DIY Nuclear Fusion Device

[blobrana]

Yea, i came across an article on the latest results of the imploding bubble fusion device...

Looks like they have produced tritium...

The device is relatively simple consisting of a  clear glass canister about the height of two coffee mugs stacked on top of one another. Inside the canister is a liquid called deuterated acetone (C3 D6 O). The acetone contains a form of hydrogen called deuterium, or heavy hydrogen, which contains one proton and one neutron in its nucleus. Normal hydrogen contains only one proton in its nucleus.
The researchers expose the clear canister of liquid to pulses of neutrons every five milliseconds, or thousandths of a second, causing tiny cavities to form. At the same time, the liquid is bombarded with a specific frequency of ultrasound, which causes the cavities to form into bubbles that are about 60 nanometres (billionths of a meter) in diameter. The bubbles then expand to a much larger size, about 6,000 microns, or millionths of a meter – large enough to be seen with the unaided eye.

These bubbles implode.

Their contraction causes extreme temperatures and pressures comparable to those found in the interiors of stars.
The temperatures inside the imploding bubbles reach 10 million degrees Celsius and pressures comparable to 1,000 million earth atmospheres at sea level.
At that point, deuterium atoms fuse together, the same way hydrogen atoms fuse in stars, releasing neutrons and energy in the process. The process also releases a type of radiation called gamma rays and a radioactive material called tritium, all of which have been recorded and measured...

Free energy?
http://www.geocities.com/goarana668/fusion.htm

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-03/aaft-fia030102.php

http://physicsweb.org/article/news/6/3/4

[JaXanim]

I've used ultrasonic cavitation to speed up chemical reactions. This works in a similar way as you describe - increasing the temperature within a collapsing bubble. The general science is called sonochemistry.

What you have here tho is a whole different ball game.

Cheers,

JaX

[blobrana]

Yea, i`m aware that it is old science, and in chemistry it is almost used in a sort of `catalytic` way, (Er, without the catalyst..?..).

I have a feeling that they if they DO get it to work, and produce excess energy, then they would have created the most astonishing machine since the wheel was invented, (just my opinion).

There are also implications that they maybe are `tapping` into the latent vacuum energy that exists in all space... (as seen in the film).
This is basically the infinite energy of space-time that the physicists `renormalize`....

Either way if , `fusion` or `Zero-point-energy` were to be created, then that would be a  major step forwards...

[Cymric]

blobrana wrote:
There are also implications that they maybe are `tapping` into the latent vacuum energy that exists in all space... (as seen in the film).
This is basically the infinite energy of space-time that the physicists `renormalize`....

No, they are definitely on no account tapping in to the zero point energy. You can't tap into zero point energy, that's why it's called 'zero point' :-). If what the researchers are reporting is true and reproduced, they have 'just' managed table-top, but otherwise very ordinary nuclear fusion. In any case, let's first see whether people are able to reproduce the results. So far, the only other experiment failed to do so. The authors of the original paper claimed the reason was 'a calibration error' in the detector of the other research group, which is a pretty lame and unconvincing argument no matter how you look at it.

The story gets quite interesting when you consider that it is the second paper on the subject from the original authors, and that their first paper was found flawed precisely because of a calibration error(!!). Admittedly, not in the detector, but in the blank tritium sample they used to compare the reaction medium with. Somehow I get the feeling there's quite a lot of bad blood around...  :roll:

[blobrana]

Hum,
There is no proof that you can`t tap into ZPE...
(example: hawking radiation, or the casimer effect)
As in there is no proof that this universe is in the lowest (stable) energy system.
A phase change (like water to ice) may happen at any time.
I would find it very strange if they found out that they could though...

I  agree, it would be interesting to see if these findings are reproduce elsewhere.
The production of `extra` tritium would be a good indicator that it had worked though...

[T_Bone]

Now if they can just hurry up before the oil runs out...

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Is this thread about fusion of two atoms?
one with a core build up with electrons and neutrons and with orbiting protons and one with a core build up with protons and neutrons and with orbiting electrons? (Or was that anti-matter?)

[Karlos]

So the collapsing bubbles produce a huge local pressure and temperature within, sufficient to induce deuterium deuterium fusion? Fascinating...

Better be careful which hands this technique falls into. At some point, deuterated coca cola may be used as a terrorist fusion weapon - stand an unopened can on top of a good frequency range a hifi and obliterate everything in a 2km radius.....

[KennyR]

I heard about the collapsing bubble fusion theory quite some time ago. It was discredited - but then again, anyone who sets out to present cold fusion to the academic world is discredited from the start and really needs to work hard to open eyes.

I'm afraid I'm just as skeptical. The energies that are needed to fuse two nuclei together are absolutely staggering - even at the billions of atmospheres pressure and millions of kelvin, its unlikely to ever happen - just the sheer number of them in a stellar core means it happens often enough to form a chain reaction. The conditions for fusion just can't exist in everyday matter, just in plasma at collosal energies. There is no easy route to fusion, no matter how clever.

That said, there's no such thing as free energy either. I heard a theory about gathering transient energy from the vacuum, but unless we want the speed of light to start taking a tumble and making the universe fall apart, we better leave that alone...

[Quixote]

Speelgoedmannetje spoke:

Is this thread about fusion of two atoms?
one with a core build up with electrons and neutrons and with orbiting protons and one with a core build up with protons and neutrons and with orbiting electrons? (Or was that anti-matter?)

;-) You're forgetting that protons have the same mass as neutrons, while electrons have so little mass as to be almost negligible.  Switching their places wouldn't produce anything stable, I think.

Rather, anti-matter uses anti-matter particles.  Positrons have the same scant mass as electrons, while anti-protons have equal mass to protons, but with the opposite charge.

[Quixote]

KennyR:

...anyone who sets out to present cold fusion to the academic world is discredited from the start and really needs to work hard to open eyes.

;-) You're right, the academic world is very quick to discredit anything new, even without viewing the evidence.

The energies that are needed to fuse two nuclei together are absolutely staggering - even at the billions of atmospheres pressure and millions of kelvin, its unlikely to ever happen - just the sheer number of them in a stellar core means it happens often enough to form a chain reaction. The conditions for fusion just can't exist in everyday matter, just in plasma at collosal energies. There is no easy route to fusion, no matter how clever.

;-) Those are just the environmental conditions under which fusion cannot help but happen.  To make fusion happen on demand is just a matter of finding a clever enough methodology.  Of course, no one said finding the correct method would be easy.

[KennyR]

Quixote wrote:
You're right, the academic world is very quick to discredit anything new, even without viewing the evidence.

No, that's too general. Rather, they're quick to doubt anything that goes too far against already known and proven principles. It's a conditioning that science has gained out of necessity - there is usually an overwhelming probability that theories that go against such known principles are actually wrong. There are very few cases where things have gone otherwise. Even Relativity did not totally disprove Newton, for instance, even though it rewrote physics.

Those are just the environmental conditions under which fusion cannot help but happen. To make fusion happen on demand is just a matter of finding a clever enough methodology. Of course, no one said finding the correct method would be easy.

There is no environment in which fusion can't help but happen. Even in the core of stars, with all that energy and pressure, it's very, very rare for nuclei to fuse. But when you have a trillion trillion nuclei and a one in a trillion trillion chance of fusing...