This episode of astronomy cast is brought to you bye swing burn astronomy online the world longest running online astronomy degree program this it astronomy dot s w i n died at u dot eighty for more information. Gonna yeah episode two hundred and five one way or whatever for two thousand nuclear for you was gonna be kind of server backspace true because my screen you understand we what we know what how we know what we know. My name is free to change on the publisher university and which means doctor pamela t a professor at the southern illinois university a family doing. I'm doing well how are you doing fraser good good with the big uh how we drop a bomb around here our our kids are learning these kind of sugar coat walk around. Jones and i i love that point in the evening when you have sugar high children and foot before parents who just wanted to be done yeah i'm like i didn't think my daughter to do this but you sprint it the to every house gonna we've. Was formed after the big bang all we had was hydrogen through the process of fusion these hydrogen atoms were crushed into heavier and heavier elements fusion gives was warped and white from the sun destruction with fusion bombs. It might be sources inexpensive energy. And then there's that whole controversy of cold fusion. Right pamela well let's go right back to the beginning then and get rid of part of it so were. When we see nuclear fusion we're talking about. We're talking about anytime you take to outcomes and you switch them together and get one out and then usually buy products and hopefully energy but not always no musician will show. That's right obviously technical term actually going on. I literally i i don't know how else you describe it didn't than switching scientifically you say you take to particles and you collide them together it high enough lost used to overcome the repulsive forces and centers of the nuclear acts would you prefer to. Adams at each other and if they hit perfectly they would fuse. If they had sufficient energy to over com the desire tree pull to each other right tries to because there's some speed it's. I'm amount of energy the you in part to these items we would smashed into each other and they would fuse. But then when we think about see the inside of a store we talk about you know tremendous gravitates no energy should move shane one is that a collision boards you know no these are those are lit really cool it collision so what you have in the center of the star. Is it it's under the stars not actually switch the gravity that's holding it together as it's just to. The light pressure of all the other reactions going on builds up the temperature in the center of the star see of all the pressure from the top players getting sucked down. So the stuff on the top of the star it's experiencing a lot of pull down words but when you're in the very center of the star is there a gravity happy. But you have the wait of everything above you school shooting down creating pressure pressure builds nuclear reactions begin to occur nuclear reactions generate light light increases the pressure. High density high temperature high pressure all of this combined. To allow. The nuclear i d's high high temperatures to collide with sufficient philosophies and sit in sufficient numbers have on going nuclear reactions soon it's the high temperature. That's imparting though you know the fast g- going. Through the adams and and therefore they have enough velocity to. When they bumped into each other to then then fuse and so. If we has gone servers or you would have to fire your. Your adams really fast but it hot temperature it's just the the. Just a background heat doesn't even for bringing quickly temperature in the speed of the exact same thing right no i understand i understand so eh cold temperatures you don't have high velocity so. Right right of course okay so and then and then you said that that there is energy released. To a point and and this is one of the weird this is about why we end up with super now they. Is is centers a stars you have high did you burning you have here lamborghini have carbon burning of nitrogen oxygen burning silicon burning you work your way up through all the lower elements and tell you ahead i'm here. And at on hearing there's this magical transformation and how the the particle physics works where prior to getting too iron when you merged two things together released energy. One you get happier than iron. It takes energy in order to combine the two items into a single how to but at the same time what you have is hires an iron if you break the adam apart then it releases energy. Right and that's vision right and that's a different show doesn't like a different show yeah perhaps a second show in a week sent home but okay so then what kind of energy is being just being released if you so if you crushed. You know if you've use to ah how did you have together. Wanted you comes out. How much not enough to light a lightbulb but that's just that's just too i don't. Right that's over a lot yeah no you don't get in a couple of of reactions you don't get enough energy released. To really worry about it it's because you have so many reactions going on at once. That together you're able to get enough energy released that you can support a start. And so was the light that we see coming off the sun dot that energy from a fusion reactions. Oh eventually this this is where things get a little bit weird so what ends up happening is you have deep in the center of the star you have. All of these nuclear reactions going on you have things like. Hydrogen combining uh forming heavy hydrogen which is a high addition has a new try and it the whole series entering actions right i know it's not they put movies stay trading yeah steps of what happened to get you to. To the end result and and each of these is giving off somewhere on the order of them that go like consul of energy to a few mega like con- bolts of energy. Is coming off camera registering older coming off as cameras are coming off you also have uh new trainers released you have. A variety of different ways of the energy comes flying out but when i say like for instance the press hon pro time chain. Might give us a few tens of night electronic bolts down to less than one meg electronic vault that strictly the light that's coming on. It's awesome c mega old like tromped no this late that's coming off as it tries to escape the sun it's not like we're getting blasted with gatherings here on the ponders instead were saying this black body spectrum that peaks. Somewhere in the yellow wish colors but when your average out the distribution the sun is white if you can escape the earth's atmosphere. The reason we see this distribution of colors is just. High energy light as it tries to get out of the sign it does this crazy what we call brownie and motion eight goes in one direction gets absorbed gets re released in another direction and gets absorbed gets re released in another direction. And how that goes sometimes you have an out of the gets excited or actually an electronic if excited and it cascades down for a variety of different transmissions releasing the multitude of different. Particles of light of different fo- times is a cascades through the energy levels. So what started off as high energy light and the turning into this distribution of a whole bunch of different colors right i remember when we talk about what's going on in the sun. Then it can take a hundred thousand years for single full time to to to be generated a fusion reaction and then to. Run through a whole bunch of different items would be absorbed in rio minute until finally able to be released from those are some some. So it's it's a long process and it's it's brian motion it takes forever and then eventually. I the light escapes what's called the radiator transfer part of the sign it hits the conductor zone and then it just sort of rides out that there myself and gets radiator ways thermal. Late in the black body spectrum that we see is there a different pros yes for fusion for the hydrogen for the have your own it's because i know they don't as the sun is running out of energy are running out of of usable hygienist cold war. It'll switched refusing keel the middle switch just using. With him and oxygen and carbons. Is the process kind of different i mean is the mouse different well it it's different in terms of two plus two equals four and one plus five equal six but you use the same math to figure it out. So what did you true carbons merging together are going to release but different amount of energy in a different carpet instead of nutri knows and produce different intermediate particles. But there's always the same set of particle physics rules and once you learn was rolls you can. Actually calculate very accurately what's gonna happen in these different reactions so i was like a tough question. Oh yeah you'll be given this out i'm in that adam it takes a long to do it on and test is usually a form of torture is one week long homework assignments imagine some exotic star works. Carbon and. Uranium particles are being merge together yeah that one doesn't happen but you winters interview is about. Yeah and it will be something like carbon twelve hits regular hide your chin what are the result it's end result and is nitrogen and generate and energy release. What happens if you have nitrogen thirteen well it the caves and the carbon and. A er positive trend on and and you treat now an energy and so there's all these different chemical reactions but the neat thing about most of the fusion processes. Is they all involve hydrogen for the most part somewhere in the stage so it's carbon hydrogen not to car but. It's nitrogen height your can not to nitrogen so i. Hydrogen it really has its claws and every reaction any adverse right. Or a and and so then i mean and that's the same process is going on. In old stores in the university it's you know once they hit that fusion reaction of the core they're releasing all this energy it just keeps the star insulated yes right and. But but but then here on earth i mean just kind of fusion powers that something that that find is in trying to wrangle with. As a source of power as a source of destruction soon so how's that different well it it's the exact same physics but we're kind of lacking a friendly containment vessel. With with the star you have the crashing pressure of all the outer layers of the star pushing in. On the center of the star that confines the the nuclear burning region and maintains its density and maintains its temperature through the pressure density reactor relationships. On earth it's kinda hard to maintain that then cities necessary in the. It sure is necessary to drive fusion so you need to things you need temperature because the high temperatures what gets the adam's moving fast enough that when they collide they overcome the desire to retaliate show they're. But the density is also important as well because if you have one out i'm moving as fast as it needs to go and it never hit the second out i'm because the density there too low fusion is never going to take place you need. Both the high density that allows the collisions to take place. And the high temperatures allows the velocity said overcome the desire true tells. Maintaining there's two things is something that we're struggling with we've figured out a variety of different ways to do it but. All the ways that we know to create fusion if they take more energy to start then we get out through the fusion reaction. So because we don't have the mass of a star taxes are handy containment vessel. We have to figure out some kind of magnetic way too. Levitt take the the watch right well it's either magnetic or it's a lasers we type trying to stay or if we we try it with the with acoustic bubbles. Not so much success there we've tried a whole variety of things to to get the density some temperatures needed. Right and then once again because we need to. To work you know space that's smaller than planet earth. We need to raise the temperatures or what higher than than they have to do in the sun even you know it's the same temperature what was it okay yeah it's the same temperature because all that matters as of last year direct. So. You get the same velocity at the same temperature in the sign hand on the air. But. The problem is we have to maintain that same density says on the phone as well and that's where you have to use lasers and make demands and yeah. To keep it to keep it density so so what is i mean fusion is always thirty years away but it but i'm they've been doing that for since seven years yeah yeah so me are we thirty years away right now. Well we can generate fusion all we want it it's just a matter of it takes more energy to do it then we get out of it which is a problem. So for instance for a while the big area of research with took mac reactors these are small little vision systems that. Use magnetic fields to create essentially don't know stuff plasma and you tune the magnetic field. To create high density is inside this taurus just don't it and tell you can generate needed temperatures to drive nuclear fusion but it takes a whole lot of that if you just set the system um. You go out of you've got your make them a bubble you've got lasers you've got sheet it'll it'll come together this at the same time and. Be interviewed it comes back out isn't enough to run to react well and i tell connect all it is is the nine attic fields no laser require years yeah no lasers here so the token hockey just have. This poor roy eight of plasma and when you squish found that tower right yes you can't get. If they what they see is the by products um nuclear fusion they see it surplus of new trying to. And it's that surplus and you're trying to tell this to gain something happened but all the energy that goes into generating the plasma that goes injured maintaining the magnetic fields that goes into the whole system. It makes it hard now nice thing is this also means so we're never going to get run re- fusion reaction so where you can get run away station reactions nuclear power plants because. All you need to do to stop the fusion reactions from generating energy is turn off magnetic field and instantly no more run away nuclear reactions because they weren't running away there being forced to run into there will. Right okay and but then i mean i neutral come back i mean that was as you said back in the seventies and eighties we're we're thirty forty years past that so what's the the latest advances in. Confusion research well it's. Uh that works well anything so well we know that we can also generate fusion through them you on processes. You can get new ones through various different the k processes this means you have to have some sort of a high energy. Collide or accelerator something that's going to create the radioactive decay is that will lead to them you want some you ones are some subatomic particles it. Are released from. Carter conclusions. Right via decay processes involving usually pie ons anyways that's a lot of crazy article said but but that sounds like expensive to collector new wants well not only that but the energy necessary. To get the me lines from the accelerator so. Is it something that we figured out how to overcome for the problem is me on aren't stable. See set new ones loosing something that wants to undergo fusion something like for instance if you have heavy hydrogen in the form of deteriorate trade him this heavy hydrogen is fairly willing diffuse. Now let me line it might undergo a hundred of mine and you're good to hundred various people argue over the results we've gotten we think it's highs two hundred and fifty few asians before and you wind decides to. Either bind with a special form of healing and called alpha particle or if the case or otherwise goes away. Well the energy release to this fusion events is still lessen the energy needed to get that and you want and the first place. So we're off by. On a good day of factor for on energy out versus energy and. And that's a good day but it's so frustrating because it's on it's sitting there. You know no technology required get a lot of hygiene june putting your itself it'll merge down into a ball and generate energy well it's like fall meaning energy all that grab occasional potential is is. Holding their system in a situation that enable sufficient to take place but it's just so frustrating it's the same thing is what you know a hundred years ago somebody say no it's not possible to fly. And you see birds light around you can't be done. For those birds well we're not willing to say can't be done or something right willing to say uh this technique doesn't seem affect it so i mean you on driven fusion not so good you went cattle eyes you should not so good. Energy and not equals energy out. Yeah. So we've tried other things my favorite in terms of ooh that just sounds fun is bubble fusion this is where. Win global fusion yeah basically you you create bubbling fluid who doesn't like they're fluid doubling. And the bubbles you you drives and did different if they they call it so no women i since this is where you grow the but the bubble via slow expansion. And then squash it as fast as you can't. And that's sudden collapse of the bible. Presses the center down very small and when you compressed something you drive up the temperature and that. High temperature region in the center of this class and double releases light and there's controversy old most people don't believe it but there's controversy all potential evidence. That you can get the you can get fusion out of the s now the reason i had controversy l is. The experiments that have done have it then your refuted believe repeated we haven't always seem to buy products confusion eh the lots of controversy it's not something. That you trust when you have a good solid experiment it's the type of thing you can hang on to a grad student say hey go replicate this is a good like. Homework project for your semester. We're we're not at that point yet that this is a lab project that you can give to a grad student i know it's going to work well so because thirty years away yeah now with we have one more hope so oh ok so. The one we're hoping days are supposed razors everything's better with lasers exactly and. There are lasers out there that are being designed that in a single poles of the laser beam. Give off the same amount of energy that like the whole united states used. You bet in that net on second that that'll yeah right. So that's that's kind of awesome and and what they're working to do is figure out. Okay so we know touch with shark right well that would be awesome but unfortunately these lasers like the size of a drop off this building there apparently not the size of awesome looking office buildings because they're only built inside drought looking building right. What they do is they take these lasers and they split the beam and then focus all light down on a single basically b b. And these babies are seeded with things that want to excuse tree damn do terry and and then they're often in case to something like gold and then you fire on his baby from a whole bunch of different sites. And all of the energy from the light goes into school she was the jesus and all use that as a scientific term today question that the jeez is out of this baby so that it's under going the same pressures the experience in the center of the star. And the idea is this will create fusion. Now we've gotten to the point that we know how to successfully fire it babies we think navy there's been fine confusion repeatedly uhhuh. There's always the problems of when you fire one of these lasers the whole building shakes like six feet in some instances. Um so takes a while to be able to read fire but we haven't gotten to the point that with these large. Basically laser commission systems. We can't have sustainable fusion yet and we oh really aren't producing the amount of energy that goes into the fading opinionated sir. Right right okay so so you you fire this be be it generates fusion inside to be the b. b. for a second. You've used up. The same amount of interviews entire united states print out on a second and you didn't necessarily get out that much energy from the fusion to be be right and you had to shake a whole building and ah. You know you've called on your laser and all kinds of things it's. That have happened after that yeah they they in order to be able to fire these lasers these giant capacitors i'd have to be stored in special fluids in essentially olympic sized swimming pool. Right the heat up pretty quick yeah okay so hm so that's one thirty years away so what are both turn of sort of a cold fusion. Yeah cold fusion as one of those the little fairy tales that they told back in the late eighties. Want you i don't think it's ever reached fairy tale i think it reached you know humiliating uh sort of mistakes of silence. And you know i mean ones i mean i remember i remember right part yeah what will ask you know announcer v i figured out a way of doing fusion that you could do is you know be cr- on you know a very small. Uh lab set up on the table of any science you know abort torie and instead of going to the regular methods he's. They went to the public i mean it'll be press conference and they demonstrated what they were doing them and it turned over to be. Wrong not fusion at all. So what what was the name of of that date skeleton in europe awhile back that so i don't have anyone's attention. Yeah i don't you're talking about and neither of us are are having the ability to remember but this this is that type of fraud in terms of sounded great everyone chased it tons of money spent in. Trying to recreate it only to realize now. And this actually reached a fascinating level of there is house of representatives investigations cornell had to do an in house investigation. There we're academic stripped of their ability to have graduate students. And the ideal with with this so called cold fusion experiment ways you set up a b curve filled with. Special versions of different fluids where you replace all the hydrogen atoms with d cheery them items i just basically outta new trying to every adam of hydrogen in your solution. And then run electric current three year your fluid do i like college says. And in the process this would squish stuff on one is your one side of the current. And this in very would leave to asian taking place. And it it's a good idea it's a good i did that still took work wasn't there some things i mean ah from what i understand they're still was something going on. It just wasn't. You know cold fusion is as as we all understood it there was some kind of interesting chemical process going on but i guess that's what i'm saying what configured approach to properly if they had. Just released paper saying hey we from is interesting what chemical processes. Yeah i'm uh it it wasn't that interesting at the end of the day so i here in these two guys that spent a hundred thousand dollars a basically their own money setting up their lab equipment. And they they were working on a bigger grant proposal the the life blood of those of us who live on plopped money. And how. They they hurt other people who are working on fusion then the on cal life fusion nice talking about earlier that does actually work and they they'd each scene interesting things they were getting ready for for a press release. And the first thing that screen style one that's it's flash my name ponds head in agreement with another collie gets another university was doing a different form a fusion. That all of their papers would be sitting at at the same day to the same journal from the same airport via fedex. And then freshman times decided that they were going to instead go to a different journal two days earlier and hold a press release hold a press conference. So that's just sort of. It not playing nice with your professional peers. On one journal article that they sitting there they they just sort of randomly added the name of some dude who they knew would help them get through the review process better. But he didn't actually take part in the research at the level that they claimed there's just a lot of weird academic borderline for odd going on. The type of stuff that you look at and you're like tubes you really should have done this a little bit better constrain what you're claiming uhhuh yeah that's all and this was will situations or carl sagan sesno extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is an extraordinary clean you know if we energy. And or extraordinary evidence and they do the opposite of that yeah they did. Which is pretend that but for to yeah and you know and unfortunately it's really hard to distinguish them from any cranks. Yeah notes this huh oh current corporate so that's that's too bad should i be destroyed a career the destroyed what could have been an interesting. Just pool area of research by changing the whole thing i know that you know now would even see equal steve shouldn't. Get you treated completely right and and that's actually really bad for the entire fusion community because yeah i i have to admit. I i look at all the money b i e spending and the deal you spending mine fusion reactors and the national ignition um nest uh the big laser projects that they're working on. And it makes me a bit sad because i don't think that this is going to be this wishing everyone's hoping for. You will you personally think that that fusion is not degree hope that everyone drinks i i don't think so i i don't think we can. Find ways to get more energy out than we put in but it's still a fascinating area of research there's a lot of fundamental physics going on. And if we can look at from the fundamental basic research in oh cool isn't that neat. Instead of looking at it with the story i'd we're going to save the universe where at least going to save the planet are right that changing contacts. Might need people are more careful it it's the difference between digging thinking you're going to hate golden breaking every safety regulation in the desire take change the future of your children and grandchildren versus the. Randomly walking around picking up petrified wood because it's pretty right i i can totally see that that that do research into fusion is so valuable because it's the very hard of the with the whole universe works. And the answers that come out of it or of the we have no idea what benefits is who makes any kind but as soon as you near one the blinders and see we must turn this into an energy generating power sources. Then then that's sort of shuts down. All of the more basics your research that could be going on. And i just love it if we could see this sort of fusion research going into the same dead in that we see the search expose on as essential cool in austin we're spending money on but not at the help of all mankind and there are some amazing so. Oh comes from. The particle excel register me think about anti matter which is the. Now used in in the medical community for. Pause try a new missions scanners right. So they're they're all the they're all these benefits to do come out but in many cases it's like let's wait until the basic researched really been been done and don't jump to an engineering solution right yeah i get that. Okay cool thanks a lot pamela analyzing next week we'll talk about television it sounds great fraser and not ones a lot more destructive cool yeah alright definitely getting those i this has been astronomy cad a weekly backspace journey through because journalism transcripts for every episode are available on our website check it out at astronomy cast dot com you can send us any comments questions or p back then vote astronomy test dot com weary every email fisher with a nonprofit educational resource provided by free became a doctor family day we're supported through the kind of nations of listeners like you if you enjoy from cast wanna give us a donation help favorite band with transcript and sure enough just go to the only way on the website all the nations are tax deductible for u. s. taxpayers' you can support sure for free to write a review for recommended to your friends. Every little bit helps quick support the show on our website to see some suggestions to subscribe to the show on your part that the software at astronomy test dot com. Twice broadcast out x. amount were subscribe directly from like that music is provided by travis earl sure was that it is hard pressed it gives us astronomy test is produced it southern illinois university over to them with generous support from universe today hm hm uhhuh uhhuh uhhuh oh
Copyright Astronomy Cast