Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth: 3.6 Billion Degrees in Lab

Yahoo (livescience.com) ^ | 3/8/2006 | Ker Than

[birbear]

mmmm.....buffalo....mmmmm....(drool)

[BadAndy]

Paris Hilton was heard to say, "That's hot".

[Cheburashka]

I wonder if we're messing with stuff we shouldn't be messing with in the first place.
---
The first time anybody said that, it was about their new discovery, fire.
And they were right.
But it's too late now.

[The_Victor]

Maybe we could field test the Z machine on some caves along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region. They are uninhabited, aren't they?

They will be....

[R_Kangel]

Yeah sure, that may SOUND hot

But have they been been in Ft. Irwin, CA in the Summer time!

Now THAT's hot.

[RobbyS]

Funny what you stumble on. Like the Edison effect, the inventor's only contribution to basic science.

[sure_fine]

but will it light a cigarette?

[merp]

Exactly. It's depressing that all they've done is duplicate the results Texas A&M got in 2001 using a dense plasma focus device. It's even more depressing that the A&M crew did it on about $80,000 in research funding; the Z Machine's got to cost in the millions.

[jazusamo]

WalMart is after the sales rights.

[sure_fine]

One thing that puzzles scientists is that the high temperature was achieved after the plasma’s ions should have been losing energy and cooling. Also, when the high temperature was achieved, the Z machine was releasing more energy than was originally put in, something that usually occurs only in nuclear reactions.


of course you know this is exactly how the sun got started, are they going to repeat history again?

[Frenetic]

"How did it not melt everything in sight?"

- High temperature plasma can only be constrained with strong magnetic fields. It’s complicated in practice but not in theory. Try pushing the positive ends of two magnets against each other. You will notice them repelling each other. Then think of making a container with the positive end of magnets all facing inward. Plasma is made of charged ions…meaning they have polarity + or -. If you place + polarity charged ions into a container of + charged magnetic field, the sides will repel the plasma and suspend it (floating) away from the sides of the container. It is necessary to keep the plasma away from solid material due to the extreme high temperatures otherwise the plasma would do exactly what you said and “melt everything in sight”.

[R_Kangel]

OOPS!!!! I think that's the first time that I have stuttered in a post.

My Bad!

[Righter-than-Rush]

Somebody call Hillary... this lab is challenging her talent at producing hot air.

[Supernatural]

"Come on baby light my fire".

[Farmer Dean]

Gonna need some SPF 10000 to work in that lab.

[BuglerTex]

At the center of the z-pinch, in the space of a small soup can, gas particles race at each other at a million miles an hour. The collisions result in X-rays and extremely high temperatures. Last year, when physicists placed a capsule of deuterium, or heavy hydrogen, at the focus of the z-pinch, they detected neutrons flying out from the implosion site – a signal that fusion reactions were taking place, as they do in the sun. If researchers can learn to tame these fusion reactions, the setup can rely on a seemingly endless supply of deuterium fuel in seawater.

Z Machine

This is big news.

[raybbr]

See this explanation.