Man made star to unlock cosmic secrets

[astroron (Ron)]

Not much to say except, what a mind breaking project
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8044620.stm

[Robh (Rob)]

Ron, thanks for the link.

This is fantastic stuff and potentially the biggest thing since Star Trek this year! Some of the specs are amazing ...
focussing beams of 500 trillion watts (more than the total generating power of the whole USA) ... creating temperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures of a billion Earth atmospheres.

NIF aims to produce small scale versions of stars (nuclear fusion) and supernova explosions here on Earth.

Can't wait to see what they come up with!

Regards, Rob.

[xelasnave]

...from the article..notes to one side of it anywyas.

quote......The fuel is compressed to a density 100 times that of lead
It is heated to more than 100 million degrees Celsius
Under these extreme conditions, fusion is initiated.

I thought if you did this you are replicating an atomic bomb...which works upon my explaination by super heated super dense material providing a "shield" to the flow of everything..or if you like the aether..bet you dont like the word but bear with me for my bable on this...
The probability of a particle coming from everywhere to pass thru a single point is infinite however the probability of a piece of matter being at that point is finite...therefore if we can increase the probability of matter interacting with this flow (aether whatever we chose to call all the particles passing by in everydirection from everywhere and every time) then we increase the probability of interacting with this infinite flow of enrgy or if you prefer energy... so the result needless to say.. if one could approach a near infinte interaction (such a statement is silly really as you cant have a part of infin ite but think of what I am talking about as hugely large mumbers which for human purposes can be treated as so large as to be a limitless supply) so the bang would be rather huge even if we are working with a small piece of matter.

I feel that whatever they focus this beam on will go bang...maybe.
How do these temps and pressures compare with a bomb..same or hugely greater? if hugely greater they better be careful as even small they could set off a huge explosion... maybe.. I hope I am not right but they could blow themselves off the planet.. anywyas we shall see.,,simply because what they interact with in my view is infinite the amount of matter they focus on my not be the limiting factor in the reaction... mmm so much to think about here.

So exciting to think they can muster such a huge amount of energy even if for a blink... but on my view that all you need... I think they may blow the lab to pieces.... now that is real science when you can demolish the lab.

So interesting for me thanks for posting the linkRon as usual you have found a gem.
alex

[Robh (Rob)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

So exciting to think they can muster such a huge amount of energy even if for a blink... but on my view that all you need... I think they may blow the lab to pieces.... now that is real science when you can demolish the lab.

alex

Crack up!
Conjures up images of the Nutty Professor in his lab.
If your focussing 500 trillion watts to fuse Hydrogen nuclei and the energy output is much greater, I wouldn't want to be within cooee of the lab!
The media would have a field day with this one. Remember the fun they had with the CERN Large Hadron Collider and black holes.

Rob

[bojan]

I would not worry about this..
Similar conditions were achieved already: first, during the fusion bomb explosion.
Then, in Tokamaks, but on the much, much smaller scale, and the energy output was smaller that input.. Yes, powers involved were huge, but Power = Energy/time... so, if those processes lasted for couple on nanoseconds, energies involved were miniscule (except in case of nukes)
And all this was achieved without any ether and other "etheric" substances, just plain ol' and boring quantum mechanics and particle physics.