Fusion???

i've been thinking about fusion for the past couple days... it seems incredible that we cant recreate stable fusion outside of a star...

anyone have answers to these Qs?

The universe existed before fusion occured? everything was just hydrogen?

So there was nothing solid until fusion occured?

Was light present before fusion? or is light a product of fusion?

 

there was an article I posted a while back about them working it at a texas (I think texas anyway) school, they were calling it cold fusion, I can see their angle, there was debate, I was out for awhile, I have no idea where the thread went......

 

Interesting questions, here we go.
Yes the universe existed before fusion, however stars didn't. Before the start of fusion the universe consististed of hydrogen and other sub atomic matter (infact its still largely this today). Im not sure what the largest elements created before stars where but certainly only helium and lithium if anything, I seem ot remember that there was only hydrogen but ive forgotten the reasoning.

I doubt there was solid matter before stars as hydrogen doesnt solidify until practically absolute zero.

Light would have been rpesent before fusion, to get light you only need oscillating charged particles and they would have existed long before the first stars. Light is a product of fusipon but there are other was to get it as well.

 

So many people think that the A Bomb was a fusion bomb, it was a fission bomb. Ah i love being a science student.

 

was that asked?

I thought that was general knowledge...... I feel a little silly now....

h-bombs are interesting,

I've heard conflicting info, did a neutron bomb ever get off the ground and weaponized?


Pretty sure we have no fusion weapons though.....

could be wrong....

 

So, because the question wasn't asked that means i can't broach the subject? Be a post nazi why don't ya

 

neutron bomb? a nuclear warhead is a fission device. neutrons are fired into radioactive material, and they break it up. the breakup of the radioactive material releases more energy than is required to break it, and so the energy spreads and fissures more radioactive molecules, releasing more energy, so it all ends up in an exponential boom.

so a neutron bomb is probably another name for a standard nuclear weapon.

think of a glob of air drying clay. to tear it apart, you just break it off, maybe put a little water on it to moisten it. however if you wanna put little bits of it all together.. you need to really push it together, and mould it back into one shape pretty much.

fission can be imagined as breaking a molecule into two, and then the electron 'shield' of the particle closing over their respective, smaller molecules.

however if you push two molecules together, you are gonna be pushing two electron shields together. you need to put in enoug hforce to push the neuclei of the molecules through eachother's whole electron field and then actually combine in the middle. under normal circumstances, if you put a proton near a proton, they will fly away from eachother. the only time this does not happen is in an ionic atmosphere (which is unstable) or when the protons are within a shield of electrons. that means in order to fuse two molecules, you need enough energy to push their electron clouds through eachother (while this is happening, before the molecules actually merge, this is like pushing two north poles together, they oppose eachotehr more and more as they get closer)in such a way that the two molecules align perfectly and instead of negating eachother, they reinforce eachother.

the reason fission is much easier is that neutrons have no charge. they can pass through electron clouds, and then break apart proton nuclei without quantum obstruction.

so pulling a molecule apart is one thing. merging two positively charged masses is sorta like trying to merge two eggs into one egg. normally if you break two eggs near eachother, their whites will merge into one cloud. but if you push them together, their yolks wont merge into one, like two puddles of oil in water might. you need just the right conditions.

i hope that helped.

 

no there was talk of making a bomb that only gives off an intense blast of neutrons. Im not sure of the idea but as neutrons are uncharged, I imagine the idea would be to get it to interact with the nuclei of your enemies and make them become radioactive. Whatever happened to it I dunno, I imagine it was just generally a bad idea as making places radioactive doesnt really help anyone in the long run, you cant really invade an irradiated wasteland.

 

Intrestingly im also one post short of 300, oh no not anymore. I did actually have a point to make a quick correction to the challenge of fusion, in a fusion bomb the challenge is getting protons to overcome electrostatic repulsion not electrons. Getting electrons out the the way isnt particularly challenging. As by the time you are anywhere near the energy required to combine two protons the electrons have reached such an elevated quantum state they become free particles (quantum mechanically their wavefunction changes) and they drift off.

 

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i dont think you read it right caus i didnt meant to make out the electrons were the greatest barrier, but i did imagine it had some effect

 

I never really understood that only kills living things argument. To my mind a netron can only interact with an atomic nuclei, far too smaller scale to distinguish between organic and in-organic matter. Is it simply its ability to induce temporary radioactivity that makes it dangerous? Or is there a more direct mechanism that im missing?

 

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So it really does only work by destabilising other nuclei.Still I guess that could be quite effective. Im sure there are more effective ways after all its not very easy to generate high numbers of high energy neutrons without a nuclear blast, the enemy might just notice you trying to smuggle a particle accelerator in. Most strucutre are stell based which is mostly Iron which is the most stable nuclei by some way. I guess thats why they seemed to go out of fashion.

 

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whoah whoah whoah, since when did somebody invent these neutrons ur all talking bout...


haha jk, I was thinking though about the laws of conservation of mass & energy...


Is fusion the only reaction where mass increases from the reactants to the product?
so the L.O.C. of mass doesnt apply to nuclear reactions, but the L.O.C. of energy does?

 

you can only kill living things,period. this may seem like a truismic statement but i think thats where your misconception came regarding nuclear weapons only effecting living things. radiation may fall on anything, but only chemical reactions will be noticeably altered, and living creautres ARE chemical reactions, so their whole being is disrupted./

 

wow didn't I create an interesting tangent...... you know I enjoy that so much....


gets ideas discussed that are ever so interesting.......


and yeah the making everything radioactive salting the earth neutron bomb was the on I was talking about.......

it's only really be good for "salting the earth" really in a tactical situation, wouldn't it?

 

A neutron, cannot take part in a chemical reaction, they have no net charge on the scale overwhich chemical reactions occur. That is why I am debating the point of a neutron bomb. I accept that a neutron bomb can alter nuclei and generate ionising radiation that can interefere with chemical reactions (or initiate them via electon promotion). But I was only saying that it seems a terribly convoluted way to go about it, radiation isnt particuarly good as a battlefield weapon anyway unless you can produce stupid amounts of it due ot the time delay. People exposed to the reactor at Chernobyl went on for years, not exactly the solution for the commander under fire.