Thursday, April 28, 2005
Cool Science
Which absolutely begs the question -- can the Weather Channel and storm chasers be far behind? Turns out the rover currently on the surface -- some of my clients made parts for that rover, cool huh? -- took pictures of some of the whirlwinds. When do we get pictures from inside the great storm on Jupiter?
There is fusion, and then there is fusion.
Scientists say they have achieved small-scale nuclear fusion in a tabletop experiment, using tried and true techniques that are expected to generate far less controversy than past such claims....In the UCLA experiment, scientists placed a tiny crystal that can generate a strong electric field into a vacuum chamber filled with deuterium gas, a form of hydrogen capable of fusion. Then the researchers activated the crystal by heating it.Is it true fusion if no energy is created? What was the atomic weight of the resulting products? Was the resulting helium stable? I looked for the Nature article the MSNBC report is based on and it has no answers to these questions either.
The resulting electric field created a beam of charged deuterium atoms that struck a nearby target, which was embedded with yet more deuterium. When some of the deuterium atoms in the beam collided with their counterparts in the target, they fused.
The reaction gave off an isotope of helium along with subatomic particles known as neutrons, a characteristic of fusion. The experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put in ? an achievement that would be a huge breakthrough.
Based on what's reported here, I think they got some sort of cool subatomic process, but I'm not seeing fusion in the "power of the sun" sense.
