2 billion degree temp at Sandia Lab

[Martin]

http://www.aip.org/pnu/2006/split/767-3.html?source=rsspnu

for comparison the temperature at the center of the sun is calculated to be 15 million kelvin

in this experiment a temperature about 100 times hotter than at the center of the sun was briefly produced

[insane_alien]

Pah! thats nothing! you should be in my house when my mum is in. It could be 5 billion K and she'd be walking around in a big wooly jumper asking "is it just me or is anyone else cold?"

[Snail]

The images of the plasma are awesome, I'd like to spark a cigar off that thing...'my work is done here.'

[bascule]

Impressive... most impressive...

And the Z Machine rocks:

http://aip.org/mgr/png/images/zexplosion800.jpg

[aj47]

I love that picture, its my desktop background.

[Martin]

yesterday (9 March) wormholeman started a new thread about the 2 billion kelvin at Sandia Lab

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=19153

there seems to be some interest in how such a high temperature was actually produced

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Dang, this is old news. And I had ready to be posted in the news forum, too.

[Illuminati]

It may be old, but it is certainly impressive.

[Martin]

Dang, this is old news. And I had ready to be posted in the news forum, too.

I've noticed you tend to look into things in depth. Do you have any word on how they measure the temperature, and what people think may be causing such an extreme spike in temperature?

I am curious---the figure 2 billion kelvin is surprising (and even makes me a bit skeptical, I just dont have any reason to doubt). but although I'm curious I have not made time to read carefully and find out more about it.

So I would welcome some more news reporting about this or some more discussion in one of the threads.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I don't know how they measured it, but the link seems to indicate that the cause of the spike is simply the method used to generate X-Rays: 20 million amps are run through a set of wires, which implode and create a ball of plasma. Ouch.

[[Tycho?]]

From what I read the researchers arn't sure how they got such a high temperature. They have ideas about it, but they certainly wern't looking to break a temperature record when they ran the experiment.

[Martin]

maybe a very basic physics fact should be mentioned here, in case it would contribute some intuition

several in this thread doubtless know that if you have two parallel wires and if you put DC thru them in the same direction

then the wires will attract each other and I have seen wires carrying DC actually BOW IN towards each other like knock-knee parens ")( ".

if you had a circle of parallel, forming a cylinder and you put DC thru them all in the same direction (all up or all down) then these wires would all attract each other and pull each other in towards the center

in this experiment at the same time as the wires are scrunching together they are also vaporizing and the vapor is ionizing into plasma and maybe the magnetic field is trapped by the plasma and it continues to contract the plasma.

I don't know about this last part. but the main thing is that two currents in the same direction attract each other (and if they go in the opposite direction the wires actually bow apart, like "()" parenthesis or cowboy legs.)

if nobody needed that basic magnetism review or tutorial, I apologize. it has to do with Capt. R saying "implode"----it is part of the implode mechanism

[Erich]

Looks like Eric Lerner is moving down the road with his Focus Fusion device!!

U.S., Chilean Labs to Collaborate on Testing Scientific Feasibility of Focus Fusion
http://pesn.com/2006/03/18/9600250_LPP_Chilean_Nuclear_Commission/

[Erich]

U.S., Chilean Labs to Collaborate on Testing Scientific Feasibility of Focus Fusion

http://pesn.com/2006/03/18/9600250_LPP_Chilean_Nuclear_Commission/

[Norman Albers]

They say the proton-boron reaction yields no other radioactivity. How nice.