Ultra-Dense Deuterium Produced 355
Omomyid was among several readers writing in about the production of microscopic amounts of ultra-dense deuterium by scientists at the University of Gothenberg, in Sweden. A cubic centimeter of the stuff would weigh 287 lbs. (130 kg). UDD is 100,000 times more dense than water, and a million times more dense than deuterium ice, which is a common fuel in laser-ignited fusion projects. The researchers say that, if (big if) the material can be produced in large quantities, it would vastly improve the chances of starting a fusion reaction, as the atoms are much closer together. Such a D-D fusion reaction would be cleaner than one involving highly radioactive tritium. Many outlets have picked up the same press release that Science Daily printed pretty much verbatim (as is their wont); there doesn't seem to be much else about this on the Web. Here's the home page of one of the researchers. The press release gives no hint as to how the UDD was produced. Reader wisebabo asks: "I can easily imagine a material being compressed by some heavy duty diamond anvil to reach this density, the question is: what happens when you let the pressure off? Will it expand (explosively one would presume) back to its original volume?"
That's "dilithium" (Score:5, Funny)
Woo-hoo, warp drive, here we come!
Oh, only "cold fusion here we come"? Fine, lets just solve our enrgy crisis then. *kicks rock, wishes for holodeck*
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There are just a slew of "buts" coming. First off is as Holmlid notes, just making the deuterium so dense in any volume is an issue and must be worked quite cold. Next, the matter of stability comes to mind, as in the paper’s graphs the time to live is short, shorter than even nanoseconds. That makes the foreseeable production essentia
Dilithium? (Score:2)
Re:That's "dilithium" (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, one thing at a time :-)
If we want off earth for any length of time, we need a power plant that will sustain a manned spacecraft for a long journey. Fusion beats the hell out of fission in that department.
So consider this one small step on the way to a future in which star trek looks antiquated. If it works, that is (I have my reservations upon looking at the claims in TFA).
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Power is still relevant to that discussion though. Ecosystems require energy input. Anything that might substitute for an ecosystem in this context would require similar energy to work.
If the technology existed to support a human being away from earth for anywhere approaching one human life span, the power requirements would be huge. Fusion, fission, or something on the same order of magnitude is practically a necessity, at least if there's no star in close proximity.
Re:That's "dilithium" (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh. That was a joke, right?
Re:That's "dilithium" (Score:4, Interesting)
Uh. That was a joke, right?
Nope, he's serious. How many tree-grown products do you eat? I'm betting three or four types of fruit, at most.
Some vitamins do grow on trees, but the rest we need from other sources. Meat isn't easy to get in space, since food animals take up rather a lot of room. And isolated soil culture (what you've got aboard a spacecraft) may not have all the trace elements the plants need to draw upon to sustain us and our would-be food animals.
In a way, for long journeys where there's live and mobile crew to feed, it's almost easier to envision a completely synthetic diet. At least that only requires detailed understanding of our own biochemistry, plus the hypothetical technology to recycle waste indefinitely. Taking all the living things we need to survive with us requires understanding the dynamics of several different biochemistries, and how they all interact, which is no mean feat.
Re:That's "dilithium" (Score:5, Insightful)
Well ... in no particular order .... oranges, tangerines, peaches, pears, apples, cherries, plums, avocados, bananas, mangoes, lemons, limes, pineapples, kiwi, and coconuts, to name a few.
I don't like grapefruit or quince but I do eat them sometimes, and I LOVE pomegranate but rarely get the chance to eat it, so it wouldn't be fair to add them to the list. Regardless, that still quadruples your "three-or-four". There's also various forms of nuts (walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pecans, and pistachios, for me, primarily), plus products such as maple syrup.
So ... if you're right, and he really was being serious ... well, I don't know how to put it any more politely than "he's an idiot".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know that "most" is accurate, but yeah, people in general probably don't eat enough fruit.
Apricots.
The original commenter has finally responded, so I'll just point you to my response to him [slashdot.org]. Apparently there aren't any fruits which contain Vitamin D, but, regardless, his statement wa
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If you get enough sunlight (or artificial equivalent), you can produce all the vitamin D you need yourself. So this basically boils down to "energy" again. In fact, AFAIK, you basically can't get enough vitamin D from your diet alone unless the foods or drinks you consume have been artificially enriched (e.g. milk). Even if you could get enough from your diet, you'd probably end up massively overdosing on other vitamins. :-)
Re:That's "dilithium" (Score:5, Informative)
Just because a vitamin is capable of dissolving in fat does not mean that it only comes from animal sources. Many plants produce fats (vegetable oils) and are rich in these vitamins. For example, vitamin A is found in carrots and peaches; D is processed from mushrooms; E comes from nuts and leafy veggies, and so does K.
Re:That's "dilithium" (Score:5, Insightful)
Rule #1 of internet discussions: if you're not sure about something, act like it, and people will research the answer for you.
Re:That's "dilithium" (Score:5, Funny)
Heay douchebag, you can't get free redhead porn on the internet.
-
Re:That's "dilithium" (Score:5, Informative)
Vitamin A:
Carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, kale, spinach, pumpkin, cantaloupe, apricots, papaya, mangoes, peas, squash.
Vitamin D:
Generated within the human body on contact with sunlight (UV light). Can also be produced in mushrooms grown under UV light.
Vitamin E:
Avocado, spinach, asparagus, wheat germ, wholegrain foods, most nuts, seeds, and palm & vegetable oils.
Vitamin K:
Spinach, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, avocado, kiwi, parsley.
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Also you'd get more K out of a stick of broccoli than an entire cow.
But the cow tastes better!
Re:That's "dilithium" (Score:5, Informative)
Vitamin A - Apricots.
Vitamin D - UV irradiated mushrooms.
Vitamin E - Nuts, Seeds, Asparagus, lots of others.
Vitamin K - Kiwi, Avocado, Spinach, lots of others.
Plus Vitamin D is naturally synthesized by the human body when exposed to UV radiation.
Even if you were right, though, your original statement would still be stupid. Vitamins clearly DO grow on trees.
If you had stated that SOME vitamins don't grow on trees, I probably wouldn't have bothered responding. I'm not an expert, so I would have assumed that you were probably right. However, after researching your claims about Vitamins A, D, E, and K, it's become apparent that you have no clue what you're talking about.
Solve Energy Crisis? (Score:2)
If someone developed cold fusion or any other cheap/virtually free method for generating energy, the same people (big energy companies) would still sell the rest of us energy at whatever price the market would bear, with higher profits and less overhead for themselves.
Follow the green energy dollars. They are heading the same direction as the rest of the old energy dollars.
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And the problem is.....
Why should we care if our "green energy" comes from the same power company?
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While that would be a bad thing as far as fairness goes, it would still be an improvement over what we have today.
Plus, in the long haul, all it takes is for the tech to miniaturize to the point where you can install it at home and go off the grid. Failing that, if the technology is cheap enough, smaller utilities might be able afford the start up costs and enter the market, which will introduce competition.
That being said, "cold" fusion is very likely a pipe dream. Fusion power generators will almost cer
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I'm not sure where you are in the world, so my comment may or may not be applicable. But my general experience with electric companies doesn't suggest they have to compete to stay in business.
In many parts of the world, the local electric company has a monopoly. In other places, there exist cartels (official or otherwise) that avoid competing with each other. In neither of the above cases do prices get driven down by competition.
Doubtlessly some people would blame this on state-sponsorship, and that is p
Energy is not a Technical problem, one of Will (Score:5, Insightful)
Fine, lets just solve our enrgy crisis then. *kicks rock, wishes for holodeck*
If we really wanted to, we could solve it quite easily. There's many centuries of Uranium and Thorium to burn in fission reactors, and nuclear waste is solved technically. (Again, the problem is political.) We haven't taken more than the first step to tapping the potential of wave energy, there's a lot more wind to harness. Solar Thermal could benefit from economies of scale and improved distribution, and there's tremendous potential untapped in the world's deserts.
There's even a market for Orbital Solar Power Satellites -- namely for remote military outposts that would otherwise need to truck in fuel for generators. (An order of magnitude greater cost is acceptable in that case, but this would start the cycle of industrial innovation and reduction of costs from economies of scale, and would lead to widespread Solar Power for civilian use.)
We could stop using fossil fuels right now, from a technical standpoint. It's just that we don't want to, for a variety of economic, political, and superstitious reasons.
Re:Energy is not a Technical problem, one of Will (Score:5, Informative)
Recycle what's still usable. The USA doesn't do this because of an ill advised cold war ban on reprocessing technology, but Japan and France both do.
Separate the remainder and pitch the low level stuff. Vitrify it, bury it, forget about it. As long as it doesn't get into the water table in large quantity, we're safe. In small quantities, it's negligible. Worst case, we're the only ones who pay the price; low level radioactives aren't a threat to the ecology, especially not when the only water irradiated is in aquifers (we're pretty much the only species that has any reason to fear deep water contamination).
For evidence of the low impact of radiation, witness the resurgent wildlife at Chernobyl - plant and animal life is more loss-tolerant when radiation is concerned than human culture. A 5% increase in cancer rates terrifies us, yet impacts animals little (far less than human activity). This means the minor radioactives are far more a health concern than an environmental one.
What's left after the low level crud is separated, the really nasty stuff, is something like 1% of the total waste. This is the stuff we don't want leaking into the environment, for our sakes or the rest of the high order life on this planet. You're left with 90% of the problem condensed down to 1% of the mass. What you do with that is up to you; cart it offworld, bury it at a subduction zone, build a huge RTG and use it for power - there are several options.
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like the university of gothenberg should just go walk nibbler [wikipedia.org].
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Or at least, invent Diamondium [wikia.com].
Details missing ... for now (Score:2)
Of course not -- they'll want to patent that method before they release the details. And why not? If it turns out to be exactly what we needed all along to make fusion commercially viable, they'll be set for life.
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s/life/end of time for them and all their descendants
Muon catalysis? (Score:3, Interesting)
If they replace the electrons with muons [wikipedia.org] the nuclei will be much closer together, therefore the matter will be much denser. That's the only way I can imagine this could work.
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> You need a stable muon first.
Actually, you don't. All you need is for the muon to live long enough for the fusion to take place. And, as it happens, muons live long enough to catalyze many fusion events.
Muon-catalyzed fusion is a well-studied problem, and one on which I did a graduate term project many years ago. The big problem isn't the muon lifetime -- everything works pretty well, you can get the muons to replace electrons in singly-ionized D-D or D-T molecules, and they even ratchet themselves d
No problem. (Score:5, Funny)
"I can easily imagine a material being compressed by some heavy duty diamond anvil to reach this density, the question is: what happens when you let the pressure off? Will it expand (explosively one would presume) back to its original volume?"
Simple answer, known by all: Duct Tape.
RS
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I can see someone trying this and more then likely succeeding.
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Duct tape is only half of the equation. (Score:2, Insightful)
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but I think this deuterium stuff is likely to expand, quickly, so I think a plastic box wrapped in duct tape is the right answer.
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RS
What the heck passes for editing these days??? (Score:4, Informative)
"Highly Radioactive Tritium" - I'm assuming they meant something concerning the very energetic neutrons produced in D-T fusion. Tritium by itself can't be considered highly radioactive by any stretch of the imagination. They put the stuff in my watch with thin glass for a shield, for Pete's sake!
Re:What the heck passes for editing these days??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thin glass is all you need. Tritium is a beta emitter - skin won't necessarily stop it, but just about anything else will. If it leaks out, it'll be as a diffuse gas that will react with oxygen to produce slightly radioactive water - with the quantities in your watch, that's no big deal. It is still somewhat energetic though (probably where they're getting "highly radioactive").
I can see why the method from TFA, if it works, might not be wise to use on tritium. An ultradense block of material that, upon returning to regular atmospheric pressure, expands into a radioactive gas... not a great idea. Tritium, like human beings, is only mostly harmless :-)
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Actually, skin will likely stop the betas from tritium just fine. It's not just that it's a beta emitter, it's that it emits betas at 17 keV.
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It's the entry on earth under the HHGTG that lists it as "mostly harmless". I've always taken that to mean the population, not the planet itself. YMMV.
Re:What the heck passes for editing these days??? (Score:5, Informative)
Still, relative to deuterium, it's much more radioactive.
Deuterium doesn't decay, at least not on any observable time scale. So "relative to deuterium", anything that does decay is much more radioactive. This includes such notable elements as Bismuth, used in Pepto-Bismol, and Tungsten, used in lightbulb filaments. Nevermind such notables as Americium in smoke detectors.
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This includes such notable elements as Bismuth, used in Pepto-Bismol, and Tungsten, used in lightbulb filaments.
I had missed the memo that bismuth-209 decays very slowly (half life of approximately ~10^19 years, which is stable for all practical purposes). Most naturally occurring tungsten is stable, though, at least as far as human observation goes (Wikipedia says that about 0.1% of natural tungsten is tungsten-180, which has a half-life of ~10^18 years, which is as practically stable as bismuth-209).
It's also good for practical jokes (Score:5, Funny)
Imaging putting a little bit of that in ones shoe...a great laugh!
Re:It's also good for practical jokes (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, it would probably be funnier to put it someone elses shoes.
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Re:It's also good for practical jokes (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting idea. I found this terminal velocity calculator [nasa.gov].
A 1 cm^3 cube of UDD has a surface area of 0.00107639104 sq feet [google.com]. (Actually, it would be a little more as it rotates in the air.) Unfortunately, the above calculator rounds values off too much to handle this. In fact, it can't really handle it because it isn't able to compensate for compressibility effects and shock waves as we exceed the speed of sound. (Using the Eiffel Tower's height of 1063 ft., it is returning a value of a little over a mile per second!)
So let's try dropping a big piece, say a sphere with a cross sectional area of 1 sq. ft. This will have a radius of sqrt(1 / pi), and hence a volume of (4/3) * pi * (sqrt( 1 / pi))^3, or about 0.75225 [google.com] cubic feet. This yields an impressive weight of 6,113,486 pounds [google.com].
The terminal velocity calculator is cutting us off at 10,000 pounds, but we can punch this out ourselves to get an answer. We just need a reasonable value for the atmospheric density. Through a little trial and error, I found that a value of .001697 gives about the same results as what the terminal velocity calculator returns for 10,000 pound weights. Running the calculation for our weight yields 101,000 ft/sec. [google.com], or about 19.2 miles/second.
This is surely a ridiculous result, since we're still disregarding compressibility effects, and using dodgy math. Still, it was interesting, and this sort of speed is not impossible. The fastest man made space probe, Helios, traveled at over twice this speed, albeit in a vacuum.
Let's accept the result for now, and compare this to the Chicxulub impact [wikipedia.org], which is "one of the largest confirmed impact structures in the world; the impacting bolide that formed the crater was at least 10 km (6 mi) in diameter." I don't see any estimates of the bolide's mass or impact velocity. However, we know the impact released 400 zettajoules of energy, or 4x10^23 joules.
Our object would have a kinetic energy [wikipedia.org] of merely 1.3x10^15 joules [google.com], so it probably won't be destroying the earth. Still, with the force all directed at such a tiny area, something dramatic is bound to happen. I imagine it would burrow quite deeply, and then release energy upward and outward somehow.
I have no idea how to estimate the hole's depth. If anyone thinks this ludicrous math is enjoyable, feel free to add your own calculations!
Correction (Score:3, Interesting)
Running the calculation for our weight yields 101,000 ft/sec., or about 19.2 miles/second.
Except that the Earth's escape velocity (from the Earth's surface) is only 7 mi/sec, so it cannot fall faster than that (into Earth).
Re:It's also good for practical jokes (Score:5, Funny)
But think how much heavier the Earth will be when they start making lots of this stuff. Won't that affect our solar orbit? Or the tide?
It's like how sponges can hold 25 times their weight in water. Imagine how high the water levels would be if they became extinct!
I don't know how people can sleep...
LOTS of missing details from TFA: (Score:5, Informative)
FIRST - there is no claim for an observable amount of matter in the D(-1) state. It isn't "microscopic amounts" - for "microscopic" means "visible in a microscope". Do the math, fellow NBF visionaries: 2.3 picometers ... if it were a lattice compound ... would be about 440^3 units per cubic nanometer, or 440,000^3 (about 85E15 or 85 quadrillion atoms in a cubic micrometer box. Nothing doing. They're measuring the energy (~600eV) spectroscopically, from the FRAGMENTS of the supposed union. This is not a union-of-deuterons lasting nanoseconds, or microseconds, or milliseconds, or seconds. No, these are the fragments that lasted just long enough for the D(-1) state to hold together in a laser beam for ATTOSECONDS. (That's what those little "as" annotations are on their viewgraph).
SECOND, while it is nice to foster the conjecture that such matter IF microscopically attainable, IF stable enought to survives the time-of-flight from source to fusion reactor, IF the energy-cost-of-production is far less than the increased odds (and useful energy return) of the attendant fusion exists ... THEN it is a great and wonderful thing.
THIRD, single D(-1) pseudonucleons may well exist for nanoseconds per KURT9's thesis, but again ... nanoseconds is very much too short for deeply sub-relativistic ballistic particles to traverse a source (the laser-and-"compression" chamber) to the fusion reaction chamber. Even if they only exist as single diatomic particles, lifetimes have to be raised at least into the microseconds. For practical energy production in the reactor proper (let's say, 250 MW thermal), 4.88E20 diatomic Rydberg nucleons would have to be created (assuming 3.23MeV per fusion of D(-1) to get to 4He) ... and remembering that 4He is the least likely product produced.
FOURTH (per last part of Third), the 2D + 2D = 4He reaction is well known to be very improbable in a single step, since there are LOWER ENERGY intermediate products that bleed off the excited spin-state fusion reaction (one of the key 'first principles' of fusion physics). Per the excellent if brief article in WikiPedia,
50% ... D + D = T + p ... D + D = 3He + n
50%
Researching further, D + D = 4He occurs about one in a dozen million fusion reactions nominally.
FIFTH, summing goatse.cx guy's "facts" together and this looks like yet another fruitless (for fusion) avenues of research. There is only hope, and not a shred of evidence that the D(-1) Rydberg CAN be made in 1E20 nucleons/second quantities, no reference to the overall energy-of-formation, no evidence that the diatoms can exist for more than attoseconds, nothing but speculative wishes that such a material holds promise to D+D=4He reactions (which is just an uber-popular topic, anyway). Therefore, it gets a 3 star SnakeOil award, coupled with 2 stars for the actual science, the novelty of the discovery, and the fine department of Physics at Gothenberg for letting these two obviously talented, and quite frankly queer, researchers have their limelight.
So, in summary, I have to say: "Sorry, dude, I just don't think it'll work."
=smudge=
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There need be no "time of flight" if the state can be achieved in situ in a target immediately before it is struck by the compressing laser pulses. Thus you might hit a structured target with a pulse designed to create some D(-1) followed immediately by a compression and detonation pulse (or even structure the compression pulse to create some D(-1). You also need not rely on a D-D reaction: driving tritium nuclei into a core of D(-1) should enhance yield.
It's worth investigating.
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Seriously? WTF does their sexuality have to do with this? At all?
I've now disregarded everything you've writte
Re:LOTS of missing details from TFA: (Score:5, Informative)
Queer has more definitions than gay.
Peculiar, eccentric, those are more probable. Fake is also a valid definition but that probably doesn't apply. (Queer fiver as opposed to a queer scientist)
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Hang on.. your post was too long - were you replying to the guy who suggested duct tape?
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Hey! Enough with the science stuff. Frame your argument within a Star Trek or cartoon reference only, please.
Re:LOTS of missing details from TFA: (Score:4, Informative)
No, these are the fragments that lasted just long enough for the D(-1) state to hold together in a laser beam for ATTOSECONDS. (That's what those little "as" annotations are on their viewgraph).
You didn't specify what viewgraph you were referring to (there are none in the links in the summary). Presumably you are looking at one of their papers. E.g. Figure 2 from:
S. Badiei, P. U. Andersson and L. Holmlid, "High-energy Coulomb explosions in ultra-dense deuterium: time-of-flight mass spectrometry with variable energy and flight length". Int. J. Mass Spectrom. 282 (2009) 70-76. doi:10.1016/j.ijms.2009.02.014 [doi.org]
Yes, that graph marks points along the curve with "as" meaning "attoseconds", but that doesn't mean that the UDD has a lifetime of attoseconds. That graph is describing the "Coulomb explosion" technique they are using to measure the bond distances in UDD. Briefly, they excite the ultra-dense deuterium with a laser pulse that ionizes some of the atoms, which causes them to fly apart (due to Coulomb repulsion) with great energy. By measuring the ions that result from this explosion they can calculate the bond distances. This high-speed explosion, however, was artificially induced to make it possible to measure the inter-atomic distances. If they had not purposefully excited the UDD with a laser it would have lasted longer.
I'm not sure how much longer that would be, mind you. As far as I can tell from their papers, they have not yet measured the lifetime. So it may very well be a rather low lifetime. (Though some forms of Rydberg matter can have appreciable lifetimes [wikipedia.org].) If anyone has any actual data (with link) for the lifetime, I'd love to see it.
IF stable enought to survives the time-of-flight from source to fusion reactor
For Intertially-Confined Fusion, which typically uses lasers to compress the target matter, one could design a system where the UDD state is produced in-situ and immediately laser-compressed.
single D(-1) pseudonucleons may well exist for nanoseconds per KURT9's thesis
This is another statement whose source is unclear. Who or what is "KURT9"?
There is only hope ... nothing but speculative wishes that such a material holds promise to D+D=4He reactions ...
From the above-cited paper:
"Due to the high density of the D(1) material, a factor of 2×10^5 higher than for H(1), the transport of energetic particles through the material is strongly impeded. In fact, the deuterons at 2.3pm bond distance are close to the nuclear barrier, and a kinetic energy of 630 eV may be sufficient to give d-d fusion by tunneling."
I haven't looked into the theory enough yet to say whether their suggestion of tunneling [wikipedia.org] is correct or not... but if true this would indeed vastly increase the rate of fusion reactions. If nothing else, the extremely high density of the nucleons will make all kinds of many-body and multi-step reactions much more viable.
he fine department of Physics at Gothenberg for letting these two obviously talented, and quite frankly queer, researchers have their limelight.
Umm... what?
=smudge=
I guess you're trolling.
how does this not spontaneously fuse (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:how does this not spontaneously fuse (Score:5, Informative)
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Fusion is a product of temperature and density.
That should mean we would get fusion if we turn up the thermostat at the Capitol building.
Re:how does this not spontaneously fuse (Score:5, Informative)
The centre of the sun is less dense than you might think, owing to thermal and radiation pressure.
The energy from the aforementioned fusion counteracts the pressure from the outer layers pushing in. This state is one of equilibrium; reduce the rate of reaction and the core contracts, speeding fusion, increase the rate of reaction and the core expands, slowing the fusion back down again. The estimated density of the sun is much, much lower than the density would be for a non-fusing body of the same mass. If anything, this discrepancy will be more noticeable in the core, where the temperature is highest.
If no fusion reactions were occurring, which is what will happen when the fuel runs out, the core would contract until it became electron-degenerate matter, the material of a white dwarf star. With a more massive star, the contraction would continue past that point until neutron degeneracy took over (leading to a neutron star), or it passed the Swartzchild radius (leading to a black hole).
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So my question then became how does this not spontaneously fuse?
It would... given enough time. The rate of fusion in the solar core is quite sedate. The vast majority of hydrogen or deuterium in the solar core won't fuse for some billions of years to come.
This stuff will have a huge spontaneous fusion cross-section, relatively speaking, but that could still be vastly lower than anything practically interesting. During the cold fusion flap Koonin and collaborators did a careful recalculation of the "stand
Metallic Deuterium ? (Score:5, Interesting)
There has been a long search for metallic hydrogen [wikipedia.org], which is supposed to be (once made under high pressure) possibly both stable and superconducting [aps.org] at room temperature.
Given that metallic hydrogen is also supposed to be quite dense, I have to wonder if they haven't made metallic deuterium.
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> I have to wonder if they haven't made metallic deuterium.
No. This is something quite different (if it exists at all).
Ultra Dense Planet (Score:2, Interesting)
Wasn't there an article a while back about an exoplanet discovered that was so dense the astronomers couldn't even begin to speculate what it was made out of? This would seem to be an interesting candidate for an answer.
Really, stop and think about just how dense this stuff is. Fill a soda can with it and the can would weigh in at 35000 lbs! Even if all you did was burn it or use it in a fuel cell, the volume to energy ratio of this substance is amazing.
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I'm trying to imagine what would happen if you threw a 35000 lb soda can of UDD into the campfire.
Re:Ultra Dense Planet (Score:5, Funny)
I'm having fun imagining him trying to lift and lightly toss 35 thousand pounds of anything.
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Re:Ultra Dense Planet (Score:5, Funny)
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Nice Futurama reference.
Re:Ultra Dense Planet (Score:5, Funny)
You're right -- just think of what a boon this will be to the mining and drilling industries.
Because you know, that's all it's going to be good for. It's dense enough to fall through granite and limestone like they were tissue paper. I'm getting a figure of mechanical pressure that's about twice what hardened steel can take.
Fill a soda can with this stuff and watch it shoot down into the center of the Earth, with nothing you can do to stop it. If it's any consolation, after that it will probably fuse and explode.
I, for one, welcome our new swedish doomsday weapon.
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The biggest problem with transport would be pressure (PSI). You can put a 35000 pound object on a well-constructed flatbed due to weight distribution. But putting it on an area 2 inches in diameter would probably punch right through the truck!
marketing the study of physics (Score:5, Funny)
The Air Force (Score:2, Interesting)
Could you imagine? (Score:2)
A cubic centimeter of the stuff would weigh 287 lbs. (130 kg).
How surreal it would be to have an object the size of a sugar cube that would be so heavy!
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"Dammit, what weighs seventy kilos?!" (Score:2)
How surreal it would be to have an object the size of a sugar cube that would be so heavy!
Tarrant: A neutron star?
Avon: A microscopic fragment of one. It's the only possible explanation. It was unbelievably heavy.
Dayna: So how could Egrorian have planted it aboard?
Avon: He must have reprogrammed that automatic landing bay of his.
Soolin: And you moved it on your own?
Avon: I couldn't find Vila.
Vila: I'm glad about that.
Tarrant: Pity about the tachyon funnel, though.
Avon: We had no choice.
Vila: It's a trip I won't forget, Avon.
Avon: Well, as you always say, Vila: you know you are safe with me.
Not a cubic centimetre... (Score:3, Informative)
The FA says a 10cm cube, i.e. 1000 cubic centimetres, would weigh 130 tonnes.
Re: (Score:2)
So a 1cm cube, i.e., 1 cubic centimetre, would weigh 130 tonnes / 1000 [google.com], or 130kg.
They're just reducing the figures. The math still holds.
Re:Not a cubic centimetre... (Score:5, Informative)
The FA says a 10cm cube, i.e. 1000 cubic centimetres, would weigh 130 tonnes.
Metric isn't that hard.
If 10 cm * 10 cm * 10 cm = 1000 cm^3 weighs 130 000 kg, then 1 cm * 1 cm * 1 cm = 1 cm^3 weighs 130 kg.
Not involving tritium? (Score:3, Interesting)
Deuterium + Deuterium = Tritium + Proton (50%) or Helium 3 + Neutron (50%). Must be an unusual definition of "not involving".
don't let it go to waste (Score:2)
get the Bussard collectors ready. We need to start storing this stuff!
Re: (Score:2)
It is an extremely dense material... (Score:2, Funny)
two words (Score:2)
food saver
I am a skeptic (Score:2)
From TFA and Researcher's home page (Score:3, Informative)
No clue here as to production, but possibly in the references below. Anyone have access to these?
"A much denser state exists for deuterium, named D(-1). We call it ultra-dense deuterium. This is the inverse of D(1), and the bond distance is very small, equal to 2.3 pm. Its density is extremely large, >130 kg / cm3, if it can exist as a dense phase. Due to the short bond distance, D-D fusion is expected to take place easily in this material. See Ref. 179 below!"
183. S. Badiei, P. U. Andersson and L. Holmlid, "High-energy Coulomb explosions in ultra-dense deuterium: time-of-flight mass spectrometry with variable energy and flight length". Int. J. Mass Spectrom. 282 (2009) 70-76.
179. S. Badiei, P. U. Andersson and L. Holmlid, "Fusion reactions in high-density hydrogen: a fast route to small-scale fusion?" Int. J. Hydr. Energy 34 (2009) 487-495.
178. L. Holmlid, "Clusters HN+ (N = 4, 6, 12) from condensed atomic hydrogen and deuterium indicating close-packed structures in the desorbed phase at an active catalyst surface". Surf. Sci. 602 (2008) 3381â"3387.
176. S. Badiei and L. Holmlid, "Condensed atomic hydrogen as a possible target in inertial confinement fusion (ICF)". J. Fusion Energ. 27 (2008) 296â"300.
I don't see the necessity for brute force compression. H can be highly compressed while trapped in metal crystal lattice, such as in H saturated palladium. The individual energies are still high but due to being already in close proximity much of the squeezing has already been done. Such a lattice that can then be removed, dissolved, etc. might leave high density H droppings.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
ultra-dense deuterium (Score:4, Funny)
Please, please, please don't let them call it deuterium ore [wordpress.com].
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
In short, deuterium is a gas at STP.
That's not to say they can't mak
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Coming in 2010: "Dude, where's my ultra-dense deuterium?", staring Ashton Kutcher.
Re: (Score:2)
> Imagine a society where personal transportation via cars is available with zero
> emissions and cheap enough for every human who wants this.
And a pocket nuclear weapon as well.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)