[extropy-chat] A ROOM-TEMPERATURE PALM-SIZED NUCLEAR FUSION DEVICE

John K Clark jonkc at att.net
Thu Apr 28 17:07:20 UTC 2005


"Dan Clemmensen" <dgc at cox.net>

>With just a bit of cleverness, it may be possible to
>engineer a micro-scale chain reaction and achieve
>a controllable break-even. This should scare you,
>since it would then be trivial to use the result as
>a trigger for an arbitrarily large thermonuclear device.

To my knowledge a fusion chain reaction has never been observed, not in a
H bomb or even the center of a star. And it's already possible to make an
arbitrarily large thermonuclear device; you just need a chain reaction in a
small fission bomb to heat and compress the fusion fuel. The recent
developments claim to fame is that it is small and very cheap, not needing
expensive high voltage power supplies. Even if it can't be scaled up for
power production (the inventors don't seem to think it can be) a cheap
neutron source would be very useful and a gadget that can accelerate gas to
high velocity could perhaps be used in rockets.

  John K Clark      jonkc at att.net






More information about the extropy-chat mailing list