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Table-top Particle Accelerator Created
holy_calamity writes "French physicists have built a desktop particle accelerator. It uses a pair of laser beams to precisely control the acceleration of electrons within a plasma. It has the power of a device that usually takes up a whole room and could lead to new medical treatments. They don't mention the potential for experiments like 'what happens if I put my lunch in front of a 300 megaelectronvolt beam?'"
Lunch is all well and good, but I'm still waiting for an investigation into the device's popcorn-popping capabilities.
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No it hasn't. That's why the French team's work has appeared in the top journal Nature this week. The editor has written a freely accessible summary with links to the research article. The first paragraph of that is freely available.
I can see it now...
Boss: "What is that on your desk?"
Me: "A particle accelerator."
Boss: "OK, next question... Why?"
Me: "Because I can."
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Really. These guys used to strap them on like backpacks when they went to work everyday.
This has been done already, just with really really really big desktops.
"You know, it just occurred to me, we've never had a completely successful test of this equipment."
"I blame myself."
"So do I."
"Well, no sense worrying about it now. Switch me on."
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
In fact, you probably have a table top particle accelerator in your house. http://science.howstuffworks.com/atom-smasher2.htm
Yes, a CRT is also considered a particle accelerator!
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
like every software project I took part in.
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Don't forget all of the other stuff you get from spalling, like high energy X-rays. Actually, at 300MeV, I'd wager on getting a fairly decent gamma ray beam. Without a purpose built collimator, I'd guess that there'd be a good amount of "spray" all over the place. So you'd probably get a hole in a radioactive sandwich, plus a good dose of radiation just for standing nearby. Yes, a healthy dose life-giving radiation.
Remember, the Therac-25 system was quite lethal when it malfunctioned, and it "only" used a 25 MeV beam. 300MeV is a LOT of punch per particle, and if the intensity is high enough all sorts of nasty things will happen.