Indian scientist claims holy grail of physics

THE TIMES OF INDIA ^ | TUESDAY, MARCH 05, 2002 9:04:47 PM | CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

[DallasMike]

I regard simple fusion as the "philosophers' stone".

I see it as something more like The Big Enchilada, with a little El Dorado thrown in for good measure.

[ml/nj]

Would it not be a scream if India at one stroke impoverished the Muslim world forever.

While your comment does suggest a delightful irony, I think you should reread the article:

Leading the research team making a stab at what is considered the holy grail in the world of physics is Rusi Taleyarkhan, a senior scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Richard Lahey, a professor of engineering at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy.

These are American institutions.

ML/NJ (RPI '68)

[Ciexyz]

Interesting. Bump.

[Francohio]

Soon, suitcase sized device will be available to provide HVAC, light, and endless hot coffee in every room for an entire motel and several 7-11 stores.

[Dan Day]

I thought that the "holy grail" was unified field theory. I regard simple fusion as the "philosophers' stone".

An even *bigger* "holy grail" would be to discover a way to get around the law of conservation of energy (okay, "mass-energy"), thus getting "free" energy out of "nothing".

But portable fusion would be stunning.

[Jesse]

Calling all physicists... I'm having trouble understanding how, even theoretically, bubbles induced by ultrasound could create such temperatures or pressures on this scale. Still seems to me spittin' in the wind to overcome the repulsive force of the nucleus. Unless these bubbles collapse near lightspeed, where is the energy coming from?

[El Gato]

I thought the holy grail of physics was the equation that linked all forces together. What was it called?

Grand Unified Theory (GUT)

[JasonC]

The force between two atoms is tiny compared to all macroscopic forces. It is only adding up a lot of them (more than 20 orders of magnitude worth) that results in powerful effects. The difficulty is getting any atoms to have enough of the abundant energy macro forces can provide, rather than that energy spreading out over many, many atoms, each with relatively little.

If the energy of each atom is below a threshold level, they all bounce off one another due to electromagnetic forces. If any collide forcefully enough, they can penetrate the repulsion of the EM, down to the distance at which the attractive nuclear forces outweigh the EM repulsion. Then you get a net energy release, because the fused nuclei are a lower rest energy state (marginally lower mass) than seperated.

So, the hard to believe part is the claim that they have found a way to get a fairly high portion of the available macro force, to dump into a relatively small portion of the atom population. That is what they claim the ultrasound and collapsing bubbles are doing. Imagine a "spectrum" of the "temperatures" of individual atoms. They want a long "tail" at the high energy end. Most moving slowly, a few moving very fast.

Whether it is true, I don't pretend to know. Of course on its face it is not very likely. It is at least as likely that they just measured the energy budget incorrectly, and no energy release from fusion was going on. (E.g. if they measured the energy input from the ultrasound just slightly wrong, it could look like a net energy release was occurring, when it wasn't).

It is also possible, even if they are right in their claims, that only a tiny portion of the atoms can be pushed to high enough energies in the manner they found, with the result being the whole thing can't scale up to any meaningful macroscopic energy source. In that case it would still be of theoretical interest, but not anything directly practical.

[tjg]

Nice.

[farmfriend]

How many times will this story get posted?

[NilesJo]

Wouldn't fusion events be accompanied by a measurable release of characteristic neutrons?

[blam]

I don't know. Here's the reply from my son when I asked him about this.

"The same effect that creates somoluminence could create fusion. This is not the cold fusion of Pons and Fleischman though. I believe the ultrasonication of certain fluids with bubbles causes the bubbles to collapse at such high energy as to create luminence, I recall reading that some calculations have it that at that point, the temperature can be as hot as the sun - so yes that could be fusion. I'd be very optimistic about the possibility, although being able to use it may take some more time."

[TheLooseThread]

"Of course Mother Nature does throw googlies at us, but we believe it can be scaled and are optimistically cautious,..."

Hey, who ran this thing thru babel fish?

[ccmay]

Hey, who ran this thing thru babel fish?

Googlies are a screwy pitch in the game of cricket, sort of like a knuckleball. Or maybe a curveball: "Mother Nature throws us some curveballs" would be a very good translation of what he said.

-ccm

[Future Snake Eater]

Yeah, I'd say it's hard to decide which breakthrough would be more revolutionary. Cold fusion would allow for practically limitless energy to...do what we're already doing, just cheaper...However, the Unified Field Theorem would allow for all kinds of crazy stuff that most of us can't even imagine. But then we'd need more energy...

[boris]

"An even *bigger* "holy grail" would be to discover a way to get around the law of conservation of energy (okay, "mass-energy"), thus getting "free" energy out of "nothing"."

While you are at it, better revise the Laws of Thermodynamics, too. Repealing energy conservation would definitely call for some serious blue-pencil on these.

--Boris

[boris]

Sounds like sonoluminescence, ho hum.

Known for years; nobody can figure out how to extract useful energy from it.

[syriacus]

This article and the replies are very interesting and informative. Thank you, all.

[B. A. Conservative]

Franklin Roosevelt solved that problem in 1932 when he re-invented the Democratic Party.

[American in Israel]

Would it not be a scream if India at one stroke impoverished the Muslim world forever.

Fitting even.