Lab Produces 3.6 Billion Degree Gas 594
starexplorer2001 writes "LiveScience is reporting how scientists at Sandia's Z laboratory have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit (2 billion kelvins). That's hotter than the interior of our sun, which is only 15 million degrees F. And they don't know how they did it. Do we want anything that hot on our planet?"
Re:"Some unknown energy source is involved" (Score:5, Insightful)
The real catch is thus: "...the high temperature was achieved after the plasma's ions should have been losing energy and cooling."
I find this is exciting! Some of the best science starts with the words "Gee, that's funny..."
=Smidge=
Re:"Some unknown energy source is involved" (Score:5, Insightful)
"So, what exactly did you do before the lab exploded?"
Greatest discoveries (Score:2, Insightful)
why farenheit??? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not like it's a weather report or anything! Keep it scientific!
(energy out energy in) != perpetual motion (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, this is not a recipe for perpetual motion. For a new energy source, maybe, but not perpetual motion.
Re:"Some unknown energy source is involved" (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, given these are high-energy physycists working at Sandia National Labs [sandia.gov], and they've been able to consistenly replicate this, I don't think we're talking about any perpetual-motion quackery here.
It's safe to assume that when they say it generated more energy than input to the system, they're right. They just need to try and figure out the details now.
LiveScience staff writer needs a science class (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that the writer doesn't know this makes me suspect the validity of the rest of the article.
And the laws of motion exist to.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I worked in this department for 3 summers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:(energy out energy in) != perpetual motion (Score:4, Insightful)
You're adding energy in the form of the high potential energy found in the compounds in wood (cellulose is a good example); meanwhile, excess energy is being continuously added in the even higher-potential of a common diatom: oxygen.
Of course, you have to add energy to liberate the atoms in the first place, that being a match and the flame off your starter fluid and kindling.
Hey, campfires are complex.
Re:"Some unknown energy source is involved" (Score:5, Insightful)
"So, what exactly did you do before the lab exploded?"
Isn't that usually when the military steps in with funding?
Re:"Some unknown energy source is involved" (Score:4, Insightful)
wrong... All good science starts with:
WTF..
Re:Not fusion. (Score:4, Insightful)
People are simply confusing the fusion research that is done with Z-machine with what is going on here. The increase in temperature has already been explained by a model that has been shown to fit the data, and does not involve anything in the way of fusion.
Asimov had the right idea here... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is potentially a very, very big deal. The temperature is NOT the most important thing... that's the headline for dummies.
The important part: they're getting out more energy than they're putting in, and they don't understand why.
Re:(energy out energy in) != perpetual motion (Score:4, Insightful)
Your claiming that somehow the basic principles of E=MC^2 break down when it comes to a specific type of reaction?
Christ, man. He didn't say relativistic principles break down, he said they're superfluous. It's overkill for the example. You're liberating energy in the form of chemical bonds, so the loss of mass as energy is pretty much negligible in chemical reactions, 'cause the mass-energy of the reactants utterly overwhelms the amount of energy released. Mass is, for all practical purposes, conserved.
I think chemists and physicists understood combustion pretty well before Einstein came along. There was this guy, you know, Lavoisier, he had a few things to say about stuff sticking around.
But come the hell on. If you have a graduate degree in physics you know this. You're just being a jerk to save some face.
Re:Duh, (Score:3, Insightful)
"At first, we were disbelieving," said project leader Chris Deeney. "We repeated the experiment many times to make sure we had a true result."
Obviously no need for divine relevation there then.
As for the thermometer, well duh, obviousky they're measuring the temperature (i.e. energy) of radiation.
THIS IS TOTAL NONSENSE (Score:4, Insightful)
The scary side of science (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we want anything that hot on our planet?"
Indeed. I love science, and in general I have tremendous faith in most scientists and physiscists. But science has progressed to a state where we are starting to venture into areas where there are huge swaths of unknowns, in physics, genetics, and nanotechnology.
I mean, this quote sums it up for me......some unknown energy source is involved.... Wow, so basically, they did this experiment, which resulted in a breaking of one of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, and resulted in a gas billions of degrees higher than expected?
GMO crops, artifical black holes, supercolliding particles ( of which sometimes we don't even know what will happen until we do it)... I mean, I am beginning to think man is not going to be obliterated through war, or disease, or a nuclear holocost, but just in an instant flash of some experiment gone wrong.
We need to be very careful, the forces we are starting to toy with are both potent and dangerous, as well as increasingly misunderstood.
Re:Duh, (Score:4, Insightful)
So you create a hypothesis and design an experiment to test it out. You expect the results to be A if it works, and B if it doesn't work. But funnily enough, your result was C. Does this suddenly cast doubt on science and the scientific method in general? No. It just means that the original hypothesis is incorrect and nature doesn't work as expected. Now you just have to scratch your head and figure out how the hell "C" happens.
Sounds to me like this story is a bunch of hogwash, now that I think of it. How would you even measure the temperature in order to come to the conclusion that it was 3.6 billion degrees? There's not a thermometer on the planet that can measure something that hot.
I find it disturbing that something is "hogwash" just because you don't understand it. Perhaps if you educated yourself a little more on the subject then you'd understand how it's done.
Re:Summary is wrong yet again (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There's no energy production here, move along.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Rats - no fusion. Instead, all we got is a previously unknown energy conversion that could possibly be useful in future creations. What's the point in getting a new energy conversion mechanism if it's not fusion?
Re:"Some unknown energy source is involved" (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering the fact that they re-ran the experiment quite a few times and the magnitude of the difference I think they have a good enough set of measurments for the ballpark figure they gave. It's not as if they said 3,602,308,667.2 degrees.
Mycroft