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Nuclear fusion in a beaker - a reality?

chibianh

chibianh

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 6, 2001
783
1
Colorado
Well, for those interested in physics, bubble fusion has recently made headlines in the science world again.. except there's evidence to back it up this time. Imagine, nuclear fusion on your desktop. Think of the impact this will have on society with the amount of space it takes up!

http://www.physicsweb.org/article/news/8/3/3
 
If this time it can be verified then it is a great breakthrough. I'm sure that the uses would be limitless.
 
Really cool stuff - and I'd love to see it become mainstream. A cheap form of energy would be quite welcome - and its only acetone :D - but I'd be interested in knowing what would happen to all the Tritium and Deuterium generated....

D
 
chibianh said:
Well, for those interested in physics, bubble fusion has recently made headlines in the science world again.. except there's evidence to back it up this time. Imagine, nuclear fusion on your desktop. Think of the impact this will have on society with the amount of space it takes up!

http://www.physicsweb.org/article/news/8/3/3
Click to expand...

"Cold Fusion" has been a reality for a long time, it's just that the mainstream scientists don't want anything to do it with it because it doesn't jibe with established theories.

Note that I don't think fusion is actually taking place... but I do think the process is capable of producing energy, and THAT is what's important.
 
Of COURSE!

Now it all makes perfect sense.

The G5 laptop delay is obviously due to working out the final details to the cold fusion reactor core. Getting the deuterium tank and the sound emitters to fit in a 3/4" aluminum case is a bit tougher for Ives and the boys than they first imagined.

It will be worth the wait. A shotglass worth of deuterium would have enough energy to run the thing for 50 years, even the biggest power-hog G5 CPU and a 17" display as bright as the sun.

Go Apple! Can I preorder mine yet?!
 
While still very vague, it's a step forward

"Thermonuclear sono-fusion may not be impossible," says Willy Moss of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, "but more tests need to done. Personally, I would like the results to be real, but I believe that the nature of these claims requires absolute proof."

I love it when published articles don't get proof read.:p
 
When I was working over the summer, we had one of those things rigged up using water, it was really cool, and no one could give me a sufficient answer for how it works that wasn't Waaaaaay over my head
 
no way...

how many times are we going to come back to this? every time it gets shot down. someone just won't admit they are wrong... sounds like alchemy to me, just another iron into gold story...
 
Opteron said:
While still very vague, it's a step forward

"Thermonuclear sono-fusion may not be impossible," says Willy Moss of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, "but more tests need to done. Personally, I would like the results to be real, but I believe that the nature of these claims requires absolute proof."

I love it when published articles don't get proof read.:p
Click to expand...

If they did it with ethanol instead of acetone would you need absolut proof?
 
If we are to truly advance as a species and as energy users, we need to drop this stupid idea of boiling water to generate energy.
It makes sense to burn gasoline to boil water, but seriously think about it. We smash a ****ing atom! Why? So we can boil a ****ing pot of water?!? Meanwhile we have layers and layers of insulation so that the operators faces don't get melted Raiders of the Lost Ark style! Certainly there it a better way to harvest the insane power of the intermolecular bond than using it like a household radiator! It's just so damn inefficient. Sad really.
 
Torajima said:
"Cold Fusion" has been a reality for a long time, it's just that the mainstream scientists don't want anything to do it with it because it doesn't jibe with established theories.
Click to expand...

Yep.
Another conspiracy to keep them pesky scientists away from a Nobel prize and untold riches.
Gather your stuff up and take a sabbatical.
 
D*I*S_Frontman said:
Now it all makes perfect sense.
A shotglass worth of deuterium would have enough energy to run (a G5) for 50 years, even the biggest power-hog G5 CPU and a 17" display as bright as the sun.
Go Apple! Can I preorder mine yet?!
Click to expand...

It's even weirder than that:
I was on the Apple campus recently. They said the big hole in the ground was the foundation for an iAuditorium and Vegan restaurant, but the word around the quad was that the first test of the fusion powered G7 was an unmittigated disaster. Three designers and a SW engineer suffered a Level 7 sunburn, and a PC user was sucked into the black hole it created when it blew.
 
tpjunkie said:
When I was working over the summer, we had one of those things rigged up using water, it was really cool
Click to expand...

We had one too, but the experimant failed because we used Squirt.
But it DID make a nice vodka mixer.
 
Les Kern said:
Yep.
Another conspiracy to keep them pesky scientists away from a Nobel prize and untold riches.
Gather your stuff up and take a sabbatical.
Click to expand...

Conspiracy or no, Cold Fusion exists. There are already Japanese companies basing commercial products on the technology.

Remember, just 20 years ago no one believed in Plate Tectonics... now it's an established fact. 100 years ago, no one believed rocks could fall from the sky... now scientists are worried about giant meteors hitting the earth.
 
Torajima said:
Conspiracy or no, Cold Fusion exists. There are already Japanese companies basing commercial products on the technology.
Click to expand...

If that were true you'd think someone would have scored a nobel for it by now....
 
Why are all of you bad mouthing these guys for trying. Maybe it's not possible. Maybe all of this work is a waste of time and money.

But if it does happen...

It would change the world. Almost free energy for people. The gains on this would be so extreme, we might not need gas anymore.

If we don't try, we can't succeed.

P-Worm
 
P-Worm said:
Why are all of you bad mouthing these guys for trying. Maybe it's not possible. Maybe all of this work is a waste of time and money.

But if it does happen...

It would change the world. Almost free energy for people. The gains on this would be so extreme, we might not need gas anymore.

If we don't try, we can't succeed.

P-Worm
Click to expand...

Well said :cool: :)
 
It could happen, and it would be wonderful if it did, but we've been down this tired old road many, many times before. Seems every year or two somebody "discovers" fusion power. I'll believe it when I see it.
 
Torajima said:
Conspiracy or no, Cold Fusion exists. There are already Japanese companies basing commercial products on the technology.

Remember, just 20 years ago no one believed in Plate Tectonics... now it's an established fact. 100 years ago, no one believed rocks could fall from the sky... now scientists are worried about giant meteors hitting the earth.
Click to expand...

And Hilton Hotels drew up plans for the first hotel in space. Did all the research, drawings, etc.
Of COURSE cold fusion MIGHT be possible, but my point in the post was to address the conspiracy theorists who would actually think the truth could be kept from us, and in fact keeping the truth from us was an idiotic concept in itself. Reminds me of the 80 MPG carburator back in the 70's.
Further, you say NO ONE believed in plate techtonics. That's quite wrong, but you make no distiction between ALL and MOST". No one believed rocks from the sky? Where is that from. You use two examples that are wrong to try to prove CF, then, by grouping it with faulty example, try to prove it must be true. I don't get it.
I don't mean to be snide, but one thing is for sure: We had BETTER find other sources of power and pronto. Hey, instead of 100BN for Iraq, we give it to corporations to find a solution?
I'd be willing to bet the 100BN it WON'T be CF.
 
yeah, it's dubious at best, but damn it, i want my Mr. Fusion by 2015 as Back to the Future II promised!

better start saving for my delorian now.

carry on.

paul
 
paulwhannel said:
yeah, it's dubious at best, but damn it, i want my Mr. Fusion by 2015 as Back to the Future II promised!

better start saving for my delorian now.

carry on.

paul
Click to expand...

Just glue a blender or a food processor on your car. It looks exactly the same :D
 
agreenster said:
In behalf of all non-scientific dudes out there (like me)...

WTF is cold fusion?
Click to expand...

Cold Fusion is the collective name of several possible (or impossible) ways of doing nuclear fusion as happens in the sun, but at or near room temperature and pressure. The first cold fusion experiment took place at some university in Utah (which one I don't remember). It was basically the electrolysis of heavy water on a positively charged plate of palladium. They found helium among the byproducts, which, without fusion, should have been impossible. It was decided by the DOE to be false within a month. Most (all?) later attempts involve sonnofusion, by which incredibly small bubbles of deuterium in water or other media are collapsed by ultrasonic sound waves. But no one knows for sure whether fusion is actually happening. The indication is a tiny flash of light when it happens.

Personally, I think that the former method would be more likely to work than the latter; seems to me like the deuterium in the bubbles should just dissolve into solution if they were collapsed, and the idea of using a catalyst to bring the nuclei together is proven thing (just not for fusion. yet). For example, the reaction of Hydrogen gas and ethane (IIRC) just doesn't happen under normal conditions. But drop a pinch of platinum powder in, and the reaction is spontaneous, exothermic, and the platinum is reusable.
 
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