Posted on 08/02/2005 10:04:06 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
At a government test site in Nevada last week, scientists generated a brief electrical pulse four times as powerful as all the electricity on Earth.
It was all over in a few millionths of a second.
And you should have seen the aluminum can.
The 650-ton Atlas Pulsed Power Facility discharged nearly 19 million amperes through a liner, described as an aluminum shell the size of a tuna can. You might expect it would have exploded. Not exactly.
The official line: "The current caused the liner to implode at extreme speeds, with unrivaled symmetry, precision and reproducibility."
That means the event went off as planned. And that's important, because the device is meant to eventually help scientists better understand what happens in a nuclear weapons explosion (right ... you might have hoped they had a handle on that one).
"Such detailed data is needed to validate the sophisticated computer codes upon which scientists rely to certify U.S. nuclear weapons in the absence of underground nuclear testing," officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration said in a statement.
The Atlas machine is a sleeping giant if there ever was one. It stores electrical energy slowly, then releases it all at once.
The rather overmatched can was accelerated in an instant to 27,000 mph, roughly the velocity needed to escape Earth's gravity. The pressure in there was similar to that at the center of the Earth, where iron goes liquid.
The Atlas project began in 1993. The machine was built at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and then moved to the Nevada Test Site.
It cost $48 million to build and $20.4 million to move. Annual operating costs run $6 million. Each experiment , like destroying an aluminum can, tacks on an additional $1 million.
fyi
Cool.
A million bucks a pop to operate.. sounds like a Trump wife. ;-)
Is there a story behind that?
Is there a story behind that?
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Must See TV this fall on NBC :)
Well, this should solve the problem of empty cans all over our highways.
.
Okay, call me a penny-pincher, but when I spend $1 million, I at least want to implode at extreme speeds, with unrivaled symmetry, precision and reproducibility something the size of a paint can.
The implosion must have really been something, but you've got to wonder what the rebound was like???
I thought Freepers produced more power zotting trolls?
And the purpose is to????
You need to ask los Alamos, has something to do with the stuff they like to do.
Am I actually going to manage to be the first to suggest using it on Hitlary?
I can't believe it. Are you guys all asleep at the switch??
I can crush an aluminum can with my forehead. Can I get a cool mill?
I can crush them in a very repeatable way.
Look at this/ if I had this I wouldn't have to visit the recycle center so often.
But then you & I couldn't go dumpster divin' so often!
:)
Did it look anything like a penny on a railroad track? :-)
did anybody catch the other links on this site? The top 10 ways of destroying the earth is pretty interesting reading.
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