NYT on Sonofusion

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

Malcolm Browne writes today on sonoluminescence to produce cold 
fusion.  Nix crypto, no excuso.

For email copy send blank message with subject:  SON_fuz


Some tidbits:


   New Shot at Cold Fusion
   By Pumping Sound Waves
   Into Tiny Bubbles


   [Drawing caption]
   New Fusion Recipe:  Sound Plus Bubbles

   Fusion creates great energy but requires tremendous
   temperatures. In a new approach that scientists hope might
   reach such temperatures, they are using minuscule bubbles
   as the focus for sound waves. In this figure, a tiny
   heating element boils just enough water to create a single
   micron-sized bubble. A sound field makes the bubble
   pulsate. As it expands, it absorbs sound energy. Then it
   violently collapses, launching a spherical, inward-moving
   supersonic shock wave, which produces enormous temperatures
   and a flash of light.


   By Malcolm W. Browne

   Ever since the first hydrogen bomb was detonated in 1952,
   scientists have sought to harness thermonuclear fusion as
   a peaceful power source, but that goal has proved
   tantalizingly elusive. Now, however, there seems to be an
   outside chance that a wholly new technique could achieve
   it. Bombarding microscopic bubbles with intense sound waves
   could convert the bubbles into minuscule fusion furnaces.

   Recent experiments by a half-dozen laboratories suggest
   that a mysterious phenomenon called sonoluminescence may be
   capable of raising the temperature of gas trapped in a tiny
   bubble to 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit or more -- enough,
   in principle, to ignite fusion.

   If fusion were achieved, a microbubble could be expected to
   radiate neutrons, nuclear particles produced by
   thermonuclear reactions. So far, the laboratories
   experimenting with sonoluminescence have failed to detected
   any neutrons, but there are other signs that the project is
   far from hopeless.

   ***

   Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, the nation's
   preeminent hydrogen bomb laboratory, has conducted some
   small experiments on "sonofusion," the name that would be
   bestowed on any fusion technique powered by sonoluminescent
   bubbles.

    As part of its nuclear weapons research programs during the
   1980's, Livermore built the Nova laser, which focuses
   multiple beams of ultrapowerful lasers from all directions
   on a small target. Among the targets Livermore has tested
   are tiny, hollow glass spheres filled with hydrogen
   isotopes. In a typical experiment, the laser beams are
   turned on, the glass instantly vaporizes and the resulting
   shock wave of glass vapor is driven inward to compress the
   hydrogen. The idea is to get the hydrogen hot enough to
   initiate fusion.

   ***

   Still, the nation's thermonuclear bomb designers eventually
   solved similar problems for full-scale hydrogen bombs, and
   Livermore's scientists believe that inertial confinement
   fusion as a means of generating comparatively cheap
   electric power will eventually prove to be practical.

   The tiny bubbles used in sonoluminescence experiments are
   similar in terms of their fusion physics to their big
   brothers, hydrogen bombs and on a smaller scale, to the
   glass spheres used in inertial confinement fusion.

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   End tids


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