{Just a little bit about myself.}
{{As a physicist/engineer/scientist I offer technical knowledge to anyone searching for understanding and answers to the more complex questions.}}
*Zen Insight*
(1). "The butterfly, Resting on the temple bell, Asleep!"
(2). "We must endure our thoughts all night, until The bright obvious stands motionless in the cold."
**Quantum Physics**
(1). Quarks = U(p) = 2 electron mass units (emu) 2/3 proton charge (pc)
D(own) = 6 emu -1/3 pc
S(trange) = 200 emu -1/3 pc
C(harmed) = 3000 emu 2/3 pc
B(ottom) = 9000 emu -1/3 pc
T(op) = Unmeasured 2/3 pc
(THE TOP QUARK IS SOMETIMES CALLED TRUTH)
By: Olaf Gniechwitz
There are no specific theories regarding the breaking of molecular bonds. However, there are other approaches, which would produce the same output, i.e., breaking through a wall without demolishing it. For example, one could apply a localized sonic field to where a hole is desired. In theory, the field would locally disrupt the integrity of the wall and allow a small portion to collapse without damaging the remainder of the wall. However, I would not attempt this on existing walls as it has not been proven.Your first question of altering molecular structure, opens a number of potential avenues. If you are asking specifically for changing water into wine, I suggest looking in the Holy Bible under John Chapter 2. But this is probably not what you were looking for. Many so-called scientists have looked throughout history for ways to change one material into another. You've probably heard the term alchemist. Alchemists were known for investigating this very thing. Unfortunately, none of them ever turned lead into gold. However, they were responsible for much of chemistry's foundation.One last note. We do have one means of changing one molecule into another, nuclear fusion/fission. Technically, this represents the altering of one molecule into another by adding/removing nuclear particles.
Magnetic Confinement Fusion
Magnetic fields can confine fusion fuel at temperatures and densities sufficiently high for the fuel to burn. Berkeley research in magnetic confinement fusion focuses on theory, and experiments with the Berkeley Compact Toroidal Experiment.
Tokamak research entered a new and important phase last month. Shortly before midnight on 9 December, the 11-year-old Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory was fired for the first time with a 50-50 mixture of deuterium and tritium. That's the mixture of hydrogen isotopes envisioned for the first generation of fusion reactors, because DT fusion can be harnessed at much lower temperatures than DD or D3He fusion, and the cross section for the proton-proton reaction that powers the Sun is hopelessly small. But until now most Tokamak research has been done, for practical reasons, with pure deuterium plasmas.
Two years ago the Joint European Torus in England, a larger machine of TFTR's generation, did perform two shots with a 10% admixture of tritium. JET's tritium experiment was purposely limited so as to minimize radioactivation of the machine. Not only is tritium a radioactive beta emitter; it also generates 14-MeV neutrons when it fuses with deuterium. The accumulating neutron flux from an extended series of 50:50 DT shots gradually activates a tokamak's superstructure.
That's less of a problem for the TFTR, because it is scheduled for retirement this fall, after a series of about a thousand DT shots, to free up funds for the proposed construction of PPPL's next major undertaking: the Tokamak Physics Experiment. The $600 million TPX would be this country's first fully superconducting tokamak.(See Physics Today, November, page 79.) One of the principal purposes of this new national facility would be to study techniques for running tokamak reactors in a continuous, as distinguished from pulsed, mode. If the TPX is not eventually funded, the useful life of the TFTR could be extended by the installation of remote handling equipment. The reaction that is to power the first generation of tokamak fusion reactors is 2H + 3H ^ n(14 MeV)+4He(3.5 MeV). Pure deuterium plasmas are very useful surrogates for the requisite DT mixture when it comes to the investigation of magnetohydrodynamic stability and energy transport. But they don't generate the energetic alpha particles (helium nuclei) that are essential for maintaining the temperature of an ignited plasma. (The even more energetic neutrons deposit almost none of their energy in the plasma. Their function is to carry useful energy out to the external world.)
Inertial Confinement Fusion
When compressed to a sufficiently high density, the inertia of fusion fuel can confine it long enough to burn. Berkeley research in inertial confinement fusion supports national efforts to reach ignition in ICF targets, and to design power plants to harness energy these targets would produce.
LLNL's ICF Program supports activities in two major interrelated areas: target physics and technology (experimental, theoretical, and computational research); and laser science and optics technology development. Experiments on LLNL's Nova laser primarily support target ignition and weapons physics research. Experiments on LLNL's Beamlet laser support laser science and optics technology development.
The continuing objective of the ICF Program is the demonstration of thermonuclear fusion ignition and energy gain in the laboratory. The underlying theme of all ICF activities as a science research and development program is the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Defense Programs (DP) science-based Stockpile Stewardship and Management (SSM) Program.
In addition, ICF sciences and technologies, developed as part of the DP mission goals, continue to support other DOE objectives. These objectives are to achieve diversity in energy sources through inertial fusion energy (IFE) research and to maintain a competitive U.S. economy through development of new technologies of interest for government and industrial use, including those developed under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program (LDRD).
Inertial Confinement Fusion
When compressed to a sufficiently high density, the inertia of fusion fuel can confine it long enough to burn. Berkeley research in inertial confinement fusion supports national efforts to reach ignition in ICF targets, and to design power plants to harness energy these targets would produce.
Neutron Sources
The Rotating Target Neutron Source at U.C. Berkeley provides the largest source of fusion-energy neutrons in North America.
Plasma Sciences
Plasma sciences research at U.C. Berkeley focuses on the theory and application of plasmas in a range of important uses.
The joke has made the rounds. Fusion, the nuclear process that lights up the sun, is the energy source of the future and always will be. The joke arose (unfairly) from the technical difficulties encountered by a strategy for achieving fusion energy called "magnetic confinement." There is, however, a second strategy for achieving fusion energy, one that has only recently been thrust into the r&d spotlight. This second strategy is called "inertial confinement," and its future is now.
Fusion is the melding together of lighter atomic nuclei to form heavier nuclei, an action that releases roughly one million times the energy released by the burning of oil. The reason for the continued pursuit of fusion as a commercial source of energy is no joke. The citizens of this country and the rest of the world currently depend upon fossil fuels-oil, gas and coal-for the energy that lights, heats and cools buildings, powers machinery, and drives industrial processes. One day these fuels will be exhausted. Most projections show that severe shortfalls between global energy demands and fossil fuel supplies will begin to be felt toward the end of the 21st century. New sources of energy before then are a must.
Fusion is an excellent candidate. It is safe: unlike fission, where atomic nuclei are split, fusion cannot sustain a chain reaction and, with proper design, does not produce high-level radioactive by-products that must be carefully stored for thousands of years. Nor is there a solid fuel core that could melt down-the so-called "China Syndrome." It is clean: unlike the burning of fossil fuels, fusion would not contribute to the greenhouse effect, acid rain, or the depletion of the ozone layer. And it would last forever: the fuel for a fusion power plant would be deuterium and tritium, the two isotopes of hydrogen. Both of these isotopes can be obtained from ordinary water-deuterium is extracted directly, and tritium is produced from the element lithium. Enough fusion water to supply a year's worth of electrical power to a metropolitan city could be delivered in a pickup truck.
Ironically, the holdup in the development of fusion as a commercial energy source has been an energy barrier. The analogy has been made that igniting a fusion reaction is like trying to light a wet match. Fusing two nuclei together requires overcoming the electrostatic repulsion that drives them apart (try forcing a pair of bar magnets to touch at the same poles). This electrostatic energy barrier can only be overcome by forcing the nuclei together at extremely high speeds, which means heating them to a temperature of about 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit). Furthermore, the heated nuclei must be confined long enough to interact which poses another problem since heated nuclei tend to fly apart. To date, this has only been achieved in the hydrogen bomb which uses an atomic bomb as its trigger. Clearly, an alternative is needed for a commercial fusion energy plant.
Starting from the early 1950s, the largest fusion energy research effort has been directed at magnetic confinement, also known as magnetic fusion energy or MFE. In this scheme, thermonuclear fuel is contained as an ionized gas, called a plasma, by a powerful magnetic field. This magnetically confined plasma is then heated to ignition. Although experimental efforts have shown tantalizing promise (hence the joke), the technical obstacles in scaling up from small laboratory experiments to commercial-size reactors have persisted. MFE experiments continue to consume more energy than they produce, though the gap has been shrinking and could be erased should the proposed International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ever go online.
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