Cool Essay, Research Paper
Why nuclear fusion is so cool…….
For a fusion reaction to take place, the nuclei, which are positively
charged, must have enough kinetic energy to overcome their electrostatic
force of repulsion. This can occur either when one nucleus is
accelerated to high energies by an accelerating device, or when the
energies of both nuclei are raised by the application of very high
temperature. The latter method, referred to the application of
thermonuclear fusion, is the source of a lot of really cool energy.
Enough energy is produced in thermonuclear fusion to suck the paint of 1
city block of houses and give all of the residents permanent orange
Afros. The sun is a example of thermonuclear fusion in nature.
If I was a atom, I could only wish to be in a thermonuclear reaction.
Thermonuclear reactions occur when a proton is accelerated and collides
with another proton and then the two protons fuse, forming a deuterium
nucleus which has a proton, neutrino and lots of energy. I have no idea
what a deuterium nucleus is, but is must be 10 times cooler than just a
regular nucleus. Such a reaction is not self sustaining because the
released energy is not readily imparted to other nuclei. thermonuclear
fusion of deuterium and tritium will produce a helium nucleus and an
energetic neutron that can help sustain further fusion. This is the
basic principal of the hydrogen bomb which employs a brief, controlled
thermonuclear fusion reaction. This was also how the car in the Back to
the Future movie worked. It had a much more sophisticated system of
producing a fusion reaction from things like, old coffee grounds,
bananas, and old beer cans. Thermonuclear reactions depend on high
energies, and the possibility of a low-temperature nuclear fusion has
generally been discounted. Little does the scientific community know
about my experiments. I have produced cold fusion in my basement with
things like: stale bread, milk, peanut butter and flat Pepsi. I have
been able to produce a ten-megaton reaction which as little as a
saltine cracker and some grass clippings. But enough about my
discoveries. Early in 1989 two electrochemists startled the scientific
world by claiming to achieve a room-temperature fusion in a simple
laboratory. They had little proof to back up their discovery, and were
not credited with their so-called accomplishment. The two scientists
were Stanley Pons of the university of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of
the University of Southampton in England. They described their
experiment as involving platinum electrodes an electrochemical cell in
which palladium and platinum were immersed in heavy water. These two
losers said that the cell produced more heat than could be accounted
for. Yeah right!!! The week before I was talking to both men on the
phone and I told them about all of the cool things you could do with
platinum. I said “Now Martin, what you need to do is get your hands on
some platinum and some heavy Mexican drinking water. The amount of
chemicals in the Mexican drinking water is sure to cause a violent
reaction with the platinum electrodes and produce lots of energy. I have
been doing this sort of things in my basement for years.” When I told
him that though that NASA could power their shuttles with this sort of a
reaction, he nearly wet his pants. Now as usual, I received no credit
for MY discovery, but that is ok..I have grown used to it. I taught
Einstein, Newton, and Ron Popeel (inventor of things like the
pasto-matic, hair-in-a-can, and the pocket fisherman) everything they
know. Besides, the two shmucks didn t even follow my instructions for
the experiment. However, until I reveal my secrets about cold fusion,
it will remain only a proposed theory. nuclear fusion is also what
powers the rest of the stars in the solar system. Stars carry out
fusion in a thermonuclear manner. Thermonuclear is a really cool word
which I am going to use several more times just because it is so cool.
In a thermonuclear reaction matter is forced to exist in only in a
plasma state, consisting of electrons, positive ions and very few
neutral atoms. Fusion reactions that occur within a plasma serve to
heat it further, because the portion of the reaction product is
transferred to the bulk of the plasma through collisions. In the
deuterium-tritium reaction the positively charged helium nucleus carries
3.5 MeV. The neutron escaped the plasma with little interaction and,
in a reaction, could deposit its 14.1 MeV in a surrounding lithium
blanket. I have know idea what that last sentence meat, but I am going
to memorize it, because I will sound super smart if I tell someone about
the neutrons activity in a plasma thermonuclear reaction. The neutrons
activity would breed tritium and also heat as a exchange medium which
could be used to produce steam to turn generator turbines. However, the
plasma also loses thermal energy though a variety of processes:
conduction, convection, and bremsstrachlng which is electromagnetic
radiation about 1000 times stronger than the microwave in your kitchen.
Bermsstrachlng is the electromagnetic energy which is produced by the
deceleration of a charged particle. Energy also escapes in the reaction
through line radiation from electrons undergoing level transitions in
heavier impurities, and through losses of hot nuclei that capture an
election and escape and confining field. Ignition occurs when the
energy deposited within the plasma by fusion reactions equals or exceeds
the energy being lost. In order to achieve ignition, plasma must be
combined and heated. Obviously, a plasma at millions of degrees is not
comparable with an ordinary confining wall, but the effect of this
incompatibility is not the destruction of the wall as might be expected.
I have found that if one uses Corning Ware in a microwave set on high,
plasma can take place quite safely. It is important to note that
tupperware is not suited well for thermonuclear reactions, and is best
left to use to store weapons grade plutonium in. I find that the air
tight lids work simply splendidly in keeping all of that nasty glowing
radioactive dust to a minimum in my room… Although the temperature of
a thermonuclear plasma is very high and the power flowing through it may
be quite large the stored energy is relatively small and would quickly
be radiated away by impurities if the plasma touched a wall and began to
vaporize it. A thermonuclear plasma is thus self-limiting, because any
significant contact with the vessel housing causes it s extinction
within a few thousandths of a second. Therefore, plasma must be
carefully housed and handled while it is occurring (For further
information on plasma refer to the 2 essay in my series entitled “Why
Plasma Is So Cool”).
Most of the research dealing with fusion since 1950 has used magnetic
fields to contain the charged particles that constitute a plasma. The
density required in magnetic-confinement fusion is much lower than
atmospheric density, so the plasma vessel is evacuated and them filled
with the hydrogen-isotope fuel at 0.0000000. What is the deal with all
of those zeros? I mean it means the same as 0..It must be one of those
wacky science thingys. Sort of like why inflammable and flammable mean
the same thing. Who knows. Anyway, Magnetic-field configurations fall
into two typed: open and closed. Wow, that was real obvious. In an
open configuration, the charged particles, which are spiraling along
magnetic field lines maintained by a solenoid, are reflected at each end
of a cell by stronger magnetic fields. I have found in my research that
if one used a 9-volt battery (preferably from a old smoke detector) the
reaction takes place much more efficiently. In this simplest type of
mirror machine, many particles that have most of their velocity parallel
to the solenoidal magnetic field are not reflected and can escape. This
is a real problem for me when ever I try to perform a thermonuclear
fission reaction. I have yet to find a solution to the problem, but for
now stale Trident chewing gum works as a acceptable improvision for the
problem. Present day mirror machines retard this loss by using
additional cells to set up electrostatic potentials that help confine
the hot ions within the central solenoidal field. In a Closed reaction,
the magnetic-field lines along which charged particles move are
continuous within the plasma. This closure has most commonly taken the
form of a toros, or doughnut shape, and the most common example is the
tokamak. In a tokmak the primary confining field is totoidal and is
produced by coils of surrounding the vacuum vessel. Other coils cause
current to flow through the plasma by induction. This toroidally
flowing current wraps itself around the plasma. Is it just me, or are
there a lot of really useless big words. I mean, totoidally, what is
this? My only thought is that is one of those many wacky science terms
that people who you see on the Discovery Channel would use. The
poloidal magnetic field, at right angles, that stronger toroidal field,
acting together, yield magnetic field lines that spiral around the
torus. This spiring ensures that a particle spends equal amounts of
time above and below the totoidal midplane, thus canceling the effects
of a vertical drift that occurs because magnetic field is stronger on
the inside of the torus than on the outside.
Another cool thing about thermonuclear plasma is that a certain type of
plasma called Tokmak plasma can be heated to temperatures of 10-15
million k by the current flowing in the plasma. Imagine how quick one
could broil chicken. In less than + seconds, you could have a perfectly
golden brown and tender chicken ready for dinner. At higher
temperature the plasma resistance becomes too low for this method to be
effective, and heating is accomplished by injecting beams of very
energetic neural particles into the plasma. These ionize, become
trapped, and transfer their energy to the build plasma through
collisions. Alternatively, radio frequency waves are launched into the
plasma at frequencies that resonate with various periodic particle
motions. The waves give energy to these resonant particles, which then
transfer it to the rest of the plasma through collisions. In some of my
most recent expirations I have been able to use radio frequency waves to
push electrons around the tokmak to maintain the plasma current. Such
noninductive current drive allows the tokamak pulse to outlast the time
limitly imposed by the fact that, in a transformer-driven tokmak
reaction thingy, the plasma current lasts only as long as the current in
the secondary coils reach their current limits, confinement is lost, and
the plasma terminates until the transformer can be reset. Although the
plasma in as inductively driven tokamak is pulsed, the electricity
produced would not ve, because the thermal inertia of the
neutron-capturing blanket would sustain stream generation between
pulses. By allowing longer pulse or steady-state plasma operation,
however, radio frequency current drive could lessen the thermal stresses
in the fusion reaction. However, so far cooking with plasma has not
been to practical for me. Another approach to fusion pusued since
about 1974, is termed inertial confinement. During my many patrols
during the Viet..-NAM war, I further developed my theory s and opinions
regarding inertial confinement fusion. When I arrived home with a
severely hyper-extended earlobe, I was in great pain and suffering, but
I still managed to explain my findings to the scientific community.
essentially, my theory of inertial confinement fusion works similar to
how the atomic bomb works. A small pellet of frozen deuterium and
tritium are compressed to a very high temperature and densities in a
process analogous to what is accomplished by bombarding the pellet from
all sides, simultaneously with a really intense laser. I nearly put my
eye out with the thing. It is certainty not a toy. Anyway, back to
fusion. After you have nuked the pellet thing with the super laser
thingy, the pellet vaporizes and, by mechanical reaction, imparts
inwardly directed momentum to their remaining pellet core. The inertia
of the inwardly driven pellet material must be sufficient to localize
the power of -9 seconds required to get significant energy release. In
1988, after my defeat in the presidential election, I helped the
government preform underground tests in the Nevada desert. I had showed
the government how to do this type of experiment in 1986, but it took
them two years before they could get it right. I think that their chief
nuclear engineers name was Forrest or something..Man what a idiot. He
just could not get it right. Once again, people took credit for my
discovery. The miniminum confinement condition necessary to achieve
energy gain in a deuterium-tritium plasma is that of the product of the
density in ions per cubic cm and energy containment time in seconds must
exceed 6×10 -13th power. This was attained for the first time in a
hydrogen plasma at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983.
The temperature required to ignite a fusion reactor is in the range of
100-250 million k, several times the temperature of the center of the
sun. What? How can you have a reaction several times the suns central
temperature in a enclosed plasma environment? Is this some kind of
wacky scientist joke or something? Anyway, the science geeks at M.I.T
supposedly did produce this kind of fusion.
The goal on fusion is in effect, to produce and hold a small star. It
is a daunting and tedious research which is considered to be of the most
advanced in the world. Creating a small dwarf star in a man-made
environment has thought to be the highest scientific challenge. Even
though last weekend my little brother and I did create several dwarf
stars, we were forced to put them out because the neighbors kept
complaining about the light. The cop was a real jerk. I tried
explaining to him what I was doing, but he kept asking me to do stupid
things like: stand on 1 leg and recite the alphabet backwards, and touch
my nose with my finger. Apparently the cop though that I was getting
smart with him when I started to explain to him about the beauty of
fission energy. Oh well, at least he didn t arrest me..again…
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