuclear bomb for example, the neutrons are bouncing all around within a beryllium sphere, the thing explodes into a fireball. What is the difference?

Well, it's a nuclear reaction, for one thing...

Re:Room temperature?

[tgibbs]

Aside, I don't see why heat must be an aggregate of unordered motion, because the case in which all the particles move in the same direction is still within the subset of possible aggregate motions called 'random motion.'

However, such cases occupy such a negligible volume of the state space that in practice they do not happen. This is the principle that underlies statistical thermodynamics. There is a finite probability that all of the molecules of air in your room will randomly collect under your desk, leaving you gasping for breath...but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

Re:Room temperature?

[Tim C]

If you do some reading about fusion you'll see them throwing around terms like 'MeV'(Million electron Volts, which refers to the velocity of a particle due to an electric potential field of X MeV)

No. An electron volt (eV) is the energy gained by an electron falling through a potential difference of 1 volt. It has nothing to do with velocity, other than that the two are related by the equation for the kinetic energy of the particle (1/2mv^2, at non-relativistic speeds). Electric potentials are measured in V, not eV.

when talking about individual fusion reactions(only two particles)

In order to cause two particles (eg two protons or deuterium nuclei) to fuse, you have to overcome the electrostatic repulsion between them. That requires a certain amount of kinetic energy; too little (or too much) and it won't happen. When talking about individual atomic and subatominc particles, the eV is the natural unit of measurement, especially in this situation.

when they talk about all the particles they talk about temperature

Temperature is what we call the measurement of how much heat energy a substance has. As others have said, heat is the kinetic energy of the random motion of the particles with respect to each other. As this is random, and as the particles are constantly colliding with one another, they have a distribution of speeds (in equillibrium conditions, this will follow the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution). Thus it doesn't really make sense to talk in terms of the energy of the particles, as they have a wide range of energies, from practically zero to very much higher than the average. That's why the temperature is used when talking of the particles collectively.

Aside, I don't see why heat must be an aggregate of unordered motion, because the case in which all the particles move in the same direction is still within the subset of possible aggregate motions called 'random motion.'

As another poster pointed out, such a subset is infinitessimally small compared to the sum total of all possible velocity states. Even ignoring that, the mass motion of the substance has no bearing whatsoever on its temperature - if it did, then simply setting the object in motion would increase its temperature. Would you expect a lump of lead, propelled at high speed in a vacuum, to spontaneously melt? That's what would happen if mass motion caused heating, and you moved the lead fast enough.

Re:Room temperature?

[sploxx]

[[Speedy particles smashing into each other have a lot of kinetic energy in the center of mass inertial system. This is nothing different than 'heat'.]]

Wrong. Heat is random motion.

Well, the 'smashing' part I explicitely stated accounts for the thermalization.

If simple kinetic energy was all it took to have heat, then any gas cloud out in space with a large velocity relative to us would be extremely "hot." But we all know intuitively that things do not change temperature just because they speed up. The air in a moving car is not hotter than the air in a parked car. Heat is the random motion of particles with respect to each other .
No, not 'respect to each other', in respect to the center of mass, as I wrote. Heat is the average kinetic energy of particles (in classical statistical mechanics).

The collision of a few particles doesn't qualify.
And why not? Care to explain?

When gas quickly depressurizes, it cools down. Ever wonder why? It's because as the gas escapes, the particles which are near each other tend to all move in the same direction (outward) and thus their random motions with respect to each other are decreased. Thus, the temperature drops.
Yes, the temperature drops. But the gas still carries the same amount of heat (transportation by photons excluded). Smash two nuclei, they interact, a hot ball of reaction products results and cools down as the particles move away from each other according to a law similar to pV=NRT.
The temperature drops, the amount of heat in this ensemble of molecules/atoms/particles stays the same.

Or consider how a rocket nozzle works by focusing the molecular motions in a particular direction (by forcing the gas through a small opening to increase the pressure and then into a cone to suddenly decrease it), thereby converting the high pressure and heat of the exhaust gas into directed kinetic energy.
What do you want to say with this paragraph?

Learn more before making these kinds of proclamations.
Sigh. Bold and derogatory statements like this activate /.'s groupthink and your post gets moderated higher than mine. ("He's louder so he knows better...") I infer from your arrogance that you probably have a PhD in theoretical physics - but you should've learned some communication skills, too :-)

Re:Room temperature?

[shimage]

You are arguing semantics. Within physics, it is only well defined within the field of statistical mechanics. Elsewhere it tends to be somewhat corrupted. People are always talking about the so-called "temperature" of particles in the interplanetary medium, even though they aren't even thermalized. Heat is thermal energy. If a group of particles isn't thermalized, they don't rightly have a temperature. If the temperature isn't well-defined (i.e. a non-equilibrium system, [i.e. a dynamic system]), then "heat" isn't well-defined either.

In this case, I am almost certain (without reading more than the first 5 paragraphs of the article) that the particles are not thermalized, are not, in fact, in equilibrium, and therefore do not have a temperature. In that case, you should assume right off the bat that if someone mentions words like "temperature", "heat", "hot", that they are referring to the kinetic energy of the particles, as that is the custom (at least within physics), and indeed, only interpretation that makes sense.

Furthermore, you miss the obvious point that there weren't even trying to make fusion. This should have been clear from the fact that when they said "room temperature" they meant that it was relatively hot and not cold (that is to say, not at cryogenic temperatures). The article is simply bad reporting by people that don't understand what they're talking about (unfortunately, not so uncommon).

Re:Room temperature?

[sploxx]

[[The energy translates into heat, are you saying that a bullet hitting a metal plate doesn't translate some of that kinetic energy into heat?]]

It does, but that energy wasn't heat BEFORE the bullet hit the target. If an object being in motion was equivalent to heat, then the temperature of objects would depend on their relative velocities to us. That is clearly an absurd concept.


Well, you can very well define the energy of the movement of the bullet and the target relative to each other as the 'heat' of the bullet-target system. Normally, noone does this as ballistics go into more detail than thermodynamic state equations.

Of course, you should be careful not to confuse inherent the temperature of the bullet (the movement of the lead atoms relative to each other) with the kinetic properties of the bullets, their heat, which produces a more-or-less well defined temperature after thermalization occurs (the bullet hits the target).

Nor should you confuse temperature and heat at all, which are, although very closely related, not the same things!

PS. I answered you other post, too.

Re:Room temperature?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Heat is random motion. If simple kinetic energy was all it took to have heat, then any gas cloud out in space with a large velocity relative to us would be extremely "hot." But we all know intuitively that things do not change temperature just because they speed up. The air in a moving car is not hotter than the air in a parked car. Heat is the random motion of particles with respect to each other. The collision of a few particles doesn't qualify.

Hmm, I imagine coming in contact with a cloud of gas at 3 or 4 K going 10 to 50kps would probably feel "hot" by any reasonable definition. Probably a lot like a blowtorch. Heat *is* kinetic energy. The "intuitive" measure of heat and speed is simply because we deal with tame speeds in a relatively hot environment, and it's true that throwing a baseball 60 mph will not produce a recognizable change in temperature when it's caught. Part of the reason, of course, is that catching a baseball is a very elastic reaction. Your hand moves, followed by your arm, and eventually the energy is transferred down to your feet with a little energy bled off at each step. You may even produce more energy by tensing your muscles than the baseball imparts due to its kinetic energy. Other things like bullets, car crashes, etc. don't produce a lot of heat directly because most of the kinetic energy is lost in breaking or changing chemical bonds and deforming the colliding objects.

And, technically, the air inside your car has a different kinetic energy than the air outside your car. If both masses of air are measured at the same temperature at rest, a thermometer on the surface of the car will read higher than a thermometer in the car when the car is moving. Practically, this is why the space shuttle has ceramic insulating tiles on its re-entry surfaces. The atmosphere varies a lot in actual temperature, from relatively cold (below freezing) to very hot (but thin), but the heat generated on the space shuttle's surface is almost completely a function of the density of the atmosphere it's traveling through, e.g. the kinetic energy in terms of speed matters more kinetic energy in terms of temperature.

Re:Room temperature?

[BytePusher]

Ha ha, true. However, I might possibly be able to cause such motion. The guy is just trying to say this is cold fusion, which it's not. I'm probably wrong on a number of counts, but I think the greater error is to call this sort of fusion "cold."

Re:Room temperature?

[zardo]

I propose a hypothesis! People become physicists so that they can apply some totally abstract mathematical description to reality and confuse everybody, and tell them their stated english is incorrect.

I think the original statement was, more accurately stated, that the particles inside the "reactor" have kinetic energy, with a potential for heat energy, and in the specific case of the reactor (which we seem to have forgotten about completely!) this heat potential is realized. This is an aspect of physics that many educated people understand without having to know every detail about the quantum world, which you physics majors are always SO eager to blather about.

Re:Room temperature?

[jbengt]

"When gas quickly depressurizes, it cools down. Ever wonder why? It's because as the gas escapes, the particles which are near each other tend to all move in the same direction (outward) and thus their random motions with respect to each other are decreased. Thus, the temperature drops.
"Yes, the temperature drops." "

No, the temperature only drops if the exdpanding gas does work. Consider equal sized containers, connected with a closed valve, one with a complete vacuum and one filled with an ideal gas at room temperature and pressure. Open the valve. The gas fills both volumes, but doesn't push against anything in moving to the empty container, so does no work. The volume doubles, the pressure drops in half, the "average" kinetic energy of the molecules does not change, so the temperature of the gas stays the same.

Joule did this experiment in 1843.

What?

[Odin_Tiger]

"application may come in the form of a battery-operated, portable neutron generator"

Wait, what? We finally got cold fusion, but 'batteries not included'?

Re:What?

[massivefoot]

No, we do not have cold fusion. This isn't a power source at all (i.e. over all the process is endothermic), we just have a small "neutron-making-machine".

Re:What?

[605dave]

It doesn't come with batteries because it will require 4200 size Ds. They are getting design help from the xBox 360 team on power enclosures.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

The exciting part is that this device uses electricity flowing through crystals to accelerate neutrons. Dr. Who can now reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

Re:What?

[AndroidCat]

Kid stuff. The Doctor could reverse the polarity of the neutrino flow with his sonic screwdriver.

Re:What?

[aminorex]

It is cold. It is fusion. It is cold fusion. Then again, it is quixotic to argue with anyone who does not accept FOPL.

Re:What?

[tsotha]

The fourth wave of attackers approaches. Go forth, and conquer them!

That's why it took me 39 years to learn how to spell "forty".

so is this

[GmAz]

So would this be considered cold fusion? This is not , but from the article, it appears that it could be called cold fusion. Or am I wrong since I am not a nuclear scientist.

Re:so is this

[mwace]

By 'Cold Fusion', I think they mean fusion not accompanied with a mile wide fireball, scalding nuclear radiation, a massive forest-leveling shockwave, and a couple hundred kilos of radioactive dust floating down from the sky.

Re:so is this

[JustNiz]

Now THAT would be a keychain toy worth buying.

Key chain application overlooked

[SEWilco]

Also overlooked is the forthcoming businesses selling crystal pendants and key chains which "fight" cancer and provide other beneficial effects.

Re:Key chain application overlooked

[uradu]

Especially when combined with magnets. In fact, I'm highly surprised that magnets were not involved in this feat already.

Re:Key chain application overlooked

[Art Tatum]

Also overlooked is the forthcoming businesses selling crystal pendants and key chains which "fight" cancer and provide other beneficial effects.

Like flying?

Re:Key chain application overlooked

[whoda]

I see a new market for Alex Chiu!

Licensing...

[lukewarmfusion]

I will now take bids on licensing my screenname.

Time travel as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can the machine also transport its user to 1982?

"So are you ready?"

"Yeah, hold on... I forgot to put in the crystals."

Re:Time travel as well?

[lunchlady55]

"No, this sucker's electrical, but I need a nulear reaction to generate the 1.2 Gigawatts needed for time travel!"

HELLO MR. FUSION!

(Now where's that beer can...)

Re:Time travel as well?

[blugu64]

"1.21 jigawatts!"

This sounds oddly familiar

[CRCulver]

Back in the 1980s there was the same vibe over cold fusion, and we all know how that turned out.

Re:This sounds oddly familiar

[rossifer]

The difficulty with small scale fusion isn't making it happen. That's been done many, many times. The difficulty with small scale fusion (and all fusion) is making it produce power (more power extracted from the reaction than put into the reaction).

That's where Pons and Fleishman got hosed. They claimed a 300% power surplus without experimental verification. This announcement is different from that for several reasons.

1) These guys are specifically not claiming excess power.
2) They're claiming to have lots of high-energy neutrons.
3) This is actually the announcement of a second group of scientists repeating the experiment and successfully verifying the results of the first group.

In short, this announcement is nothing like the cold fusion debacle of the late '80s.

Regards,
Ross

Re:This sounds oddly familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you retarded?

Re:This sounds oddly familiar

[Fly]

It was not the same vibe at all. The 1980s cold fusion debacle has little to do with this. If people were claiming this to be a power source, then it would have something to do with the cold fusion vibe, but the people involved are not because the technology is not suitable for power generation as they have stated. The pyroelectric fusion technique is effective as a means to produce neutrons rather than energy. Cold fusion experiments hoped to see excess neutrons as a signal of fusion occuring, while with the new technique the production of neutrons is the primary function.

Re:This sounds oddly familiar

[saboola]

According to this official account Cold Fusion was accidentally invented and perfected by Elizabeth Shue. She gave it to the Russians to solve their problems during a cold winter. It was (Cold Fusion) was originally going to be stolen by Val Kilmer, but he was a bad boy with a good heart who decided to do the right thing and help the Russian scientists create it.

Re:This sounds oddly familiar

[JourneyExpertApe]

That's where Pons and Fleishman got hosed. They claimed a 300% power surplus without experimental verification.

I think the more important difference between this and Pons and Fleishman's cold fusion is that this is clearly fusion, and P&F wasn't. The effects P&F observed were probably the result of a chemical reaction and/or bad experimental design. They didn't observe any of the characteristic radiation or products.

FYI, this isn't the first tabletop deuterium fusion discovered. See bubble fusion.

Re:This sounds oddly familiar

[pjellis]

This is actually the announcement of a second group of scientists repeating the experiment and successfully verifying the results of the first group.

Putterman's UCLA group didn't find evidence of fusion - at least that was what he was telling his students as of Winter 2005. I see no reason why he would have lied to us

Re:Oh great...

[eobanb]

IANAP (I am not a physicist), but I do know that nuclear fusion doesn't create fallout like nuclear fission does. Perhaps this is what you are thinking of. I ought to also remind you that radiation plays a huge part in medical treatments of all sorts. So while you might have been sarcastic when you said 'tremendous idea,' I'd have to agree with you there.

IS this really FUSION?

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I have to wonder wether or not this really is fusion. It sounds to me like they are just moving nuetrons around from one atom to another. There is no mention of atomic # increase.
The article did not seem to mention too much technical details.

Anyone have a better link?

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[the_humeister]

That is fusion. Moving neutrons from one atom to another increases the atomic weight of the recipient atom. You don't necessarily need to fuse atoms together to call something "fusion."

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[Anonymous Coward]

like they are just moving nuetrons around from one atom to another

Answered your own question, I see.

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article, they are combining deuterium with deuterium, which should result in a helium. But there would be no neutrons left over, so their statement that detecting neutron emmissions prove it's fusion sounds fishy to me.

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[Kadin2048]

Erm, producing neutrons implies some sort of nuclear activity. Either fission or fusion of some sort of decay process (spontaneous neutron emission). By ruling out fission and neutron emission via decay, which are possible to do by knowing the inputs, you're pretty much stuck with fusion as an explanation for the output.

You make it sound like shuffling some neutrons around is easy. It's not. Producing a source of neutrons is a pretty nice feat by itself. However there's a very, very large difference between producing neutrons via fusion, and plonking down a SimCity 2000-esque, pollution-free, "Fusion Power Plant."

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[Kobun]

Perhaps you would like to do some reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#The_D-D_ fuel_cycle

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

For those that posted from my comment.. This is exactly what I meant.

I know IANAP (I am not a physicist) but I guess It just seamed like they are making a neutron gun http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1153968. htm, and not really a reactor. Granted they are making one from heavy water, electricity, and some dilithium crystals not with nuclear decay.

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[Anonymous Coward]

Helium in its most common isotope has 2 neutrons, but Helium can exist with only a single neutron. If two atoms of deuterium combine to form Helium-3 that would leave leftover neutrons.

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[techno-vampire]

IANANP, but the first thing I thought of is that they're "simply" knocking the neutron out of the nucleus, leaving behind hydrogen and generating a high-energy neutron. Not fusion, but as you say, neat in and of itself. I'd think the energy spectrum would be pretty specific to the reaction involved, but don't know how this would differ from what they're claiming. Anybody out there have some info?

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[X-rated Ouroboros]

Neutron bombardment may results in fission. It might also result in absorption/capture (thus changin the isotope), or a number of different scattering reactions (the neutron whacks into one side of the nucleus and another neutron, a proton, or possibly an alpha recoils out the other side). It would be less-than-correct to call anything that happened "fusion".

The production of neutrons is an indication of some nuclear reaction occurring... but since the article says it's D-D fusion, that's a kind of odd result. D-T fusion results in alpha and free neutrons, butD-D fusion primarily releases radiation. It might be the article is wrong and it's a tritium target. If they are getting a significant number of neutrons using only deuterium that would seem to suggest they've found a way to manufacture Helium-3. He3-H fusion has some interesting properties, but isn't considered viable due to the scarcity of He-3. I'd like to see a isotopic analysis to see what ash they're producing.

Table-top neutron generators are hardly spankin' new technology, though. Look up Philo Farnsworth some time.

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does fusion involve nuclear decay?

Re:IS this really FUSION?

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Fusion itself usually doesn't, but it takes a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 jig a whats to start the fusion reactor

Re:Oh great...

[Anonymous Coward]

As the saying goes, your right to treat your cancer with spewing neutrons ends where my nads begin.

link to old story

[Anonymous Coward]

the original story from last year, Room-Temperature, Small-Scale Fusion at UCLA, mentions microthrusters for space applications. I couldn't find any more mention at the ucla crystal fusion site. I hope this new work has some bearing on this application.

Well that settles it: Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

A team of New York physicists has confirmed that a tabletop contraption made at UCLA does in fact generate nuclear fusion at room temperatures...

If the New York physicists have confirmed it, then it has to be true. Has to be.

Re:Well that settles it: Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

[maxwell demon]

I only believe it when Netcraft confirms it. :-)

Re:Well that settles it: Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

[Doc Ruby]

Why do you think they called it "the Manhattan Project"?

New York City's national pastime is being right, second only to telling people they're wrong.

Re:Well that settles it: Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation 0
    50% Flamebait
    50% Underrated

Thanks for the opportunity to tell the TrollMods "if you can't take the heat, stay out of Hell's Kitchen". And to congratulate the others on their NYC sensibility.

Manhattan Project flames are serious business.

Incredible (and im not talking about the article)

[MrTester]

Its amazingly clear that not only have few of you RTFA, most have not even gotten past the title before you threw out a post.

Its a whole 4 sentences which make it clear that this is NOT a power source, and half the posts are talking about its potential as a power source.

Now if I could just find a way to bottle the power of human stupidity...

Darn

[Nom du Keyboard]

Darn, now I have to go sell my palladium stash that I have put away just in case someone actually made it work the old fashioned way.

Re:Darn

[crazyjimmy]

Darn, now I have to go sell my palladium stash that I have put away just in case someone actually made it work the old fashioned way.

you're still playing Palladium?

Re:Darn

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I'll pay you 5 bucks a pound for it. Sell before the word spreads and everyone else is trying to dump :)

Re:Darn

[Anonymous Coward]

Where're you going to sell a bunch of "Rifts" books written by a blowhard game designer with the biggest ego in the world?
      Oh! You mean the metal.
        Sorry. :)

could provide safe, continuous cancer treatment.

[JustNiz]

Yeah beacuse everyone knows being continuously bombarded with X-Rays is safe.

And here I was...

[Opportunist]

...thinking that the core war between Intel and AMD is gonna be the "who got the most" war of the next decade.

But you won't get my dilithium stash!

Re:Oh great...

[4x5]

NOTICE TO NEW BUYERS! Please do not eat, drop, fall-on-top-of, get in car wreck, avoid all plane crashes and train accidents...

no thanks, wearing a landmine 'round my neck doesn't seem better than going through chemo.

200,000 Electron Volts

[sarlos]

But can it crank out 1.21 gigawatts?

Re:200,000 Electron Volts

[Atlantic Wall]

Heavy. ROFL What the Hell is a GIGAWATT!

Re:200,000 Electron Volts

[blugu64]

it's "1.21 jigawatts" you idiot!

Re:200,000 Electron Volts

[PitaBred]

To be COMPLETELY pedantic, it's "one point twenty-one jiggawatts".
You idiot.

Re:200,000 Electron Volts

[X-rated Ouroboros]

200KeV is about 3.2E-14 joules. So... if they can just make it about 100000000000000000000000 times more powerful it can operate a flux capacitor.

Re:200,000 Electron Volts

[blitz77]

1 watt = 1 joule/sec. 1 Gigawatt = 1 billion joules/sec.
1eV = 1.60x10^-19J. So 200000eV = 3.20x10^-14J.
For 1Gigawatt of power, we need the 200000eV to be released in a timeframe of 3.20x10^-14J divided by 1.00x10^9J/sec = 3.20x10^-23seconds, or 32.0 yoctoseconds. That's pretty damn short!

Use as weapons?

[PIPBoy3000]

Are we talking x-ray laser sort of technology? Is 200,000 electron volts enough to do significant damage? Surface burns and radiation poisoning?

Re: Use as weapons?

[Black Parrot]

> Are we talking x-ray laser sort of technology? Is 200,000 electron volts enough to do significant damage? Surface burns and radiation poisoning?

That's why we mount them on sharks' heads.

Re:Use as weapons?

[Kijori]

I'm afraid 200,000 eV is virtually nothing. There are 16 quadrillion eV in one volt, so this is a very tiny potential difference, and is only significant because the energy required to affect a neutron is far, far smaller than that required to affect most things.

Incidentally, if it interests you, an X-Ray LASER was proposed and tested by the Reagan administration, but abandoned after inconclusive results.

Jerks

[breckinshire]

Is it just me, or did this article make the Renselaar folks seem like smug jerks? As in, "Yes, not only did we prove that it works, but we proved that we can do it a lot better than those toking, surfing, hippies!"

Re:Jerks

[Anonymous Coward]

welcome to science by press release

Get the paper here

[Anonymous Coward]

The paper.

Re:Get the paper here

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the original UCLA paper.

Re:Get the paper here

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't have institutional access, the original paper is here: Observation of nuclear fusion driven by a pyroelectric crystal.

Re:Get the paper here

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks. I was trying to find a mirror but didn't, so I posted the Nature version. Mods, mod up the parent instead of my post about the UCLA paper.

Re:Oh great...

[AKAImBatman]

IANAP (I am not a physicist), but I do know that nuclear fusion doesn't create fallout like nuclear fission does.

Fallout is caused by one of two events:

1. Excess nuclear materials not consumed in the reaction are left behind.

2. The neutron radiation from the event interacted with nearby materials (such as the dirt on the ground) to create new radioactive materials.

Nuclear fusion is "clean" in that there are no radioactive materials left over from the reaction. However, it does produce an incredibly strong neutron flux which can easily create radioactive fallout in nearby materials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout

Given how destructive neutron radiation is, I'm somewhat surprised that they'd be talking about strapping a reasonably strong source to someone's person.

Re:Oh great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for continuing to propagate irrational fear of nuclear materials. Fallout is associated with the older, "dirtier" fission nukes. We haven't seen one like that in, what... 45 or 50 years? This is also different - not only because the amount of emissions are small - but because it's neutrons. Beta and alpha emissions are protons/electrons and protons/neutrons respectively. Also: Nowhere in the article does it mention anything about breaking apart massive atoms and leaving behind radioactive isotopes that are chemically reactive in the human body; Which, I assume, is what you're so worried about.

Smuggling nuclear material...

[burnttoy]

guard against nuclear devices being smuggled into our country.

Ahem... or out of the country. Keeping tabs on one of the worlds largest nuclear stockpiles is a major, fulltime job and not one to be taken lightly.

tabletop fusion

[penguin-collective]

Tabletop fusion has been in use for quite some time. This device looks like it's a little bit simpler than the Farnsworth fusor, but it's an incremental improvement, not a radical breakthrough.

The breakthrough would come should anybody ever figure out how to break even energetically in a tabletop fusion device, and I think it's quite possible that that will happen sooner or later.

Gillette will do it with 5..

[Anonymous Coward]

..plus one to trim the output level...

dilithium whosits?

[Thud457]

So this is a different approach that the purported sonofusion experiments? And the Pons & Fleishman's metal crystaline lattice apparatus? And it's not similar to Philo T Farsnworth's electrical confinement experiments at ITT in the 60's?

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if I could just find a way to bottle the power of human stupidity...

yeah, if only.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

[katz]

I'd buy that for a dollar!

Woah.. Flashbacks!

[fury88]

Flash backs of "Real Genius".

I can just see Val Kilmer now... Self-realization, I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

Time travel potential

[wampus]

With the mention of crystals, all I can picture is the time machine from Napoleon Dynamite.

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[Anonymous Coward]

...you'd probably be drinking it.

Nukes Don't Kill People.People Do. But Nukes Help.

[nick_davison]

even a wearable device that could provide safe, continuous cancer treatment.

Because, after demonstrating they could use personal firearms safely and only in the recommended manner, it was deemed reasonable to give Americans personal nukes.

hot and cold fusion

[nietsch]

It appears to be doable at room temperatures, but the ion themselves travel at ~100 KeV (Kilo electronVolt) which translates to absurdly high temperatures (for that single ion)
You need that speed to get fusion, otherwise your nuclei will not come close enough together.
This will probably not be a potential source for nett-positive fusion, it will alway cost more energy to produce than is released (and capured) by the device. This is because on an atomic scale evene crystals are mostly empty space and the chance of hitting a nucleus before the chamber ends is pretty low. If you try to reuse the ions like is done in a fusor you loose too much energy in 'bremsstrahlung' when you change the direction of the ions. Sadly, the best chance of succes is still in the big tokamak-like contraptions.

Re:hot and cold fusion

[Steamboater]

I thought 'bremsstrahlung' was a result of particles dumping energy; a fusor trades kinetic energy for potential energy (charged particle in a spherical field).
- Bart

Re:hot and cold fusion

[neomajic]

"You need that speed to get fusion, otherwise your nuclei will not come close enough together." Everyone knows that speed kills...I'd suggest a couple drinks instead...

Re:hot and cold fusion

[mangu]

I thought 'bremsstrahlung' was a result of particles dumping energy

No, not exactly. Bremmstrahlung is actually a relativistic effect, it's only apparent when particles suffer very strong accelerations. For instance, in a typical X-ray machine electrons accelerated to 50kV or so hit a metal target. The kinetic energy of the electrons is (mostly) turned into heat, but the deceleration of the charge itself causes the emission of electromagnetic waves. For more info, look in "The Feynman Lectures on Physics", vol. 1, chapter 34.

Re:hot and cold fusion

[nietsch]

The ions trapped in the well are not sitting motionless there, the oscilate between the bounds of the well, each time accelerating in a different direction. Thus the bremsstrahlung, IIRC.

question

[kevin.fowler]

What if the crystal cracked?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083791/

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[What me a Coward]

Nobody can bottle the power of human stupidity! It's out their free in the world man and you're just going to have to deal with it!

  HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! :P

    Seriously if you could that would be to much power in one place at one time, Could end the universe in the wink of an eye. ;)

Re:Oh great...

[brouski]

I never let science get in the way of a snarky comment.

Re:could provide safe, continuous cancer treatment

[Kadin2048]

I think that's why they're marketing it as a cancer treatment. For, you know, people who already have cancer. Which tends to kill you without treatment.

Chemotherapy drugs aren't exactly a walk in the park either, but they have their place.

Gillette?

[Anonymous Coward]

So Gilette went from a battery powered three blade razor to a nuclear powered 5 blade one? I gotta get me one of those!

Cool Fusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr. Lamonte: We need to pursue something less... cold... hence, "cool fusion".

Pyroelectric particle accelerator

[wiml]

Indeed, it's different from all of those, read TFA. Here's a basic explanation of the device from RPI.

Tabletop Fusion

[jdumps]

Tabletop fusion is hard. You have to be rolling 20's to get it started.

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[samureiser]

Of course, the internet makes it clear that stupidity is NOT a power source...

Re:Oh great...

[Kadin2048]

Given how destructive neutron radiation is, I'm somewhat surprised that they'd be talking about strapping a reasonably strong source to someone's person.

I think that's kind of the idea, if you were trying to kill a tumor with it.

At any rate, I get the feeling that the 'cancer treatment' idea was probably just something that whoever gave the interview to the article's author pulled out of their ass when they were asked about 'possible uses.' It sounds good, and who knows, it might even be true.

Re:I predict the #1 application for this technolog

[CowsAnonymous]

> ...will be for mood rings that give you finger cancer.

I think that's going to be easily outsold. From TFA:

> The concept could also lead to a portable x-ray generator, according to Danon

Obviously, the big seller is going to be x-ray glasses.

Wearable device

[MECC]

"wearable device that could provide"

Similar to a backpack capable of firing a ectoplasmic containment stream? Or portable power supply for a flux capacitor?

Yes, they're different

[Anonymous Coward]

Pyroelectric fusion is different from sonofusion, cold fusion, and the Farnsworth fusor.

Re:Oh great...

[gebbeth]

NOTICE TO NEW BUYERS! Please do not eat, drop, fall-on-top-of, get in car wreck, avoid all plane crashes and train accidents...

Do not taunt happy fun fusion reactor.

Don't let terrorists get ahold of it!

[csoto]

They could use it to make a "suitcase" neutron bomb! Sure, it might take hundreds of hours per individual to dispatch them, but terrorists have time on their hands!

Re:Don't let terrorists get ahold of it!

[moving_comfort]

It's a well known fact that the angriest terrorists are the smaller terrorists.

When they finally come up with modern suitcase nukes that have those handy telescoping handles and wheels? We'll all be screwed that day, I tell you.

Flying Car?

[pablo_max]

This seems like something I can use to power my flying car. Something tells me that this, like most other neat projects will never have a single real life application. It will be hyped up, but nothing will ever come of it.
I just cant see the point to getting excited by this sort of thing anymore.

Re:Oh great...

[LWATCDR]

Fallout comes from nuclear weapons and us some of them do use fusion.
Even "clean" fusion will produce radiation. The difference between fusion and fission is the they of waste that you tend to have. A lot of the waste from a tradition reactor is fairly long lived which means that it has to stored for many thousands of years. The most common waste from a fusion reactor will tend to be tritium which is short lived and can be used as fuel in the reactor.

In one fell stroke...

[todd10k]

Doctor who has been vindicated.

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[Damase]

Actually he did say they are not considering this as a power source right now. That means they are considering it. They are just being more cautious PR wise than the group at UCLA. It also means they want to make money as opposed to saving the world. (Lots of commercial application talk)

Re:Oh great...

[Waffle Iron]

Thanks for continuing to propagate irrational fear of nuclear materials. Fallout is associated with the older, "dirtier" fission nukes. We haven't seen one like that in, what... 45 or 50 years? This is also different - not only because the amount of emissions are small - but because it's neutrons.

And what are neutrons? Oh yeah, just one of the most penetrating and dangerous forms of radiation. Why else do you think that when they had to find a form of radiation that could kill tank crews inside their vehicles, the viable choice was the neutron bomb?

Pure fusion bombs create huge numbers of neutrons. If the explosion is near the ground, these neutrons can activate the debris that gets sucked into the mushroom cloud and create plenty of fallout. (Not to mention, most bombs use a natural uranium case to get a cheap energy boost when it's fissioned by the extra fusion neutrons. Most of total the energy output is often still fission.)

And any amount of emissions that's intense enough to kill cancer tumors isn't exactly "small".

Also: Nowhere in the article does it mention anything about breaking apart massive atoms and leaving behind radioactive isotopes that are chemically reactive in the human body; Which, I assume, is what you're so worried about.

Instead, you add neutrons to the the elements already inside your body, thereby turning them into dangerous radioactive isotopes where they sit.

Life Imitating Art

[FrankDrebin]

From TFA: "Our device uses two crystals instead of one, which doubles the acceleration potential,"

Ladies and gentleman, we have found di-lithium crystals!

additionally...

[YesIAmAScript]

Another big difference is this team is announcing their results in a technical journal, not in a press conference.

It'll be interesting to see what comes of this.

Dupe... from 1906?

[Lost Penguin]

Didn't Tesla do this in 1906; somewhere in Siberia?
Of course he did up the amperage and frequency ....

No this is not a "Soviet Russia joke"

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[acacia]

Bottle the power of human stupidity? Sorry, you are too late. Look no further than the Vatican, Al Qaeda, or any other religions institution. Superstition, fear of death, and the promise of eternal life are all their tools, and with proper respect of their un-verifiable claims (faith), lack of reason, and willingness to submit you too can be their servant.

Next Generation

[Doc Ruby]

How about that total matter-energy conversion they've been doing with antimatter and dilithium crystals in LA for decades?

Back to the Future?

[airship]

But will this generate the 1.21 gigawatts required by my time flux capacitor? I really need a 'Mr. Fusion' reactor for my DeLorean.

Re:Back to the Future?

[Anonymous Coward]

A DeLorean is so 1985 retro! These days, to improve the time flux compression, everyone uses 1960s scooters, slightly modified.

Re:could provide safe, continuous cancer treatment

[stanmann]

HMmm, die a slow painful miserable death in 3 months, vs spend the next 6 months in misery in exchange for 5-10 years of non-miserable life?

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[rco3]

I wish I had mod points today. Instead, I shall have to content myself with praising you via the typewritten word.

You go, dog.

They have...

[geekoid]

"Now if I could just find a way to bottle the power of human stupidity..."

it's called 'Beer'

Re:They have...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. It's called a two-party system.

Think of the possibilities!

[WED Fan]

...there's no talk this time of producing endless supplies of power. Rather, the technology could lead to ultra-portable x-ray machines and even a wearable device that could provide safe, continuous cancer treatment."

And my favorite: One hell of a joy buzzer.

Not a joke

[Max Threshold]

I don't know if people are taking this comment as a joke, but the Farnsworth fusor has nothing to do with Futurama. It's a real device.

Re:Not a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it does have something to do with Futurama: the Futurama character was named after the real inventor.

Pyromania

[Doc Ruby]

These pyroelectric crystals produce a strong electric field when their temperature rises. Does that mean their temperature rises more slowly when in an opposing electric field? Can pyroelectrics remain cool when stabilized by an electric field, maybe resisting burning, or protecting spacecraft on reentry?

A whole 2% are opened

[onkelonkel]

Right you are.....

Although the figure is somewhat disputed by the US Customs, who claim they inspect a larger percentage of what they deem "high risk" containers, apparently about 2% of all containers entering the US are actually inspected (i.e. opened and the contents examined).

Re:A whole 2% are opened

[HUADPE]

I think the point was that you don't even need to get to the inspections point...just blow it up while it's still on the ship. Accuracate placement is not a high priority with fission bombs.

Re:A whole 2% are opened

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I call you guys at 2:00 a.m. when I'm sitting bolt upright in bed worrying about this shit? Will you be awake?

Re:A whole 2% are opened

[morgan_greywolf]

Can I call you guys at 2:00 a.m. when I'm sitting bolt upright in bed worrying about this shit? Will you be awake? Maybe. Depends on the day. I don't answer my cellphone when I'm trying to smuggle in nukes at 2:00 a.m. ;-)

Re:A whole 2% are opened

[imsabbel]

Haha.
I dont _worry_ about this.
I am about 7000km away from any part of american soil :D

Its just a nice thing to show how you could mass-kill people, and how there is NEVER absolute security, no matter how much you push towards a police state.

Do you for example have an idea what kind of carnage you could produce with a simple gasoline truck (like those 1000s that drive everywhere everyday) in a city?

Re:A whole 2% are opened

[corrosive_nf]

No need to even bother with a gas tanker. Train accidents happen near me all the time. Case in point. Duffy street.

        On May 12, 1989, one of the most devastating accidents in the history of the Southern Pacific Railroad occurred in a northwest suburb of San Bernardino, California along the relatively new (opened in 1967) Palmdale-Colton "Cut-Off" line at the foot of the Cajon Pass grade. Southern Pacific train 01-MJLBP-12 (Mojave, CA to Long Beach, CA Unit Potash train), with 69 hopper cars loaded with potash south of Mojave at Rosamond, CA lost control while descending the 2.2% grade on the south slope of Cajon Pass. All 69 cars and six locomotives derailed when the train reached a curve next to the suburban San Bernardino neighborhood along Duffy street near Highland Avenue. The runaway train reached speeds in excess of 90 MPH (the maximum recordable speed on the onboard "black box" speed recorder) in the descent of the 23 mile grade. Killed in the accident were SP Conductor Everett S. Crown and Brakeman Allan R. Riess. Also killed in trackside homes were two children ages 7 and 9, with eleven additional people injured. Seven homes were destroyed outright by the accident, and four more were damaged and eventually torn down. In response to the accident, Southern Pacific agreed to pay all moving, storage and temporary housing costs for displaced residents as well as purchase the eleven homes damaged or destroyed in the accident. In addition, Southern Pacific agreed to reimburse the City of San Bernardino for all expenses incurred in response to the accident, as well as any judgements against the city resulting from the accident. Southern Pacific also agreed to pay for inspection and necessary repair to a 14-inch petroleum pipeline buried fourteen feet beneath the accident site.

        A Second catastrophe struck the accident ravaged neighborhood two weeks later on May 25th, when the petroleum pipeline that parallelled the rail line ruptured and exploded, destroying eleven more homes and killing two more residents. Investigation after the pipeline explosion found that CalNev Pipelines did not adequately inspect the pipeline after the accident.

        The cause of the accident was complex. The train weight was estimated (no car scales exist in Rosamond) to be 6,151 tons, which is the information the train's crew had. Later computations made by weighing similarly loaded cars estimated the actual train weight to be near 8,970 tons. In addition, the train's headend and helper power each had at least one unit with inoperable dynamic brakes. This left the train with sufficient braking power for the reported weight, but not enough for the actual weight.

Re:A whole 2% are opened

[TopSpin]

Accuracate (sic) placement is not a high priority with fission bombs.

Although this is widely believed, it is not true. Placement is absolutely crucial to nuclear weapon effectiveness.

Nuclear detonations are large but still finite. Tactical weapons are deployed using highly accurate warheads because they must have a small CEP (on the order of a few hundred meters) to assure destruction of hardened targets. So called strategic weapons must be detonated at altitude to maximize damage.

Obstructions such as hills can greatly reduce the effect of overpressure. This was observed in Nagasaki, which was spared a large amount of devastation due to terrain. Thermal radiation can be stopped by terrain and even reduced by heavy clouds.

A small, or at least inefficient, nuclear detonation at sea level in a port will produce far less devastation than an optimally placed weapon. An interesting study of what might occur if New York suffered a hypothetical 150 kiloton detonation a ground level is found here. The result is 1.7 million casualties (800,000 dead) in a very densely populated city of 8 million. A detonation some arbitrary distance off shore of a less densely populated area, possibly mitigated by terrain and/or weather (Seattle, for instance,) would be far less effective. You might end up with total casually figures of a few hundred thousand. About average for a large scale carpet bombing operation during WW2.

My point is that placement is paramount to nuclear weapon effectiveness. Damage from haphazard detonations in ports will be relatively limited. More important is what happens after such an attack.

Re:A whole 2% are opened

[fluffy99]

The leftover radiation would certainly shutdown the seaport for quite a while. Don't you think that shutting down several of our major seaports would have a significant impact to the US economy. We are still dealing with the seaport problems leftover from Katrina.

Re:A whole 2% are opened

[japhmi]

Although this is widely believed, it is not true. Placement is absolutely crucial to nuclear weapon effectiveness. ... at causing damage. At causing fear and terror it's less important, you only need to get close.

Where's The Helium?

[ed-drood]

They call this 'fusion' but they only seem to claim detection of neutrons (and/or tritium) from two deuterium atoms; shouldn't real fusion produce helium, that is, shouldn't the "fusion" be binding of protons, as task that one would assume to be much more difficult (protons repel) than binding two neutrons.
They seem to have only formed an isotope of hydrogen (tritium) [plus a neutron] from another isotope of hydrogen (deuterium) rather than forming a new element (helium) [plus a neutron] from two atoms of deuterium.

Re:Where's The Helium?

[Anonymous Coward]

The UCLA experiment detected helium emission in coincidence with neutron emission.

Already done in the 1960s?

[noidentity]

I thought this had already been done using Farnsworth's Fusor in the 1960s.

Re:Already done in the 1960s?

[nickptar]

Yes, but it sounds like this doesn't need vacuum or a kilovolt power supply.

Weapons?

[dpbsmith]

If they think practical applications in medical imaging and airport scanning are in the foreseeable, commercial future... well, if you can produce enough power to do that, you certainly can produce enough power to injure people.

Re:Weapons?

[nickptar]

Oh, yeah, it's easy to kill someone with a chest X-ray machine.

Ob. Ghostbusters Quote

[GJSchaller]

Dr Ray Stantz: You know, it just occurred to me that we really haven't had a successful test of this equipment.

Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself.

Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I.

Dr Ray Stantz: Well, no sense in worrying about it now.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.

Why worry?

[shrtcircuit]

Dr Ray Stantz: You know, it just occurred to me that we really haven't had a successful test of this equipment.
Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I.
Dr Ray Stantz: Well, no sense in worrying about it now.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.

Wild speculation

[Anonymous Coward]

Some nowhere-near-the-box musings:

Is there any effective way of generating electricity directly from neutrons? Or at least releasing it with their aid? I don't mean a heat exchange reaction, something more direct. If the neutron reaction is caused by a strong electric field, then all you would seem to need is a very effective way to get electricity out of the reaction in order to create a feedback loop. Put it back into the field and presto, more neutrons.

Alternatively, if there is some way of generating electricity by using neutrons on an intermediate substance, this could provide a power source that way, I suppose.

I think I'm starting to sound like a cut-rate alchemist, but I am curious about the possibility of a very direct neutron-electricity conversion.

Portable Radioactive RNG

[sbowles]

Sounds like this could be used to generate seeds for a portable version of the Radioactive Random Number Generator

Picture of the Device

[travler]

Same text info as the refernced blog. Only difference being that this URL also contains a photo of the device.

http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=1358&se tappvar=page(1)

THE LINK

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I LOVE IMDB!
I can't believe I forgot to include it!

TY BTW

Fission?

[Derling Whirvish]

I agree that something's not right here. If the only evidence of fusion thay have is neutron production, then why is that not also an indicator of simple fission? Here's their description:

"The device is essentially a tabletop particle accelerator. At its heart are two opposing "pyroelectric" crystals that create a strong electric field when heated or cooled. The device is filled with deuterium gas -- a more massive cousin of hydrogen with an extra neutron in its nucleus. The electric field rips electrons from the gas, creating deuterium ions and accelerating them into a deuterium target on one of the crystals. When the particles smash into the target, neutrons are emitted, which is the telltale sign that nuclear fusion has occurred, according to Danon."

Neutrons are emitted when the deuterium target is hit. From where I'm sitting that look like fission which is easily obtained on a tabletop not the long sought-after fusion reaction. Deuterium has one proton and one neutron while normal hydrogen has one proton only. If the deuterium target is split and simply reverts to ordinary hydrogen by giving up the extra neutron, then you have fission and an extra neuton emission -- exactly what was observed. Where's the fusion? Where's the helium?

Re:Fission?

[mako1138]

I've never heard of deuterium fission. At the low end of the periodic table, it's far more energetically favorable for thing to fuse. I'm no expert, but D fission might even be endothermic.

You can think of their experiment like the classic Rutherford experiment, except they've got D+ ions being shot at a sheet of D. The two D+D fusion reactions happen with equal probability:

D + D -> T (1 MeV) + p (3 MeV)
D + D -> He3 (0.8 MeV) + n (2.5 MeV)

What they did in the experiment was to look for 2.5 MeV neutrons, because that reaction will _always_ produce a 2.5 MeV neutron. They also looked at associated X-rays. (If it was a fission neutron, it would probably be a different energy, and again, I can't find any reference to such a phenomenon.) Then they correlated their results to a computer simulation. I don't know why they didn't bother to look for the H and T. They may not have had the equipment, or they considered it outside the scope of the experiment's purpose as a neutron source.

The caveat to this experiment is that neutron and x-ray detection is something of an art, and must be done correctly; I'm not qualified to comment on their setup. This experiment makes sense according to normal physics, though.

Re:Fission?

[nickptar]

I'm no expert, but D fission might even be endothermic.

I should suppose so, since the p+p->D reaction (e.g. in the Sun) is exothermic.

Pu-239, Pu-240, Pu-241, Pu-242

[Anonymous Coward]

Plutonium is quite excellent for use in nuclear reactors. Mainly because it's fissionability is 3-5 times greater than U-235.

The problem with breeder reactors, right now, is you get a whole bunch of different types of Plutonium. 239 is excellent, and 241 is very good. It's the 238, 240, 242-246 that "poison" the reaction. They are fissionable, but not fissile (240 is a special case, however). This is part of the limitation with pebble-bed reactors. That non-fissile Plutonium builds up and really dampens the power output.

If this little neutron accelerator could be fine tuned, it might very well turn out that we can create Pu-239/241 in far greater purity levels than what is achievable in a standard breeder reactor design. This would allow us to use more of the natural uranium, without having to process it.

And, of course, it would allow the t3rr0ristz to make bombs, if the tranmutation purity is great enough.

This is always going to be a problem, no matter what advancements we discover. All the more reason to address socially radical elements of the world, now, while it's still.....cost-effective.....rather than leave it to our grand-children when it will be decidedly more costly (in terms of lives).

Possible application

[Cherita Chen]

Someone should adapt this technology into a portable unit to power this new and disturbing class of unusable cell phones like the Samsung a900, and the Motorola RAZR v3... Desktop Fusion is definitly the answer - just change the form factor and stuff it into a backpack... Off you go!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =5866516936

Re:Oh great...

[d3m057h3n35]

IANAP (I am not a physicist)

Why use the abbr. (abbreviation) when you write out the whole word anyhow? You could try lisp style, though:

IANAP (I ANAP (am NAP (not AP (a P (physicist)))))

Off-topic, I know. But I couldn't resist.

Quite an accomplishment indeed!

[pjellis]

Ug. Dr. Putterman's group at UCLA specifically reported that NO nuclear reaction of any kind occured during their experiment. If this experiment confirms their results (as stated in the first paragraph of TFA), then this experiment confirms a lack of a nuclear reaction. What the hell exactly are "opposing crystals"? Later in the article one of the people involved in the second experiment states that there are "two fundamental differences" between the two experiments and says those differences are the number of crystals involved and the temperature. Given that I think its safe to assume they both have one significant thing in common: You start the process by bombarding the device with neutrons...(Okay lets think for a second here, how are they determining that a nuclear reaction is occuring? The presence of neutrons!) If they confirmed the UCLA results then they confirmed that the number of neutrons detected per unit time isn't different from the number of neutrons that the device is being bombarded with. In ANY case, this so called "portable" neutron generator requires a very non portable neutron generator to get it to function. I might as well call my land line phone a "portable" phone because I can walk back and forth while talking on it.

Re:Quite an accomplishment indeed!

[pjellis]

Forgive the poor formatting above. Its been awhile since I have posted and I forgot I need to add br tags for carrige returns.

Re:Quite an accomplishment indeed!

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks to me like they use deuterium (basically hydrogen with an extra neutron). So its much easier to carry around deuterium than neutrons. I'm not sure what you mean when you talk about the "lack of nuclear reaction" throughout your post. I only saw the article refer to nuclear fusion, and I think the experiment confirmed there was fusion. Also, it looks like both of these experiments were published in Physics Review Letters, so you can probably trust that the results are legit (although the popular press article may have gotten it wrong.)

Re:Oh great...

[Tim C]

I was a plasma physicist, and did some research on topics related to fusion before quiting to become a programmer.

Basically, you're right. The nice things about fusion (or some of them at least) are that there's no scope for a Chernobyl-style meltdown and the reaction products and reactants are safe.

The problem, as you say, is that it's an excellent source of neutrons. The generator and its housing have to be designed to absorb as much of that neutron flux as possible. This inevitably produces radioactive isotopes in these materials, which will eventually break down to the point that they must be replaced.

The nuclear waste associated with a fusion power plant isn't as bad as that for a fission one, but it still exists and still needs to be dealt with.

Could Fusion/Fission Hybrids be made?

[DumbSwede]

There have been a number of discoveries recently about how to generate neutrons from fusion albeit at a large energy loss.

What I'm wondering is whether this could be used to create a hybrid device that blast fissionable material with reaction initiating neutrons, rather than balance the fissionable material on the knife's edge of criticality. If so then fission reaction would stop immediately upon loss of initiating neutrons from the fusion source and you have a much safer nuclear reactor design. Could this also be used to burn our existing stockpiles of waste, and if not practical with these neutron sources, could future more efficient fusion reactors be used to extract additional energy from nuclear waste while consuming and disposing of it at the same time?

Re:Could Fusion/Fission Hybrids be made?

[mako1138]

People have indeed looked into fusion/fission hybrids. Unfortunately, they seem to compound the dangers of fission with the (current) impracticality of fusion.

We _can_ burn our waste with breeder reactors, using a different fuel cycle. The problem there is that these particular fuels are the kinds you use in nukes, so politically (and security-wise) it's not practical.

Bah, this sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Once Perl 6.0 comes out, this Cold Fusion rubbish will be history.

Only time before...

[WolfZombie]

CLICK HERE for a portable fusion device that can help you Add Inches!!!

This has already been done in Idaho.

[toy4two]

Aaron Ruell: So are you ready? Jon Heder: Yeah. Hold on. I forgot to put in the crystals. OK, turn it on. Ow! Ow! Ow! Kill it! Turn it off! Turn it off Kip! It's a piece of crap! It doesn't work! Jon Gries: I coulda told ya that.

Re:could provide safe, continuous cancer treatment

[JustNiz]

My point is not that it isn't potentially beneficial, just that marketing it as safe is ridiculous.

er, um, a few quibbles:

[Ancient_Hacker]

"very portable X-Ray device" Um, no. This would make a more portable neutron imaging device. Problem is, neutrons actually split atoms, leaving behind radioactive debris. People are concerned enough about the effects of X-Rays-- imagine trying to convince them to use this "better" device, which has the slight side-effect of leaving you radioactive, all the way through your body. "cancer treatment" This is already done, reliably and cheaply, by the insertion of thin radioactive needles into the cancer site. It's very unlikely this neutron gadget could be cheaper. Also very unlikely it could be made safe. I know if I had some terminal cancer, there's a short list of people I'd like to expose to this neutron beam.

Manhattan Project

[hackwrench]

Because that's where the project's headquarters was. This is orthogonal to where the scientists involved came from or where they spent their time.

Re:Manhattan Project

[Doc Ruby]

Where the scientists came from or spent their time is an independent axis from the nature of their work, or even how right they were. The project HQ, on the other hand, is clearly related to the quality of the project.

In fact, since we're talking about a UCLA basic science experiment validated by NY scientists, the Manhattan Project is a perfect model.

You're not from New York, are you.

Re:Manhattan Project

[hackwrench]

Yes and my sister died in Jamaca, New York under very strange circumstances the year before the WTC. "Natural Causes" my foot, so excuse me from being a bit leery of claims of New York's proficiency. Couldn't even keep two commercial planes from slamming into a tall building and they expect me to think they're proficient? Please!

Re:Manhattan Project

[Doc Ruby]

Now *that* is some quality flamebait. Of course, I suspect your sister of working for months as a "suicide beacon" for the Qaeda planebombers, after faking her death in Queens.

As for the planes, New York was quite proficient at obstructing those planes from attacking any further into the country, with Pennsylvania a decent second place. Blame Boston, DC and LA for failing to keep their planes safe and on course.

Germane

[hackwrench]

Newspaper articles are very freqently not very germane to anything else. Anything you see in the "News Media" isn't driven by what the viewers/readers want to hear, but by what someone wants them to know/feel/experience. If someone wants people to feel jazzed about terrorists then that's what they will see in the news.

Re:Germane

[NitsujTPU]

Oh, sure, but nobody is expecting formulas in a newspaper article, that's what I meant.

Does it go to....

[Anonymous Coward]

eleven?

Ancient Hindus used sonofusion for energy....

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not count this process out for energy production, the ancient Hindus used this process as an energy source for among other things, flying their air/space craft.

What really bothers me ...

[jc42]

They say "[T]here's no talk this time of producing endless supplies of power."

C'mon now; whenever there's any sort of energy-related announcement, you are required to predict that it may lead to unlimited, unmetered power. This is one of the news industry's most revered traditions.

The young folk these days; they just have no respect for tradition.

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[Lord_Dweomer]

"Now if I could just find a way to bottle the power of human stupidity...Now if I could just find a way to bottle the power of human stupidity..."

They already have, I believe its called Holy Water.

Re:Oh great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Given how destructive neutron radiation is, I'm somewhat surprised that they'd be talking about strapping a reasonably strong source to someone's person.

The point is that the neutron source is highly controllable, as opposed to being "always on". Current neutron sources are bits of radioactive material that emit neutrons all the time. To turn them on you just remove the shielding and/or bring them close to the body.

This doohickey could be controlled by a switch that turns it on and off for a timed, controlled dose of neutrons per doctor's order. When it's not on, it's inert and you can (relatively) safely break it or drop it in a pond without exposing anyone to excessive radiation or poisonous materials.

The Money Quote

[scosol]

"Our device uses two crystals instead of one, which doubles the acceleration potential."

This one goes to 11~!

Re:Nukes Don't Kill People.People Do. But Nukes He

[gstoddart]

Because, after demonstrating they could use personal firearms safely and only in the recommended manner, it was deemed reasonable to give Americans personal nukes.

Well, since it's been pointed out that this thing couldn't possibly be a power source, it is entirely possible that you couldn't use this thing in any dangerous way.

I think they're implying a continuous exposure to much lower amounts over a longer time might be an effective treatment.

If it can't be used as a power source, it probably can't be weaponized.

I think you missed the point...

[shummer_mc]

I think you missed the point (but perhaps not). A bale of cocaine would be summarily removed to the evidence locker... probably in downtown *major metro area*. No one would go carving into the thing to check to see whether there was a nuke inside (they'd want to weigh it for the inevitable press release)... A simple remote detonation... bingo! You flatten at least one *major metro area* precinct. If it were a big enough 'bale' it may go into the federal building, too.

I'm actually quite clueless about what they do in cases of large seizures, but I don't think it matters. It (likely) goes somewhere inland, and the cops/agents wouldn't likely look for a 'second' offense when they find a bale of cocaine.

I guess the beauty of that plan is that if it gets through, you could pay for the costs of the nuke with the proceeds of selling a bale of coke to the plastic surgeons in said *major metro area* before you detonate the bomb...

FWIW, The OP's point (joke) is well-made and scientific sniping isn't really necessary, although your knowledge does add to the discussion... Perhaps it was a bit mis-placed, though? I'm not trying to be a dick, just giving a little constructive criticism...

Re:I think you missed the point...

[lgw]

The post I replied to was:

Assuming terrorists build a working nuclear device, why would they want to smuggle it into the country? Surely, detonating it near the coast would work just fine. ... and I was, in fact, arguing that inspecting bales of cocaine to see whether they conceal nuclear weapons might be a smart plan. Perhaps your coment filtering threshhold is high, and you're not seeing the whole discussion?

Re:I think you missed the point...

[shummer_mc]

Oops, well... uh, yeah.. Hmmm.. Ok, sorry.

sorry to tell you this....

[Anonymous Coward]

But you either:
a) Just got added to the NSA watch list
b) Got added to Usama's 'People I need to meet' list.

But that's precisely the point

[hackwrench]

The people who want certain information released don't want pesky things like actual facts to get into the hands of those who have no business having that information. An oversimplification, sure, but the point is that nobody expects equations in a newspaper because no one wants to put that information there and not the other way around.

Re:But that's precisely the point

[NitsujTPU]

Well, I'm not sure about that.

I mean, I'm sure that in the academic paper, you get enough details to essentially replicate the experiment. I'd bet that if I searched for these papers in an appropriate academic resource, that the details would be there. That's the way this stuff works. Still, I would never expect such details in a newspaper article. It's just not important to the point of such articles.

I don't think that it's some kind of censorship.

Who you gonna call?

[Tmack]

Rather, the most immediate application may come in the form of a battery-operated, portable neutron generator. Such a device could be used to detect explosives or to scan luggage at airports, and it could also be an important tool for a wide range of laboratory experiments.

Not to mention bringing the ghostbuster's proton pack/particle beams to reality! Back in the 80s they had to walk around with a cyclotron strapped on their back, now they can have a portable Fusion reactor!

tm

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[Ask4Gino]

>Now if I could just find a way to bottle the power of human stupidity...

Bottle it, who cares?

Now if I could just find a way to monetize the power of human stupidity...

Oh dang, Fox News beat me to it.

The point of such articles

[hackwrench]

The point of such articles is to say whatever people in control of infomation wants to be said. Say something else and you end up having to work harder to get that information, high-placed words are said to advertisers that competing news outlet is the place to spend ad revenue, and so forth. Censorship works best the more interwoven into the fabric of society it is.

Re:The point of such articles

[NitsujTPU]

Dude. You're reading way too much into this. Seriously.

Nobody reads whatever magazing this is looking for technical details. The details are probably in an academic journal. Since all you have to do is go to a school and check one out, this isn't some form of thought control.

Re:The point of such articles

[ScottKin]

Welcome to Slashdot - where there are more conspiracy theories spun than those found on alt.conspiracy.

Slashdot is riddled with conspiracy theorists...and followers of Richard M. Stallman. Some say that they're one in the same, but don't say that near the Helicopters with the Penguins painted on their sides.

Richard - I said your name on Slashdot. Please send me my US$5.00 ASAP.

--ScottKin

Re:The point of such articles

[rar42]

Well just because I read your article on /. doesn't mean I should send you any money - what do you plan to do with all those $5 worth of opinion?

Re:The point of such articles

[hackwrench]

Wrong Richard... He's requesting his product placement fee from Richard M. Stallman... Unfottunately I think there's only one of those per story... (sigh)

Sister Conspiracy

[hackwrench]

I've pursued the conspiracy angle with my sister's death, and it points to U.S. Government, not Al Quaida. My father, a former presidentially-appointed lawyer with the Immigration Service was the person to ID her body, which was then cremated. My father has procured false identity documents in the past without spending time in prison for it. My father appears to be working currently as a salesperson in the children's department in a Kaufmann's in the Cleveland area, but this may just be a cover job. Hope this helps.

So you think it is instead ... fission?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, what?

It's fission or fusion. Make up your mind.

a decent explanation

[cinnamon colbert]

can be found here
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2m ail/mail359.html#fusion

you're right

[c6gunner]

Ironic that in this "information age", all we're really accomplishing is making people think they know more. It's especially worrying when you realize that this false assumption of intelligence and informational awareness makes people less likely to trust officials and experts. So whereas in the past, panic could have been averted by a government official appearing on television and stating "don't worry, there's no real danger", these days everyone "knows better". After all, CNN and MSNBC told us dirty bombs were dangerous, the government must just be trying to cover it up! Run for your lives!

Re:Oh great...

[jafac]

Well, then you just reverse the polarity of the neutron stream then. . .

Which heroine?

[leonbrooks]

Xenon, radioactive warrior goddess? (-:

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[Anonymous Coward]

Science isn't the Truth; it is just a statistical model of the universe. Seeing it as Truth would be the same as believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is impossible to know anything about the universe unless you know everything about the universe. A Theory of Everything is logically impossible; we know nothing, so how can we know that we have a correct Theory of Everything?

"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing." -Socrates

Socrates might not have realized that he doesn't actually know that he knows nothing. :P

OK, so posit a seatainer...

[leonbrooks]

...with 4x 50kt jerry-rigged fission bombs, rigged for JATO/RATO, and looking for a homing signal emanating from the window-cleaning rig of the tallest (remaining) building in NY.

A timer expires or button is pushed, two RATO units fire (7t of thrust), kicking the end of the seatainer up, RATO units to be discarded (released or destroyed) when vertical. Eight more RATO units go off (28t) in what is now the "tail" of a brick-shaped rocket weighing perhaps 7t, flinging it upwards from Upper New York Bay at three gees for ten seconds. Half a second before the RATO bottles expire (for stability reasons), shaped charges kick them out the side together and then disassemble the seatainer. The nukes, each mounted on their own RATO bottle and using a near-enough guidance system (say, one borrowed from model rocketry), then kick off in four different initial directions for another ten seconds again at a delta-a of roughly three gees (grand total of 17 seconds at 3 gees minus roughly a second for organisation), with their rough guidance systems taking them all more-or-less in the direction of the "target" building.

At this point, four 50kt nukes go off together, roughly 500m above Manhatten. Four major airports, a shipping terminal and a Navy port facility are destroyed, along with the Statue of Liberty, some important pieces of civil architecture, millions of people and America's morale. If you were doing this In Real Life, you would set off three or more of them at once to up the odds of success. And you wonder why Home Security are so twitchy about terrorists...

Lots of detail to be worked out, of course, but that's the ten-minute How To Deal America A Mortal Wound On A Budget Of $1,000,000 Or Less plan. If half a dozen people from a Coast Guard vessel can go over a container-ship in a few hours and ensure that no such devices are aboard, that kind of approach suddenly becomes much harder.

Next, we look at the Big Steel Dart Plus Fairings Replaces Legitimate Satellite Payload scenario...

Re:OK, so posit a seatainer...

[paeanblack]

At this point, four 50kt nukes go off together

Getting two nukes to detonate sufficiently simultaneously that one does not simply destroy the other is much harder than actually building them in the first place.

Re:OK, so posit a seatainer...

[bhiestand]

Getting two nukes to detonate sufficiently simultaneously that one does not simply destroy the other is much harder than actually building them in the first place.

Ok, assuming an air temperature of 77 degrees F, sound travels at 346.3 m/s. Assuming a fairly normal atmosphere with a refractive index, of, hell, let's make it a vacuum, c (299,792,458 m/s), and a detonation latency (ok, I made that word up.. time it takes for the detonators to set off the reaction) of 1 ms: A 1MT nuke would create a ~12psi blast ~1.7 miles from point of detonation. A 20psi blast travels at about 500mph (223.6 m/s), while a 5psi blast travels as slow as 160 mph (71.6 m/s). I'll let you work the equations.

What's all of this mean? Since the shockwave doesn't travel faster than sound for very long, and quickly slows down, the devices don't have to be that far apart as long as they're detonated via something RF-based (or an extremely accurate timer).

If you were referring to EMP, a surface detonation would greatly reduce the range to about 1.2 miles for a large warhead. Shielding is fairly easy for a self-contained electronic unit, and a simple 1mm thick welded-steel case for the device would suffice.

Of course simultaneous blasts may not be as damaging as a series of attacks throughout a major metropolitan area or region...

Re:OK, so posit a seatainer...

[Anonymous Coward]

The gamma rays travel a lot faster, and so do the neutrons, and either can lead to a "squib" or early partial criticality.

Re:OK, so posit a seatainer...

[paeanblack]

Shielding is fairly easy for a self-contained electronic unit, and a simple 1mm thick welded-steel case for the device would suffice.

From a 50KT device at 100m? Your "shielding" won't stop the gamma pulse from triggering the krytrons.

Your 1mm estimate is off by about 4 orders of magnitude.

Re:OK, so posit a seatainer...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you are getting 1 MT from as a likely figure for a modern nuke, but I would encourage you to do a little reading on that.
http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/

Pay particular attention to the yield ranges for fission bombs and the size (weight) of a particular bomb for its yield.

I think you will find that, for a nuke developed on a shoestring budget by someone with just enough means and know-how to get a simple "little boy" bomb to work, 30 kt is going to be the upper limit to the practical size.

Re:OK, so posit a seatainer...

[bhiestand]

Who said 100m? I was thinking they should be at least a mile apart to maximize the effects of fallout.

Re:OK, so posit a seatainer...

[bhiestand]

I think you will find that, for a nuke developed on a shoestring budget by someone with just enough means and know-how to get a simple "little boy" bomb to work, 30 kt is going to be the upper limit to the practical size.

Agreed. I was using the 1MT example to show a worst (unlikely) case and to illustrate that a much smaller bomb would generate a significantly weaker blast and pulse. I probably should've stated that in my post, though.

That would take zillions of very big bombs

[leonbrooks]

Water is a pretty good shock buffer, and there's a lot of energy in a tidal wave. You'd be better off putting a few big bombs in a hole somewhere else.

Well, when I first heard of tabletop fusion...

[leonbrooks]

...I wondered just how large a table-top you could fit into a linear accelerator, and which accelerator would be able to run whole kilos of material up to near-light speeds.

Re:Oh great...

[ArmorFiend]

Okay, I admit to not having done my homework, all I remember is High School Chem, but how does adding nuetrons to something, say, carbon, make it into anything other than another isotope of carbon? Are there evil, deadly isotopes of carbon I'm not knowing about?

The link

[whitehatlurker]

No, that's not it ... this is the right one.

Medievel War Reenactors

[Latent Heat]

Why does this remind me of the kinds of things Medievel war reenactors do with their catapult and trebuchet reconstructions and their enthusiasm for flinging things in the name of historical research? I can just picture some bearded geeks in the year 3000 building and testing such a thing (by then we are all living in space colonies and New York City will be an ancient ruin where they will be allowed to do all of this) as a kind of off-the-wall seat-of-the-pants attempt at a historical recreation of an event believed to have taken place in 2050.

The only question I have...

[The Wooden Badger]

When do we get Mr. Fusion's to put onto our cars?

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[aeoo]

Not all religions lack reason. In some reason is a key element. Not all religions tell you what to think. Instead of promising heaven and eternal life, some religions teach how to embrace discomfort and reality and by so doing transform the grief into peace and possibility. So how are you going to attack those religions?

Mind you, I don't think we need any religion to be spiritually healthy. However, your statement doesn't address all known religions.

Any time people get organized there is the possibility of a party line being formed and subsequently pushed out to people. However, in principle, religion doesn't have to be apart from reason. Faith is something that even a scientist has. For example, most scientists believe in substance and identity, although neither can be proven. All science relies on maths and maths cannot function without axioms. Axioms are accepted as self-evident. That's the same as faith in my book. And just like any article of faith, you can also question any axiom reasonably.

It is unfortunate that religions have abused stupid gullible humans. But it will be very unfortunate if the materialism becomes the new religion. I am all for questioning things. But if you think you will establish materialistic/substantialist outlook as another unquestionable religion, then you will be surprised.

Continuous Sources of Electric-Powered Bugs ?

[RabidTrucker]

Is that all you wanted? I guess you don't want it to use Fossil Fuels either? Don't want any pollutants or by-products? What else is on your list, little boy, little girl?

Of course they didn't mention continuous sources of electric power! They know I've already done that. You can't mess with perfection. Tabletop fusion? What good is it if you put it on a TABLETOP. RabidTrucker say you can't drive very fur on a tabletop. http://www.newpath4.com/enginewow.htm is my LN2000 that doesn't use fossil fuels. The process inside the engine was coined sonofusion by Professor Taleyarkhan of Purdue University in 2002. He said it was very possible to create by bombarding some matter with sound waves. That's what my engine does! A sound wave {from compressed air entering a vacuum [steam-created low pressure area] engine cylinder} slams into steam vapor {H2O molecules suspended in steam}.

They can't do it because I already did. What else? Oh, you want your laptop to run on top of Mount Kilimanjaro next time you crash your ultralite plane? In that case you'll need this baby >
http://www.newpath4.com/millenialdawnpowerandlight secure21.htm .

Everyone KNOWS President Bush doesn't have a co-ordinated Plan. Take a read on this >
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060212/ap_on_bi_ge/bu g_juice;_ylt=Ai9nCcwjOX8s1VSlSXJ1cH.s0NUE;_ylu=X3o DMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

RabidTrucker here has to tell you, adding a few billion BUGS to our ecosystem?
All the bugs he's planning to use -ALL THOSE BUGS BREATHE OXYGEN- and gee,
is anyone in the White House got any BRAINS LEFT?! Anyone want to guess
how much crap those bugs will poop? How much that poop will cause
increased CO2 {greenhouse gas}?

They're not looking at all the variables. They're playing God.
Even if, IF, the bugs didn't poop, they still die.
Dead rotting bugs causes CO2. We need Bill Nye the Science Guy.

You can't get Something from Nothing. A billion-bug engine has to
have a major impact on the planet. hahahaha Their "bug engine"
looks a lot more dangerous than anything I have. I applaud
their creativity but oh well.
IS THIS ANOTHER ONE OF HIS STAY THE COURSE PROJECTS?

They even admit they are "making new lifeforms" >

"Researchers are now exploring various ways to exploit microbes, the one-cell creatures that serve as the first link of life's food chain. One company uses the microbe itself to make ethanol. Others are taking the genes that make the waste-to-fuel enzymes and splicing them into common bacteria. What's more, a new breed of "synthetic biologists" are trying to produce the necessary enzymes by creating entirely new life forms through DNA."

Has Congress voted any OKAYS to
make new life forms??

Do I have to remind anyone that this garbage is
being done ON PRESIDENT BUSH's WATCH?
The article says President Bush has endorsed it all...
Maybe someone should ring his phone & tell him about
my engines. All I have to do is WORK OUT HIS BUGS.

RabidTrucker, you can depend on me. I don't need no stinkin' bugs.
And next time lay off the flamin' nitrous oxide button sooner.

Re:Oh great...

[Tim C]

Ordinarily, you'd be right - if you take (say) carbon and add a couple of neutrons, all you get is an isotope of carbon, for example carbon 14, which is used in carbon dating.

However, most isotopes are radioactively unstable - that's the reason most substances mostly occur in one or two isotopic forms. Even carbon 14, which occurs naturally, decays - it's this decay that's used in carbon dating. We know what proportion we'd expect it to be in and its half life, so by measuring how much there actually is we can calculate roughly how old the object is.

Coming back to high intensity neutron sources such as a fusion reaction, the atoms that absorb those neutrons tend to absorb a lot of them. This makes them radioactively very unstable, and so they decay by emitting radiation - alpha particles (helium nuclei), beta particles (electrons) and more neutrons.

That's why the material becomes radioactive. Anything that absorbs a lot of neutrons is going to develop some concentration of unstable isotopes, and those isotopes are going to undergo radioactive decay. It's not a chemistry thing, it's a physics thing :)

Re:Incredible (and im not talking about the articl

[raduf]

      Oh come on, be honest, Al Quaeda definitely doesn't qualify. It's a lot more political and social then religious and i'm not even sure it's stupid - if big bad guys came to your country with big bad tanks and lasers, woudn't you be inclined to do more or less the same?

      And as a sidenote, I've come to think in recent years religion per se is not a source of stupidity. Most likely that's the dogma.

Re:Oh great...

[rubycodez]

it becomes a chemistry thing when the decay produces some other element, that doesn't hang onto some other part of a molecule anymore!

Be careful what you ask for!

[aqk]

Perhaps you didn't realize that Stallman has an RFID implanted in his bicep.
The giveaway: those shiny aluminum long-sleeved shirts he always wears.

And I bet that guy's cremated sister had one in HER bicep also!

You might be dense if...

[AJH16]

Wow, I definatly read this article when it came out. Didn't think much of it until I looked at my college's homepage today and found out it was a team of scientists from my school. Just a bit of a surprise.

Re:You might be dense if...

[AJH16]

Oh yeah and this link: http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=1358&se tappvar=page(1) has more info on the team of Rensselaer scientists.