Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth: 3.6 Billion Degrees in Lab:
Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.

This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

Thermonuclear explosions are estimated to reach only tens to hundreds of millions of degrees Kelvin; other nuclear fusion experiments have achieved temperatures of about 500 million degrees Kelvin, said a spokesperson at the lab.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/060308_sandia_z.html

Zero to 76,000 mph in a Second:
Scientists at the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico have accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second. The speed of the thrust was a new record for Sandia’s "Z Machine" – not only the fastest gun in the West, but in the world too.

The Z Machine is now able to propel small plates at 34 kilometers a second, faster than the 30 kilometers per second that Earth travels through space in its orbit about the Sun. That’s 50 times faster than a rifle bullet, and three times the velocity needed to escape Earth’s gravitational field.

The ultra-tiny aluminum plates, just 850 microns thick, are accelerated at 1010 g. One g is the force of Earth’s gravity. Doing so without vaporizing the plates was possible because of the finer control now achievable of the magnetic field pulse that drives the flight.

Z’s hurled plates strike a target after traveling only five millimeters, or less than a quarter-inch. The impact generates a shock wave -- in some cases, reaching 15 million times atmospheric pressure -- that passes through the target material. The waves are so powerful that they turn solids into liquids, liquids into gases, and gases into plasmas in the same way that heat melts ice to water or boils water into steam.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/050607_z_machine.html

And the "Z Machine" that did both jobs:

An electrical storm lights up the surface of the Z machine, an accelerator built to simulate what happens during a nuclear explosion. The electrical discharges result from powerful electric fields that the experiment produces.

Housed at Sandia National Laboratories, the Z machine attracted a lot of attention eight years ago when its energy output more than quadrupled – raising hopes that the reactions in the Z could provide a new source of clean, abundant power. To help further progress towards this end, the machine is getting a $61.7 million upgrade, officials announced recently.

The Z uses a short burst of intense electricity – only a few 10 billionths of a second long – that forces an ionized gas to implode. The process is called a z-pinch because the pulse creates a magnetic field that squeezes particles in the vertical direction, which math books usually label as the "z-axis."

At the center of the z-pinch, in the space of a small soup can, gas particles race at each other at a million miles an hour. The collisions result in X-rays and extremely high temperatures.

Last year, when physicists placed a capsule of deuterium, or heavy hydrogen, at the focus of the z-pinch, they detected neutrons flying out from the implosion site – a signal that fusion reactions were taking place, as they do in the sun.

If researchers can learn to tame these fusion reactions, the setup can rely on a seemingly endless supply of deuterium fuel in seawater.

http://www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_041104.html

[This message has been edited by Boondawg (edited 03-09-2006).]

Does it have NOS and a type R sticker?

Cool stuff. We have a particle accelerator here in Saskatoon - one of two I believe in North America. I remember being a bit weary when they announced that one one of their first tests was to collide two different particles together at light speed and see what would happen. The newspaper article that descibed the test finished the story with a small endnote that said that there is a very small chance that the experiment could open a blackhole. Thankfully this didn't happen!

Anyone remember the original halflife??? Aliens are going to come through the blackhole lol.

Ryan

As long as they don't push the capacitors over 105%, we shouldn't have to worry about a resonance cascade failure.
I hope.

quote Originally posted by loafer87gt: Cool stuff. We have a particle accelerator here in Saskatoon - one of two I believe in North America. I remember being a bit weary when they announced that one one of their first tests was to collide two different particles together at light speed and see what would happen. The newspaper article that descibed the test finished the story with a small endnote that said that there is a very small chance that the experiment could open a blackhole. Thankfully this didn't happen!

There are many particle accerators around the world, including over 2 dozen in North America. Yours is the CLS I believe.

http://www-elsa.physik.uni-bonn.de/accelerator_list.html

quote North America 88" Cycl. 88-Inch Cyclotron, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), Berkeley, CA ALS Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), Berkeley, CA (ALS Status) ANL Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, IL (Advanced Photon Source APS [status], Intense Pulsed Neutron Source IPNS [status], Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System ATLAS) BNL Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY (AGS, ATF, NSLS, RHIC) CAMD Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices CESR Cornell Electron-positron Storage Ring, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (CESR Status) CHESS Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY CLS Canadian Light Source, U of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada CNL Crocker Nuclear Laboratory, University of California Davis, CA FNAL Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , Batavia, IL (Tevatron) IAC Idaho accelerator center, Pocatello, Idaho IUCF Indiana University Cyclotron Facility, Bloomington, Indiana JLab aka TJNAF, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (formerly known as CEBAF), Newport News, VA LAC Louisiana Accelerator Center, U of Louisiana at Lafayette, Louisiana LANL Los Alamos National Laboratory MIT-Bates Bates Linear Accelerator Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) NSCL National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Michigan State University ORNL Oak Ridge National Laboratory (EN Tandem Accelerator), Oak Ridge, Tennessee PBPL Particle Beam Physics Lab (Neptune-Laboratory, PEGASUS - Photoelectron Generated Amplified Spontaneous Radition Source) SBSL Stony Brook Superconducting Linac, State University of New York (SUNY) SLAC Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (Linac, NLC - Next Linear Collider, PEP - Positron Electron Project (finished), PEP-II - asymmetric B Factory (in commissioning), SLC - SLAC Linear electron positron Collider, SPEAR - Stanford Positron Electron Asymmetric Ring (actually SPEAR-II, see SSRL), SSRL - Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory) SNS Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge, Tennessee SRC Synchrotron Radiation Center, U of Wisconsin - Madison (Aladdin Status) SURF III Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, Maryland TRIUMF TRI-University Meson Facility / National Meson Research Facility, Vancouver, BC (Canada)

Some, are not listed here for some rason, perhaps they are part of the military's research programs.

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 03-10-2006).]

Thanks for the info Don - I didn't know there was that many of them. You are correct - the CLS1 is the Canadian Light Source Synchrotron facility here in Toontown. Reading through the facilities website they say that it is one of a handful of third gen particle accelerators worldwide. Some of the stuff they can do there is truly mindblowing.

Colour me impresed.

Is this the first time they've pulled off artificial fusion, albeit not controled? If so, thats pretty damn cool in and of itself.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/271819/page//vc/1

Google earth thread with link to the one I grew up near at Brookhaven labs.

quote Originally posted by Fastback 86: Is this the first time they've pulled off artificial fusion, albeit not controled? If so, thats pretty damn cool in and of itself.

no. Amateurs have been building inertial electrostatic confinement fusion reactors for years... literally. Philo T Farnsworth invented it in the 60's (and also invented the TV)

Here's a fusor generating 5x10⁶ 2.45 MeV neutrons per second... "proof" fusion is occuring.

Philo T Farnsworth is from Fort Wayne!!!!!!! <3 and people think we're dumb here, lol... Actually the local radio station here bought his old research lab and uses it to house 6 radio stations. They have a filing cabinet next to the transmitters that have a bunch of his old notes and ideas. I thought it was pretty interesting.

So who is going to mount one in their fiero?

I hvae one in my basement. Built it from parts from Home Depot. Have not used it in a year or so, probably throw it up on E-Bay. Let me know if you are interested.

i beat that in my fiero

quote Originally posted by RotrexFiero: I hvae one in my basement. Built it from parts from Home Depot. Have not used it in a year or so, probably throw it up on E-Bay. Let me know if you are interested.

really? I'd like to see pics. I was going to build one, but got discouraged when I sprang for a 0.5 micron vacuum pump that was seized. (Now I just know that it hydrolocks with oil after being run for a few minutes). Might be interested.

What did you use for the chamber?

quote Originally posted by ryan.hess: What did you use for the chamber?

A really big bong.

2 years ago we ( CSUF GME ) talked with one of the lead guys on the survey crew that make sure that the goodies at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were on track. VERY VERY cool stuff from a surveying point of view with the tolerances that they were required to obtain.

------------------

** RICE - it's whats cookin **

Considering how easy it is to build a cyclotron, God alone knows how many "private" accelerators there are out there.

It's like reading science fiction, but it's all REAL!!!

I say "easy", but the equipment would cost several thousand dollars. It would also use quite a bit of electricity unless you got some really big permanent magnets...but the hard work was done by Livermore over 60 years ago. The thing would fit in a relatively small area.

I'd love to have my own cyclotron ("Hey, baby, want to come back to my place to see my nuclear accelerator?") but I don't know what I would DO with the thing once I had it. I guess the challenge would be in building it and making it work; but what does an ordinary person do with one once he has one?

Oh well.

Ed

quote Originally posted by Boondawg: A really big bong.

must have smoked out of it when he got the idea to build it