Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Lab Produces 3.6 Billion Degree Gas

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hotter-than-the-sun dept.

starexplorer2001 writes "LiveScience is reporting how scientists at Sandia's Z laboratory have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit (2 billion kelvins). That's hotter than the interior of our sun, which is only 15 million degrees F. And they don't know how they did it. Do we want anything that hot on our planet?"

8 of 594 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"Some unknown energy source is involved" by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, from what I know of conventional thermodynamics... some quantity of mass must have been converted to energy.

    The real catch is thus: "...the high temperature was achieved after the plasma's ions should have been losing energy and cooling."

    I find this is exciting! Some of the best science starts with the words "Gee, that's funny..."
    =Smidge=

  2. Re:"Some unknown energy source is involved" by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unfortunately, an awful lot of science ends with...

    "So, what exactly did you do before the lab exploded?"

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  3. why farenheit??? by tbird81 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Surely the calculations that they do are not done in farenheit (probably kept in Kelvins). I don't see how millions of degrees Farenheit is easier to understand than the equivalent in Celcius (or even Kelvins).

    It's not like it's a weather report or anything! Keep it scientific!

  4. (energy out energy in) != perpetual motion by schnitzi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When you light a campfire with a match, you get more energy out than you put in.

    Sorry, this is not a recipe for perpetual motion. For a new energy source, maybe, but not perpetual motion.

    --



    I object to that article, and to the next reply.
  5. Re:"Some unknown energy source is involved" by rtaylor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unfortunately, an awful lot of science ends with...

    "So, what exactly did you do before the lab exploded?"
    Isn't that usually when the military steps in with funding?

    --
    Rod Taylor
  6. Asimov had the right idea here... by Malor · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka, but rather 'Hmm, that's funny...'"

    -- Isaac Asimov

    This is potentially a very, very big deal. The temperature is NOT the most important thing... that's the headline for dummies.

    The important part: they're getting out more energy than they're putting in, and they don't understand why.

  7. THIS IS TOTAL NONSENSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually, if you pull the original article from Physical Review Letters, there is not a single word about that anything does not perfectly meet theoretical expectations. Not a single word about an "unknown energy source is involved".

  8. The scary side of science by brunes69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do we want anything that hot on our planet?"

    Indeed. I love science, and in general I have tremendous faith in most scientists and physiscists. But science has progressed to a state where we are starting to venture into areas where there are huge swaths of unknowns, in physics, genetics, and nanotechnology.

    I mean, this quote sums it up for me......some unknown energy source is involved.... Wow, so basically, they did this experiment, which resulted in a breaking of one of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, and resulted in a gas billions of degrees higher than expected?

    GMO crops, artifical black holes, supercolliding particles ( of which sometimes we don't even know what will happen until we do it)... I mean, I am beginning to think man is not going to be obliterated through war, or disease, or a nuclear holocost, but just in an instant flash of some experiment gone wrong.

    We need to be very careful, the forces we are starting to toy with are both potent and dangerous, as well as increasingly misunderstood.