What is light

[superchump]

Originally posted by YT2095

only when the reactor is operating, as soon as the reaction stops, the feild collapses and there`s no trace of radiation, a bit like a microwave oven, dangerous when on and inside, the feild collapses when you open the door though

 

Not quite. The machine just turns off. If was still running when you open it, you'd get a face full of microwaves. Not good.

 

 

Ok, now with the fusion thing, fusion releases neutrons. Neutrons hit the metal walls and cause them to become radioactive. They stay radioactive for a while. So not all radiation just vanishes when you shut off the field and the plasma disapates.

[Snorlax]

I wonder why we can't use controlled fusion to produce energy for use?

[YT2095]

superchump, it was said that way just to keep the analogy simple *Sheesh!*

 

snor, because they`re not self sustaining yet, as and when they become so, and we can leech energy from it without collapsing the feild, it will be done

I suspect within our lifetime too

[Snorlax]

But what's the reason behind it? I mean why it can't controlled, is it because no container can contain them without being vaporized?

[NavajoEverclear]

umm i think we do use fusion to produce energy----- catch it in a container? I'm sure somehow they could use the energy to run something (or is that what they already do?), but they wouldn't capture it, because thats not possible. Well maybe it would be if taken to extreme measures, but then it would not be practical, it doesn't have to contained to be absorbed and used or whatever.

[JaKiri]

We use fusion for bombs, but we haven't got a profitable sustainable fusion reaction yet.

[Dave]

Originally posted by Snorlax

I wonder why we can't use controlled fusion to produce energy for use?

 

The problem is the method we are using to achieve fusion. There are 3 basic methods that I know about. You use gravity (like the sun), superheated gases and another method I can't remember - I believe it was bombarding a small amount of deuterium/hydrogen mixture with extremely high speed matter from all around, causing a huge amount of pressure to overcome the nuclear force and cause fusion.

 

Obviously, we're not going to be building our own star replica anytime soon, so a lot of research is going into the other two methods. The problem with superheated gases (plasmas) is trying to keep the things going around long enough because they just want to disappear very quickly. At the moment, we're using magnetic fields along with a taurus (torus?) shape to try and sustain a reaction. It's getting towards being self-sufficient, but it's definately not there yet. I believe they can keep it going for about 3 seconds before the plasma becomes unstable (could be wrong about this though).

 

About the neutron radiation - I believe this is the main way that they get the power from the thing by heating water and running a generator, so you can expect the level of radiation to be around about the same level as you'd get in a fission plant, although you don't have to worry about the fuel rods etc. Overall its a very clean way of obtaining energy.

 

And the problem with the third method is that obviously the energy will come in bursts which is rather annoying. There's some other problems with it as well, but I can't really remember these offhand.

[JaKiri]

There's also muon catalysed fusion, which uses hydrogens with muons instead of electrons, making the atom smaller and thus requiring less energy to get close to another one.

[Radical Edward]

Originally posted by Snorlax

So the product of fusion will be shortly radioactive?

 

yes, there will be some low level radiation produced, but nowhere near as bad as fission.

[Radical Edward]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri

There's also muon catalysed fusion, which uses hydrogens with muons instead of electrons, making the atom smaller and thus requiring less energy to get close to another one.

 

first catch a muon.....

[Intelligence]

Originally posted by NavajoEverclear

perhaps about cliche question, but the nature what exactly i want to know is somewhat more creative. Light is electromagnetic radiation right? So whether the frequency is visible to us or not, its all light. So radio is light, and gamma is light---- right? So then how do you determine the speed of light?

Any other information on light would be nice, but those are my main concerns i guess

 

 

Light is a wave that is considered to quite possibly be a reaction to matter in another spacial dimension.

 

This is the current thought which is indeed working with current POSTMODERN physics.

 

(meaning beyond what is called modern physics, which is really quite obsoletely ancient).

[Sayonara]

Postmodernism is the practice whereby elements the use of which were once considered modernist are reintroduced in the extreme of the original style.

[uscphysics]

Originally posted by YT2095

Bubble chambers are usualy used to detect such particles

Bubble Chambers have actually become very antiquated in much of the research today. Much research is done with high energy electron beams or high energy photon beans, or what ever you want to use. This allows researchers to study many more reactions much faster. For example labs like JLabs and CERN use high energy beams to conduct their experiments.

[YT2095]

yeah, the original Hydrogen tanks do date back quite a bit, in fact the ref I got was from one of my old Chemistry/Physics data books circa 1964

 

there is however a new tank being built in Canada somewhere, it`s a sperical design covered in an array of special photo detectors (1000s of them). the tank is then filled with heavy water (on loan as it very expensive) and the whole arrangement is many hundreds of meters underground too.

If I rem correctly, I think it`s to do with Neutrinos or some such subatomic particle, that emit a blue flash when they collide with the nucleus or something particular about heavy water.

 

are you talking about the Zed Machine too? I`ve seen a little bit about that, and it looks fascinating! I want one!

[uscphysics]

That is very interesting. I would love to see that:).

The apparatus I am talking about is better described at http://www.jlab.org what they do is set up many different types of detectors to detect energies at given angles. When the target(nucleus or what have you) is struck by the beam, particles are created and their energies are recorded at these detectors, so you do not have to read these bubble chamber pictures(which is quite complicated I am told). This also allows many reactions to occur, so you have a better statistical result than reading one bubble chamber at a time, but it can also get complicated deciphering the energies and deciding what you are looking at, but it is possible, and really not too difficult. These beams run around 12 GeV. Which astounds me personaly-sp.

I am not familiar with the Zed Machine, I will look into that.

[YT2095]

IIRC, it charges a bank of capacitors over about 20 mins. then somehow bumps the voltage up several millions of times using an array of what I imagine would be stepup transformers. and then releases all of this power in a fraction of a nano second to a point smaller than a needle, the power generated is used in non nuclear nuclear testing (yeah sounds odd) but some non nuclear treaty/agreement forbids the testing of real nukes, and this machine simulates a nuke blast in a chamber on a small scale.

imagine all the power being used in every country at the same time being used in a nano sec or less! that`s what this Z machine boasts. lol, and I thought my Tesla coil was groovy