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Re: Articles



Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

At 12:10 PM 2/28/2006, Tesla list wrote:
Original poster: Davetracer@xxxxxxx
In a message dated 2/27/2006 4:22:15 PM Mountain Standard Time, tesla@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
http://www.powermanagementdesignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=180205456

The key sentence from the above article is this:

"By using the field to accelerate deuterium oxide atoms between the opposing crystals, the engineers fused two deuterium atoms into helium, releasing the excess energy as high-energy neutron particles--the hallmark of nuclear fusion."

Anytime you get neutrons above 1MeV energy, they can fission U-238 [not a typo], and then things get way too interesting very quickly. There are lots of things I don't know about fast fission. But your typical hydrogen bomb uses a U-238 casing [not U-235], fuses the hydrogen, takes the > 1 MeV neutrons from the fusion, and fissions the casing U-238, yielding up to half the total yield.

fission yes, chain reaction no. And more interestingly, the 238 that doesn't fission transmutes into Pu239. Cool deal in a sort of geek chic way (how many people do you know who transmute elements in their garage?).. but totally impractical to make any reasonable amount of Pu. The first Pu samples that Seaborg analyzed required milliamps of current in the cyclotron at Berkeley for days, and that's to get microscopic quantities. There was a project back in the late 40s, early 50s(?) to make a huge linear accelerator to make fissionable material (Thorium, I believe).

Look at the neutron rates from the original article.. we're talking a few neutrons a second, if that. Long, long, long way from anything "interesting" neutron-wise. As a practical matter, even detecting the neutrons from these kinds of reactions is a major challenge.

Now there's a tesla coil application for you... and, in fact, that IS something practical to use a TC for...accelerating particles.. The few hundred kV from the fair sized TC is more than enough to get "interesting" reactions to occur, although the EM fields will raise cain with your detectors, so proving that the reactions occurred might be problematic.

Yes, this is off topic, and this is one invention I'm not sure I wish had been invented. :-)

It's been around for a while, and really isn't anything revolutionary. Electrically powered neutron sources (aka the Zipper) also from the basis of the "dial-a-yield" capability of modern weapons, as well as being the initiator on probably all currently fielded weapons. They're awfully compact in that application (since the entire warhead isn't all that big), so the claims of 15x15 cm don't strike me as particularly amazing.

nope.. lots of press release blather, really, and a slow news day.