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Atomic fusion in a cup? - It's hard to believe -
The Globe and Mail ^
| March 7, 2004
| Stephan Strauss
Posted on 03/07/2004 12:14:07 PM PST by UnklGene
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1
posted on
03/07/2004 12:14:07 PM PST
by
UnklGene
To: UnklGene
Gotta hope it is true. A form of 'cold fusion' would be the most revolutionary technologica advance since the invention of the horse.
Gotta doubt it. Hard to believe something this simple wouldn't have shown up as a side effect in many other experiments.
So9
To: UnklGene
I'm glad, My hard headed disbelief and skepticism..
Won't stand up to even a minuscule amount proof..
prompting me to say, "Yeah!, IN MY DREAMS"...
3
posted on
03/07/2004 12:22:23 PM PST
by
hosepipe
To: UnklGene
Sonoluminescence.
4
posted on
03/07/2004 12:24:09 PM PST
by
Darksheare
(Fortune for today: If you see it coming, it's already too la......)
To: UnklGene
Any possibility that could reduce dependence on foreign oil should be fully explored!
5
posted on
03/07/2004 12:26:25 PM PST
by
bolobaby
To: UnklGene
Just more of the same here in Oak Ridge. Taleyarkhan will claim it, others will disprove it. Still and all, it's job security out at ORNL.
6
posted on
03/07/2004 12:34:03 PM PST
by
Tennessee_Bob
(LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?)
To: UnklGene
if they can get a big ol' SUV to run on it, then I am all for it
7
posted on
03/07/2004 12:39:07 PM PST
by
rface
(Ashland, Missouri -)
To: UnklGene
It looks like
they did it, folks!
This is extremely exciting - and should be on every front page of the world.
To: BikePacker
The Sonoluminescence Process
![ALT](http://www.aip.org/physnews/graphics/images/sono3.jpg)
The Soluminescence Process.
Sonoluminescence is the conversion of sound into light. Ultrasonic waves are aimed at an air bubble in a small water cylinder. The sound waves cause the bubble to oscillate furiously: (a) the bubble starts out at a size around 5 microns (millionths of a meter); (b) then it expands to a maximum size (not to scale) of about 50 microns. At this large size there is a near-vacuum inside the bubble because of the relatively few air molecules present. This low-pressure near-vacuum region is surrounded outside the bubble by a much higher-pressure region, which causes (c) a catastrophic collapse of the bubble to between 0.1 and 1 microns. During this compression phase a flash of light (d) emerges from the bubble.
Source
To: UnklGene
It's not obviously wrong on the face of it, but then, neither was the Pons/Fleischmann fusion cell. (Contrary to the revisionist history espoused by cold fusion cultists, many physicists accepted the Utah results as valid, until people tried to reproduce them.) What hurts the acceptance of this paper is that there have already been claims of fusion from sonoluminescence that have been withdrawn. That inevitably raises the credibility bar in the minds of most people.
The attractive idea behind sonoluminescence as a path to fusion is that a spherically convergent wavefront can produce some terribly extreme conditions. On paper, this can work, which is what keeps people looking and hoping.
To: BikePacker
Well I could have told them this. That happens all the time in my microwave.
11
posted on
03/07/2004 12:56:42 PM PST
by
WVNan
To: UnklGene
Are the experimenters getting any increased radiation levels when they perform the experiment?
The expected reacction is: Two deuterium atoms fuse to per form an atom of helium-3 plus a neutron and gamma radiation.
An experment with one watt of energy output would put out a dangerous level of radiation.
12
posted on
03/07/2004 12:57:12 PM PST
by
punster
(q)
To: UnklGene
I'd like to see an immediate practical application: some sort of device that would capture the blast waves generated by the stereos in passing cars at midnight,and return them to their source,in the form of an energy beam ( survival of vehicle occupants optional).
13
posted on
03/07/2004 12:58:24 PM PST
by
genefromjersey
(So little time - so many FLAMES to light !!)
To: Physicist
Actually, Physicist, the record on cold fusion is clear -- it works, though not as simply thought in 1989.
Many US and labs overseas have reproduced it.
There was an open demo this Summer attended by FReepers.
At that meeting, Mitshubishi and Toyota presented there recent results.
![](http://world.std.com/~mica/cft11-1.gif)
Click for info
Theoretical Framework for Anomalous Heat and 4He in Transition Metal Systems
Deuteron Fluxing and the Ion Band State Theory
Calorimetric Principles and Problems in Pd-D2O Electrolysis
Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Systems, Final Report
Thermal and Nuclear Aspects of the Pd/D2O System, Vol 1
Thermal and Nuclear Aspects of the Pd/D2O System, Vol 2
"...California is experiencing rolling blackouts due to power shortages.
Conventional engineering, planned ahead, could have prevented these
blackouts, but it has been politically expedient to ignore the inevitable.
We do not know if Cold Fusion will be the answer to future energy needs,
but we do know the existence of Cold Fusion phenomenon through
repeated observations by scientists throughout the world.
It is time that this phenomenon be investigated
so that we can reap whatever benefits accrue from additional scientific understanding.
It is time for government funding organizations to invest in this research"
Dr. Frank E. Gordon
Head, Navigation and Applied Sciences Department
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego
Hope your accuracy improves on this, as it is interesting physics.
14
posted on
03/07/2004 1:12:50 PM PST
by
Diogenesis
(If you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us)
To: UnklGene
From the article:
The uproar was so heated that officials at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where the experiments were conducted, wrote to Science magazine urging its editors to delay, if not kill, the controversial paper. Also from the article: I don't think it is true," says Dan Shapira, another nuclear engineer at Oak Ridge who had been unable to replicate Prof. Taleyarkhan's research.
Lack of reproducibility is the hallmark of bad science. It doesn't mean that there is nothing interesting going on. It just means that the people publishing are unable or unwilling to publish sufficient information and guidance for others to replicate their experiments.
If they are unwilling to do so, then there is little need for peer-review. They might as well take out an ad in the National Enquirer.
If they are unable to provide information allowing for replication of their experiment, then it does not really constitute an "experiment".
There is definitely something "interesting" going on with sonoluminescence. It would not be unheard of for ambitious scientists to rush any results they get into print in order to claim the early credit. With the amount of science which goes on nowadays, one must hurry to be first at anything.
To: Physicist
Physicist said: "The attractive idea behind sonoluminescence as a path to fusion is that a spherically convergent wavefront can produce some terribly extreme conditions. On paper, this can work, which is what keeps people looking and hoping."
Yes.
Unlike what seemed to be happening with cold fusion, the mechanism here seems to "make sense" physically. The suggested phenomenon can be expected under modified circumstances which might make the effect stronger.
I find myself wondering what would happen if one could generate such bubbles in mercury, for example. One would not expect luminescence through the mercury. This might enhance the temperature. It might take more energy to create a bubble of a certain size, but the increased mass of the mercury might result in a smaller volume at collapse.
Is there a way to introduce a source of hydrogen in a pool of mercury? Perhaps nuclear fission can be induced instead of fusion. There may be fission products which are much easier to detect at very tiny concentrations.
Semiconductors operate due to the very interesting things which happen at the interface between dissimilar materials. Perhaps even more interesting things would happen at the interface between a pool of mercury and water floating above it while sonic energy is introduced.
What fun.
To: bolobaby
This is not likely to accomplish a reduction in petroleum use. Most of the oil is used for transportation fuel, and virtually all transportation is powered by oil. The reason is that oil is a VERY dense, compact, convenient, and inexpensive way to store and transport energy. Of course, the energy is only available in combination with oxygen, usually from the atmosphere.
I suspect that even if it can be made to work, continuously, and produce more energy than it requires for operation, the energy that it produces will not be sufficiently concentrated to be useful unless it is scaled up to mammoth proportions. In other words, the fusion powered wristwatch, computer, car, home, or even industrial plant is unlikely.
The form of energy it will produce is almost certainly just heat. That will either boil water for steam or perhaps produce steam directly in the reaction chamber somehow. The steam will power a conventional turbine for electricity, with waste heat used for water purification, chemical processing, and eventually space heating.
But for transportation, we will have to produce an energy dense chemical fuel such as gasoline, diesel, or alcohol, or find an efficient way to isolate, store, and transport hydrogen. Today, oil is the cheapest source of transportation fuel available, primarily because it already contains all of the fuel energy. It just needs a little tweaking (reforming) to become the uniform, standardized fuels we are used to.
But we are using it faster than it was created, and at some point its use will become uneconomic. And by the way, the only place that pure hydrogen can be obtained in large quantities in an exothermic reaction is also from oil.
Will we "run out" of oil? Not no but HECK NO! We can manufacture the molecules by synthesis if necessary. Proved oil reserves is a concept based equally on resources and economics. Higher prices encourage exploration - there are more drill rigs active today than at any other time in history. They also make marginal production profitable, both from smaller, more remote, or more difficult to extract sources and from old fields using newer or more advanced (and expensive) recovery techniques. And they encourage substitution - direct substitution, like alcohol, or indirect, like using electric heating instead of heating oil. Or even by using nuclear sourced electricity to manufacture fuel in a large, combined-cycle plant.
To: Darksheare
Sonoluminescence.
Interesting, since that's the term, but it doesn't appear anywhere in the article.
This is one of those things that everyone wants to work, but it will be quite a while before any viable technology can be developed from the process - assuming it works. But imagine, even the experiments are being done on a desktop scale. Once they can build it into something the size of a laptop battery, I'll be all set. Need more power? You can buy your package of refill solvent from any drugstore or airport news counter.
18
posted on
03/07/2004 1:37:39 PM PST
by
July 4th
(George W. Bush, Avenger of the Bones)
To: Physicist
"(Contrary to the revisionist history espoused by cold fusion cultists, many physicists accepted the Utah results as valid, until people tried to reproduce them.)" Uh, the "Utah" results (muon-induced cold fusion by S.E.Jones) were never doubted and have been reproduced numerous times. What WAS doubted was Pons and Fleischman's electrolytically-generated version (which was not done at Utah).
To: UnklGene
20
posted on
03/07/2004 2:19:14 PM PST
by
kennedy
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