Posted on 07/25/2005 8:33:29 AM PDT by Irontank
Uh, radium does not emit neutrons.
I misremembered the details so sue me.
In unrelated news, scientists have yet to explain how Lake Michigan's shoreline moved so far south over night.
But criticism followed. When Taleyarkhan replied with a follow-up experiment to address those concerns, the reaction was muted.
Oh boy, WHICH REACTION??
Hehehe.
There is NO evidence that he produced any plutonium.
Oh, another detail. He never built a breeder reactor.
I think it's real but I don't believe it is scalable to a level that will produce power. I hosted a talk by Dr. Seth Putterman a year or so back on this very subject. I think it is pretty clear from the neutron flux measurements that fusion is indeed taking place and these devices show much promise as portable neutron sources (think neutron "x-ray") but getting more power out than you put in is a whole other can of worms.
regards,
Not exactly. An exothermic reaction means the reaction gives off heat. A fire is an exothermic reaction. The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. In the case of a fire, the potential energy of something flamable (a spotted owl nest) is converted to heat energy, which is then put to something useful (such as roasting the spotted owl).
We can never get more energy out of a reaction than we put into it. We also can never get as much energy out of a reaction as we put into it because some energy is always lost to friction or is absorbed elsewhere (such as some heat from a fire being absorbed by the oven walls instead of the spotted owl).
Additional energy is lost as the spotted owl feathers flare up brightly, the light accounts for a small amount of the total energy.
I think you need to upgrade your thermodynamic database. Start with throwing out your outdated "Conservation" law and replacing it with the presently accepted one. Then go get the definitions of exothermic and endothermic reactions. OTHOH, just stay ignorant, it makes for great posting.
If that were true, then it would meant that an enormous amount of energy is also pouring into the sun. What is the form of the 'invisible energy' flowing into the sun?
The potential energy of the fuel on which the sun depends. The nuclear fusion converts H to He and gives off an enormous amount of heat and radiation in the process.
Ah so, the sun emits more energy than it absorbs, a very basic exothermic reaction.
Actually, it is a conversion of amss to energy!
amss >>> mass
Just Damn... I mean that's some merit badge project.
The proof of fusion ocurring is that high-energy neutrons are produced (the standard proof with heavy hydrogen isotopes.)
In other words, Tabletop-dangerous-radiation-producing-and-explodable-device might be a more appropriate name.
"It was radioactive as heck," David says, "far greater than at the time of assembly." Then he began to realize that he could be putting himself and others in danger.One of those genius types with Zero common sense.When David's Geiger counter began picking up radiation five doors from his mom's house, he decided that he had "too much radioactive stuff in one place" and began to disassemble the reactor. He hid some of the material in his mother's house, left some in the shed, and packed most of the rest into the trunk of his Pontiac.
The editor was asleep at the wheel. Tritium is a hydrogen isotope that decays into helium-3.
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