The Z Machine - 3.6 billion degree gas. - Page 2

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - The Z Machine - 3.6 billion degree gas. (Page 2 of 3)

Posted: 3/8/2006 9:28:22 PM EDT

[#1]

this is incredible news!

Posted: 3/8/2006 9:30:28 PM EDT

[#2]

OK but if a couple of these geeks get together and get drunk and one sez "Hey!! Ya'll watch this!" we could all be fucked

Posted: 3/8/2006 9:31:56 PM EDT

[#3]

Quoted:
OK but if a couple of these geeks get together and get drunk and one sez "Hey!! Ya'll watch this!" we could all be fucked

LOL!

Here, hold my beer and watch this!

Posted: 3/8/2006 9:37:37 PM EDT

[#4]

Quoted:
this is incredible news!

Meh, it could be something as small as friction heating or something as big as zero point energy.

We shall see.

Posted: 3/8/2006 9:42:27 PM EDT

[#5]

Odyssey 5, anyone?

Posted: 3/8/2006 10:40:31 PM EDT

[#6]

I wish I knew more about this sort of thing. It sounds like a pretty significant "oopsie".

The difference between tungsten and steel...what kind of steel? Not that I'd know the difference anyway. If their equations were designed around tungsten and they tried to extrapolate them to steel, different performance shouldn't be surprising. If they designed new equations around steel using the same methods they used to come up with the tungsten equations...wow, that would be pretty big. A whole new principle or an unforeseen application of a different principle.

I wish we had a physicist who would weigh in on these things though. I am certainly not one.

Posted: 3/8/2006 11:42:23 PM EDT

[#7]

Quoted:
Odyssey 5, anyone?

LoL, yeah and also along with DK's black holes thing, I remember reading some scifi book about how some scientists goofing around with a huge orbital particle accelerator recreated the big bang, and thus destroyed/restarted the universe.

Posted: 3/8/2006 11:42:58 PM EDT

[#8]

Anyways the whole creating nuclear fusion thing is really damn cool.

Posted: 3/8/2006 11:57:42 PM EDT

[#9]

Well, now that I have the resources for my DoomsDay Device, I can now implement my Evil Plan*.

*I'd avoid the rest of that site, its kinda weird...

Posted: 3/9/2006 8:11:52 AM EDT

[#10]

Great! Now there are 14 things that don't make sense!
www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600

Posted: 3/9/2006 8:24:00 AM EDT

[#11]

Quoted:
Semi off topic:
Heard on the BBC world service today that they have some fusion method using tritium (made from lithium) and some hydrogen isotope. One notable quote was "half a bath of water and a lithium laptop battery" could produce 2000 kWh of electricity. Who knows if it will ever be more than lab work and theories though.
ETA: this fusion method they were talking of also required a large and very strong magnetic field to contain it since it was so hot.

Tritium is a hydrogen isotope. One proton and two neutrons. It's also radioactive.

Posted: 3/9/2006 8:25:34 AM EDT

[#12]

CRACK PIPE LIGHTER!

Posted: 3/9/2006 8:52:25 AM EDT

[#13]

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.

Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines theorizes that some unknown energy source is involved, which is providing the machine with an extra jolt of energy just as the plasma ions are beginning to slow down.

Sandia National Laboratories is located by Albuquerque New Mexico and is part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Temperatures substantially above what we "thought" were possible and "some unknown energy source"...talk about messing with shit you don't understand. Didn't these guys watch Wiley Coyote as a kid....geeze.

Maybe someday we wake up and Albuquerque New Mexico is a very different place than it was the day before.

Posted: 3/9/2006 8:58:35 AM EDT

[#14]

anyone got a link for the article?

Posted: 3/9/2006 8:59:02 AM EDT

[#15]

Quoted:

Sandia researchers still aren’t sure how the machine achieved the new record.

That's great - they ACCIDENTALLY created temperatures several times hotter than a thermonuclear bomb, and aren't sure how it happend?? These are the kinds of idiots that are accidentally going to create a black hole in some lab somewhere, and kill us all.

Still - beats being eaten alive by zombies.

Yeah but at a billion degrees you'll never even feel it.
It would be so fast you couldn't even measure how long it took to die.
Vaporized!

Posted: 3/9/2006 8:59:06 AM EDT

[#16]

Quoted:
Just wait, Sandia has some kewl projects in store this year to test on the Z-Machine, specifically Heim Quantum theory, which if proven, means that we will have massless space craft propulsion and faster then light travel alot sooner then anyone though. (IE our lifetimes)

God, I hope so. I'd love to live long enough to see that.

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:01:51 AM EDT

[#17]

WOW!..............Ultra Neato!!!!

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:03:31 AM EDT

[#18]

Wiley says those guys are nuts.....

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:04:25 AM EDT

[#19]

How do they know what the temp. was? How could they measure it in degrees or Kelvin? Not a nay-sayer but just want to know how they could tell how hot it really got. I wonder how long it lasted.

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:04:40 AM EDT

[#20]

Quoted:

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.

Awesome! now make it repeatable, understandable, safe and then use it for power production!

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:08:31 AM EDT

[#21]

Sign me up for a plasma rifle.

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:09:08 AM EDT

[#22]

Quoted:
Quoted:

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.

Awesome! now make it repeatable, understandable, safe and then use it for power production!

releaseing more energy then put it usually is meaningless as it takes a hell of alot of energy to keep this a ball of plasma rather then a thermonuclear bomb

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:09:47 AM EDT

[#23]

Quoted:
Sign me up for a plasma rifle.

Group buy?

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:28:57 AM EDT

[#24]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:

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.

Awesome! now make it repeatable, understandable, safe and then use it for power production!

releaseing more energy then put it usually is meaningless as it takes a hell of alot of energy to keep this a ball of plasma rather then a thermonuclear bomb

maybe.

don't you think they had a hard time (lots of time/ money/ infrastructure) "controling" a nuclear reactor at first? and yet they provide a significant amount of energy, with relatively little drawbacks. If we could do the same thing with less byproduct/ waste it would be significant economically and politically/ strategically

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:48:52 AM EDT

[#25]

Quoted:
This is the single best piece of news I have heard all year.

...Some totally new facet of nature is at play here that will result in new theories and new scientific advances of unimaginable power. Like maybe breast implants that don't look like pink balloons.

I don't care who you are, that was funny.

Posted: 3/9/2006 9:50:36 AM EDT

[#26]

At the temps this thing produces, it could vaporize anything. It opens a whole new realm of science, new chemical reactions that require massive heat to catalyze. New alloys and materials. Fusion reactions can be kickstarted by the Z-machine. Hell, the energy this thing generates can expedite the creation of antimatter, which takes a huge amount of time and power to produce and contain.

FTL travel in the next 50-75 years? I believe it. Power for lunar/martian colonies? Yeah, I'll be living on the Moon in a few years. I'll have a summer home in the foothills of Olympus Mons.

The implications of this technology is limitless. I'll fianlly have a plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.

Posted: 3/9/2006 10:03:37 AM EDT

[#27]

Quoted:
At the temps this thing produces, it could vaporize anything. It opens a whole new realm of science, new chemical reactions that require massive heat to catalyze. New alloys and materials. Fusion reactions can be kickstarted by the Z-machine. Hell, the energy this thing generates can expedite the creation of antimatter, which takes a huge amount of time and power to produce and contain.

FTL travel in the next 50-75 years? I believe it. Power for lunar/martian colonies? Yeah, I'll be living on the Moon in a few years. I'll have a summer home in the foothills of Olympus Mons.

The implications of this technology is limitless. I'll fianlly have a plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.

vaporize is an understatment. simple plasmas are disassociation of atoms into elemental particles... at these temperatures .... who knows...

Posted: 3/9/2006 10:06:42 AM EDT

[#28]

Quoted:
At the temps this thing produces, it could vaporize anything. It opens a whole new realm of science, new chemical reactions that require massive heat to catalyze. New alloys and materials. Fusion reactions can be kickstarted by the Z-machine. Hell, the energy this thing generates can expedite the creation of antimatter, which takes a huge amount of time and power to produce and contain.

FTL travel in the next 50-75 years? I believe it. Power for lunar/martian colonies? Yeah, I'll be living on the Moon in a few years. I'll have a summer home in the foothills of Olympus Mons.

The implications of this technology is limitless. I'll fianlly have a plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.

That reminds me.....

When I was on a guided tour of Fermilab in Chicago a few years ago, the guide said that they had actually created measurable amounts of anitmatter. Now, in my very limited understanding, I seem to remember antimatter being extremely dangerous if allowed to come into contact with normal matter. How do they store this stuff? That's one of the big scientific "Ooops...." moments that always kinda worried me....

Posted: 3/9/2006 10:25:34 AM EDT

[#29]

Quoted:
Quoted:
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.

Interesting, having a net gain of energy...
Good work guys, now do it again and make it useable to generate electricity.

DING DING DING!!!!

WE HAVE FUSION!!!

This is what Princeton and several others have been trying to do in their Tokamak (Doughnut) fusion reactors. They have succeeded in creating brief energy bursts of several millions of degrees, but it is not self sustainable and does not chain react like they want it to. They have to keep pumping massive quantities of energy at it, resulting in a net loss. If this sort of thing at Sandia can be mated with a reactor, we might get something good!! What kind of fuel.... now there is the bitch...

Posted: 3/9/2006 10:33:38 AM EDT

[#30]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
These are the kinds of idiots that are accidentally going to create a black hole in some lab somewhere, and kill us all.

I guess you aren't keeping up with current experiments.

Scientists are working on making black holes in labs.

The world science consortium (sp?) decided the risk of the Earth falling into
a man-made black hole was minimal, because the black hole wouldn't last long
enough to suck in any matter, and would thus wink out in an instant.

(I'm crossing my fingers they are right, and a super-dork doesn't poke it with a pencil)

The latter part is what I am worried about.

I was originally going to go into high-energy physics, and knew people both at the DESY facility in Hamburg (Germany) and some of the professors at the Niels Bohr institute in Copenhagen - but then my life ended up going in a different direction.

You're correct that I haven't kept up, but I am somewhat familiar with some of the work that is being done in colliders, and the types of short-lives particles and events that only exists for fractions of seconds, and can only be picked up by super-sensitive detectors.

My concern is precisely something like this example - where they accidentally created something that was many times hotter than what they expected. What happens when a lab accidentally creates some black-holey thing that is many times larger than they expected. "Whoopsies - sorry everyone. It SHOULD have just EVAPORATED, but it ended up beign larger than we planned, and now it fell down to the core of the planet and is growing."

Yeah - I know. Almost certainly just the fevered imaginations of sci-fi and doomsayers, but you never know.

Read "Earth" by David Brin-it involves TWO black holes that were accidentally dropped into the core that function like lenses and emit gravity wave pulses!

Posted: 3/9/2006 10:53:15 AM EDT

[#31]

Quoted:
Quoted:
At the temps this thing produces, it could vaporize anything. It opens a whole new realm of science, new chemical reactions that require massive heat to catalyze. New alloys and materials. Fusion reactions can be kickstarted by the Z-machine. Hell, the energy this thing generates can expedite the creation of antimatter, which takes a huge amount of time and power to produce and contain.

FTL travel in the next 50-75 years? I believe it. Power for lunar/martian colonies? Yeah, I'll be living on the Moon in a few years. I'll have a summer home in the foothills of Olympus Mons.

The implications of this technology is limitless. I'll fianlly have a plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.

That reminds me.....

When I was on a guided tour of Fermilab in Chicago a few years ago, the guide said that they had actually created measurable amounts of anitmatter. Now, in my very limited understanding, I seem to remember antimatter being extremely dangerous if allowed to come into contact with normal matter. How do they store this stuff? That's one of the big scientific "Ooops...." moments that always kinda worried me....

Antimatter requires a strong magnetic field to suspend it in a perfect vacuum. Magnetic properties remain constant with antimatter, so an antihydrogen atom reacts to the same physics as a normal hydrogen atom- this allows us to store it with little difficulty because we alreadt know how it reacts.

An antimatter reaction is a perfect reaction, giving off a massive amount of energy through annihilation with normal matter. I think a gram of antimatter has the destructive power of a hydrogen bomb. Maybe not that much, but it has incredible potential for energy production, because everything put into the reaction is given off.

Generally speaking, we can make a single particle of antimatter at a time, usually a sub-atomic particle like an antiproton or antineutron. So you can imagine the process takes a lot of time. With this machine, though, who knows the new realms of science it opens.

Posted: 3/9/2006 11:14:36 AM EDT

[#32]

Quoted:
Now, in my very limited understanding, I seem to remember antimatter being extremely dangerous if allowed to come into contact with normal matter. How do they store this stuff? That's one of the big scientific "Ooops...." moments that always kinda worried me....

It's not a big deal in the quantities they're able to produce. They only have at most a handful of particles at a time. You lose it, and it hits air, and you might see a small flash of light or something, but that's about it. If you had a pound of the stuff, that's another story, but such small amounts aren't dangerous.

Posted: 3/9/2006 11:18:04 AM EDT

[#33]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Now, in my very limited understanding, I seem to remember antimatter being extremely dangerous if allowed to come into contact with normal matter. How do they store this stuff? That's one of the big scientific "Ooops...." moments that always kinda worried me....

It's not a big deal in the quantities they're able to produce. They only have at most a handful of particles at a time. You lose it, and it hits air, and you might see a small flash of light or something, but that's about it. If you had a pound of the stuff, that's another story, but such small amounts aren't dangerous.

If I'm not mistaken, what they consider to be a "considerable amount" is like .0001 grams....am I wrong here? We really don't have much of this stuff AT ALL.

Posted: 3/9/2006 11:22:57 AM EDT

[#34]

Quoted:
Quoted:

Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines theorizes that some unknown energy source is involved, which is providing the machine with an extra jolt of energy just as the plasma ions are beginning to slow down.

Extra energy out of thin air ! It's amazing !

Or perhaps, a form of "dormant" energy not present at less extreme conditions.

Posted: 3/9/2006 2:01:18 PM EDT

[#35]

Read this article kids...

www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/06/hyperdrive/

Posted: 3/9/2006 2:02:32 PM EDT

[#36]

And this one

www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18925331.200-take-a-leap-into-hyperspace.html

Posted: 3/9/2006 2:05:30 PM EDT

[#37]

Quoted:

Sandia researchers still aren’t sure how the machine achieved the new record.

That's great - they ACCIDENTALLY created temperatures several times hotter than a thermonuclear bomb, and aren't sure how it happend?? These are the kinds of idiots that are accidentally going to create a black hole in some lab somewhere, and kill us all.

Still - beats being eaten alive by zombies.

*sigh*

didn't they learn you right? The zombie plague comes from a man made black hole.

Posted: 3/9/2006 2:07:31 PM EDT

[#38]

Quoted:
Maybe someday we wake up and Albuquerque New Mexico is a very different place than it was the day before.

If it burns to the ground it will still look better than Mexico.

Posted: 3/9/2006 3:16:11 PM EDT

[#39]

Quoted:
Quoted:
At the temps this thing produces, it could vaporize anything. It opens a whole new realm of science, new chemical reactions that require massive heat to catalyze. New alloys and materials. Fusion reactions can be kickstarted by the Z-machine. Hell, the energy this thing generates can expedite the creation of antimatter, which takes a huge amount of time and power to produce and contain.

FTL travel in the next 50-75 years? I believe it. Power for lunar/martian colonies? Yeah, I'll be living on the Moon in a few years. I'll have a summer home in the foothills of Olympus Mons.

The implications of this technology is limitless. I'll fianlly have a plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.

That reminds me.....

When I was on a guided tour of Fermilab in Chicago a few years ago, the guide said that they had actually created measurable amounts of anitmatter. Now, in my very limited understanding, I seem to remember antimatter being extremely dangerous if allowed to come into contact with normal matter. How do they store this stuff? That's one of the big scientific "Ooops...." moments that always kinda worried me....

Tiny amounts. The world net output of antimatter over the past fifty years is somewhere around a gram.

With the amounts we are able to create and store, you wouldn't even notice it if it slammed into your stomach, unless you were watching a geiger counter and saw the flash of gammas.

Jim

Posted: 3/9/2006 3:25:46 PM EDT

[#40]

Quoted:
Semi off topic:
Heard on the BBC world service today that they have some fusion method using tritium (made from lithium) and some hydrogen isotope. One notable quote was "half a bath of water and a lithium laptop battery" could produce 2000 kWh of electricity. Who knows if it will ever be more than lab work and theories though.
ETA: this fusion method they were talking of also required a large and very strong magnetic field to contain it since it was so hot.

Tritium is an isotope of Hydrogen,isn't it?
ETA Day late and a dollar short.
good article, btw with interesting possibilities.
wouldn't it be great if Bush came on TV and said, "We found our energy source, now all y'all can fuck off."

Posted: 3/9/2006 3:27:47 PM EDT

[#41]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Semi off topic:
Heard on the BBC world service today that they have some fusion method using tritium (made from lithium) and some hydrogen isotope. One notable quote was "half a bath of water and a lithium laptop battery" could produce 2000 kWh of electricity. Who knows if it will ever be more than lab work and theories though.
ETA: this fusion method they were talking of also required a large and very strong magnetic field to contain it since it was so hot.

Triium is an isotope of Hydrogen,isn't it?

Yes.

Posted: 3/9/2006 3:28:27 PM EDT

[#42]

Quoted:
Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.

This is hotter than the interior of our sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

They don't know how they did it.

The feat was accomplished in the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories.

"At first, we were disbelieving," said project leader Chris Deeney. "We repeated the experiment many times to make sure we had a true result."

Thermonuclear explosions are estimated to reach only tens to hundreds of millions of degrees Kelvin; other nuclear fusion experiments have achieved temperatures of about 500 million degrees Kelvin, said a spokesperson at the lab.

The achievement was detailed in the Feb. 24 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

The Z machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world. It’s designed to test materials under extreme temperatures and pressures. It works by releasing 20 million amps of electricity into a vertical array of very fine tungsten wires. The wires dissolve into a cloud of charged particles, a superheated gas called plasma.

A very strong magnetic field compresses the plasma into the thickness of a pencil lead. This causes the plasma to release energy in the form of X-rays, but the X-rays are usually only several million degrees.

Sandia researchers still aren’t sure how the machine achieved the new record. Part of it is probably due to the replacement of the tungsten steel wires with slightly thicker steel wires, which allow the plasma ions to travel faster and thus achieve higher temperatures.

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.

Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines theorizes that some unknown energy source is involved, which is providing the machine with an extra jolt of energy just as the plasma ions are beginning to slow down.

Sandia National Laboratories is located by Albuquerque New Mexico and is part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Isn't this how it started in the Ural mountains where that entire city doesn't exist anymore? A test, followed by....."OH SHIT!"

Posted: 3/9/2006 3:30:00 PM EDT

[#43]

Quoted:
Quoted:

Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines theorizes that some unknown energy source is involved, which is providing the machine with an extra jolt of energy just as the plasma ions are beginning to slow down.

Extra energy out of thin air ! It's amazing !

How about "unidentified" or "undiscovered".

I am still waiting for the proof that Zero Point Energy cannot be harnassed.

Posted: 3/9/2006 3:33:50 PM EDT

[#44]

Heres the article at the Register.
Z Machine
ETA apparently it was repeated many times, with the same outcome. Cool!

Posted: 3/9/2006 4:12:56 PM EDT

[#45]

It's times like this I wish we hand't killed those aliens out near roswell. I bet they could have given us some pointers on this stuff.

Posted: 3/9/2006 4:15:38 PM EDT

[#46]

Yawn... John Titor used TWO of them to travel back in time from 2036.

Microsingularities rule!

Posted: 3/9/2006 4:19:16 PM EDT

[#47]

So what else out there makes more energy then put in????

Posted: 3/9/2006 4:34:09 PM EDT

[#48]

It's funny how a bunch of gun nut red necks become professors.

Posted: 3/9/2006 4:49:10 PM EDT

[#49]

Quoted:
It's funny how a bunch of ~~gun nut red necks~~professors become ~~professors~~ redneck gun nuts.

Fixed it for you!

Posted: 3/9/2006 6:07:54 PM EDT

[#50]

Quoted:
Temperatures substantially above what we "thought" were possible and "some unknown energy source"...talk about messing with shit you don't understand. Didn't these guys watch Wiley Coyote as a kid....geeze.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - The Z Machine - 3.6 billion degree gas. (Page 2 of 3)

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