Scientists flip the channel on history...
Barry Shein
I don't know about you, but I find this one mind-boggling.
-Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die
----------forwarded note----------
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 89 02:02:25 EST
From: dsr (David Reiser)
To: bzs
Subject: History of the Human Race
Somewhere near Arcturus, in a marketing firm of medium repute, a
red light goes on on a large display panel... "Hey Okator, get this..
the third planet from ELV-916 just figured out fusion power. Gas up a
probe and fill it with those combination sock deodorizer/bread toasters and
send a salesman right down." ...
(From the Wire Services)
'FUSION' NEWS
1. SCIENTISTS CLAIM SENSATIONAL SUCCESS IN FUSION EXPERIMENT
NEW YORK (MARCH 23) - A British and an American scientist claimed Thursday they
had found a simple way to create controlled nuclear fusion, the scientific
Eldorado which governments have been devoting one billion dollars a year to
find.
Professor Martin Fleischmann, a British electrochemist, and Professor B.
Stanley Pons of the University of Utah, said they could create nuclear fusion
at room temperature in a normal laboratory.
Nuclear fusion is the awesome power released by the hydrogen bomb. Scientists
have puzzled for four decades over how to keep nuclear fusion simmering so that
it could peacefully heat water and generate electricity.
''Our indications are that the discovery will be relatively easy to make into a
usable technology for generating heat and power,'' the two electrochemists said
in a statement released by the University of Utah.
If the Fleischmann-Pons experiment is confirmed, it is expected to open the
door to a new research area and ultimately create an energy source that would
be cheap, clean and almost inexhaustible.
Pons heads the chemistry faculty at the University of Utah. Fleischmann comes
from Southampton University in England. The two did their experiments with
money from the University of Utah.
In nuclear fusion, two light atomic nuclei are squeezed together until they
form one heavier nucleus. At the same time energy is given off. The sun's
energy is generated the same way.
Scientists around the world have been set to find a safe method of nuclear
fusion because it is expected to be environmentally clean compared to both oil
burning and nuclear fission, or atom-splitting, the process that currently
provides nuclear power.
A british newspaper, the Financial Times, said Thursday worldwide expenditure
on fusion research exceeded one billion dollars yearly and governments were
becoming impatient with its apparent slow progress towards a commercial fusion
reactor.
Scientists have found it hugely difficult to create steady fusion, and have
always assumed they would need to create temperatures of several million
degrees Celsius to make it work.
The fuel in a fusion reactor would be deuterium, or heavy water, a material
which is found in seawater.
In the new experiment, the heavy water surrounds two electrodes, one of
platinum and the other of palladium. The fusion process takes place in the
palladium electrode when an electric current is passed through the electrodes,
the scientists said.
The heat given off ''continues over long periods, is proportional to the volume
of the electrode and is so large that it can only be attributed to a nuclear
process,'' they said.
=END=
USA TODAY
FUSION SUCCESS REPORTED:
2 scientists - including an American - Thursday reported that they
successfully carried out nuclear fusion in a test tube. The Financial Times of
London reports that the process has the potential to provide unlimited,
inexpensive energy. The process fuses atoms instead of splitting them as
current nuclear technology does. (For more, see special Fusion package below.)
SPECIAL PACKAGE ON FUSION:
EXPERIMENT WAS SIMPLE:
2 electrochemists have apparently done in a test tube what has not yet been
achieved in gigantic nuclear research projects: Controlled nuclear fusion. The
Financial Times of London reports that their work - if confirmed - goes a long
way toward taming the nuclear forces powering the sun and the hydrogen bomb.
NUCLEAR FUSION CLEAN ENERGY:
Nuclear fusion releases energy by joining together light atoms. It has
several advantages over nuclear fission - the process of splitting heavy atoms
- which powers all current nuclear power stations: It's cleaner, producing
little radioactive waste; its raw material - deuterium - is abundant in sea
water; and fusion reactors are safer because the process shuts down
automatically.
EXPERIMENT DECEPTIVELY SIMPLE:
The nuclear fusion experiments carried out by 2 scientists at the University
of Utah are no more complex than the practical work done by typical chemistry
undergraduates, The Financial Times of London reports. They use electrochemical
techniques to achieve fusion of deuterium nuclei trapped inside an electrode
made from palladium, a metal similar to platinum.
RESEARCH IS EXCITING:
Physicists find it hard to believe deuterium nuclei could be squeezed
together tightly enough for fusion to occur as reported Thursday. But fusion
experts at the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority take it seriously because
professors Martin Fleischmann, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Stan Pons,
are distinguished scientists with a successful record of research in
electrochemistry.
LOTS MORE WORK AHEAD:
Professor Martin Fleischmann, one of the scientists reporting a controlled
nuclear fusion experiment Thursday, said the door is open to a new era of
research. He told The Financial Times of London: "Our indications are that the
discovery will be reasonably easy to make into a usable technology for
generating heat and power, but a lot more work is needed to prove its validity."
-Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die
There's nothing more terrifying to hardware vendors than
satisfied customers.
-Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die
There's nothing more terrifying to hardware vendors than
satisfied customers.