People seem to be confusing this with fusion. This is not fusion. This plasma is a method for heating a capsule to produce fusion. No fusion occurs in the plasma itself. It is not coming from strong force interactions either. This is just an unexpected but well understood method of heating.
"So they could have discovered a process that produces a lot of whatever the instruments measure...something other than temperature that causes strong emissions."
These bombs have been around for quite a while. They're called hydrogen bombs, H-bombs, thermonuclear bombs, or fusion bombs. Ever hear of any of these terms?
The energy source is hardly new, either. The z-pinch setup for producing inertial confinement fusion has been known for decades, but it is only recently that scientists have made headway. I still doubt Bush has ever heard of it.
While this is part of Sandia's fusion research, fusion does not occur anywhere in the plasma. It would be like saying that water boils in a microwave because the microwave is boiling.
The paper with the proposed model explaining these findings is available here for anyone that can understand it. They refer to instabilities (of the Rayleigh-Taylor kind?) causing ion viscous heating as they are dissipated. When an array of wires is heated and implodes, most of the content of the wires remain unmoved at the beginning, with only the outer parts being converted to plasma and moving toward the center. The inner left-overs are eventually converted as well and make the trip, though not necessarily until after the peak energy radiation.
The container that holds the experiment is called a holhraum, just a cylindrical metal thingy. In the middle, wires are vertically strung around in a circle (see this pic). When you pass a current through the wires, they want to move towards eachother (Ampere's law). Since the situation is symmetrical, they all move towards the center, and the intense current, motion, and collision, turn the wires into a hot plasma, that doesn't stick around for long. The whole thing is over in well under a second, and the container holding the plasma is destroyed.
From the journal article, emission line optical depth varies inverse squarely with the ion temperature. So they used the k-shell emission spectrum for the stainless steel plasma to determine what temperature would produce the observed lines.
My work involved doing quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations to extract equation of state (EOS) data for the tungsten wires used in the z-pinches. The highest temperatures I remember the simulations reaching, however, were only about 40,000 Kelvin.
It's time for the Sun to sit down and have the old birds/bees chat with Jupiter. The planet will start going through some big changes these next few millenia. The fraction of helium in the atmosphere will drop significantly. Its albedo will grow wildly. New rings will start appearing at odd angles. It's nothing to be ashamed of... all gas giants go through this phase of development.
"there are people who would kill you in a heartbeat for your $0.10 dinner."
Actually they were selling for $0.08 at Wal-Mart a while ago. Assuming 3 "square" meals a day, and the occasional vitamin for survival, I could get away with spending under $100 a year on food! It's perfect!!
I found that people often brought laptops into dull humanities courses, where they proved quite useful to me. I would sit behind someone who was playing Unreal Tournament or Flight Simulator and tune out the bullshit lectures.
I'm buying a DVR system tomorrow to take part in this exciting offer! I've heard that some have had difficulty hooking up their DVR systems, but it looks pretty simple to me. You just need the proper cables to connect to the... TV... oh crap... I NEED TO GET A TV!
I wasn't referring specifically to documents that are damaged by light. Those should already be safeguarded enough that they wouldn't get near a pen scanner.
This would be useful for those doing research in libraries' historical records. They rarely lend out their older collections, and in some cases won't let them be scanned either. This could be a useful covert way of doing just that.
Sure, in politics, there is always a middle ground. But in reality (which isn't politics), propositions are based on evidence alone. Evolution has more evidence than other theories that people accept without question.
Slashdot Mirror
...and no.
People seem to be confusing this with fusion. This is not fusion. This plasma is a method for heating a capsule to produce fusion. No fusion occurs in the plasma itself. It is not coming from strong force interactions either. This is just an unexpected but well understood method of heating.
"So they could have discovered a process that produces a lot of whatever the instruments measure...something other than temperature that causes strong emissions."
That didn't really make any sense...
These bombs have been around for quite a while. They're called hydrogen bombs, H-bombs, thermonuclear bombs, or fusion bombs. Ever hear of any of these terms?
The energy source is hardly new, either. The z-pinch setup for producing inertial confinement fusion has been known for decades, but it is only recently that scientists have made headway. I still doubt Bush has ever heard of it.
While this is part of Sandia's fusion research, fusion does not occur anywhere in the plasma. It would be like saying that water boils in a microwave because the microwave is boiling.
One summer I worked there, they gave the student interns posters printed on fancy photographic paper. I still have mine lying around somewhere.
Hohlraum. Now Google will give you decent results.
The energy is emitted as x-rays, which move at the speed of light...
The paper with the proposed model explaining these findings is available here for anyone that can understand it. They refer to instabilities (of the Rayleigh-Taylor kind?) causing ion viscous heating as they are dissipated. When an array of wires is heated and implodes, most of the content of the wires remain unmoved at the beginning, with only the outer parts being converted to plasma and moving toward the center. The inner left-overs are eventually converted as well and make the trip, though not necessarily until after the peak energy radiation.
The container that holds the experiment is called a holhraum, just a cylindrical metal thingy. In the middle, wires are vertically strung around in a circle (see this pic). When you pass a current through the wires, they want to move towards eachother (Ampere's law). Since the situation is symmetrical, they all move towards the center, and the intense current, motion, and collision, turn the wires into a hot plasma, that doesn't stick around for long. The whole thing is over in well under a second, and the container holding the plasma is destroyed.
According to the journal article, it's the hottest temperature ever recorded for a magnetically confined plasma.
From the journal article, emission line optical depth varies inverse squarely with the ion temperature. So they used the k-shell emission spectrum for the stainless steel plasma to determine what temperature would produce the observed lines.
My work involved doing quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations to extract equation of state (EOS) data for the tungsten wires used in the z-pinches. The highest temperatures I remember the simulations reaching, however, were only about 40,000 Kelvin.
The journal mentioned in the BBC article is Zoosystema, although they don't appear to have their most recent copy online.
$100,000 is a small price to pay for finally kicking some script kiddie ass in Counter-Strike...
It's time for the Sun to sit down and have the old birds/bees chat with Jupiter. The planet will start going through some big changes these next few millenia. The fraction of helium in the atmosphere will drop significantly. Its albedo will grow wildly. New rings will start appearing at odd angles. It's nothing to be ashamed of... all gas giants go through this phase of development.
...the religious explanation has gone unchanged for thousands of years: God did it. QED
"there are people who would kill you in a heartbeat for your $0.10 dinner."
Actually they were selling for $0.08 at Wal-Mart a while ago. Assuming 3 "square" meals a day, and the occasional vitamin for survival, I could get away with spending under $100 a year on food! It's perfect!!
...will be no bigger than a chihuahua's head.
I found that people often brought laptops into dull humanities courses, where they proved quite useful to me. I would sit behind someone who was playing Unreal Tournament or Flight Simulator and tune out the bullshit lectures.
I'm buying a DVR system tomorrow to take part in this exciting offer! I've heard that some have had difficulty hooking up their DVR systems, but it looks pretty simple to me. You just need the proper cables to connect to the... TV... oh crap... I NEED TO GET A TV!
I wasn't referring specifically to documents that are damaged by light. Those should already be safeguarded enough that they wouldn't get near a pen scanner.
How about this?
This would be useful for those doing research in libraries' historical records. They rarely lend out their older collections, and in some cases won't let them be scanned either. This could be a useful covert way of doing just that.
Sure, in politics, there is always a middle ground. But in reality (which isn't politics), propositions are based on evidence alone. Evolution has more evidence than other theories that people accept without question.