Scientists At Sandia National Nuclear lab Create Zero-Point Energy Accidentally?

[Hardrock69]

http://www.theregister.com/2006/03/09/hot_plasma/

Very hot stuff from the Z machine
By Lester Haines

Published Thursday 9th March 2006 15:37 GMT


Scientists at the Sandia National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory have produced plasma at a sizzling two billion kelvins - hotter than a star's interior - although they're not quite sure how they did it.

The "unexpectedly hot output", as the Sandia blurb puts it, is the spawn of the mighty Z machine (seen firing below as "arcs and sparks formed at the water-air interface travel between metal conductors" - crikey). The beast is the world's most powerful X-ray generator tasked mainly with "new experimental environments to help validate computer codes responsible for maintaining a reliable nuclear weapons stockpile safely and securely".

http://www.theregister.com/2006/03/09/z-machine.jpg


Sandia's explanation of the Z machine's normal operation is this:

20 million amps of electricity pass through a small core of vertical tungsten wires finer than human hairs. The core is about the size of a spool of thread. The wires dissolve instantly into a cloud of charged particles called a plasma.

The plasma, caught in the grip of the very strong magnetic field accompanying the electrical current, is compressed to the thickness of a pencil lead.

At that point, the ions and electrons have nowhere further to go. Like a speeding car hitting a brick wall, they stop suddenly, releasing energy in the form of X-rays that reach temperatures of several million degrees $B!=(B the temperature of solar flares.

The latest breakthrough, however, "was obtained in part by substituting steel wires in cylindrical arrays 55mm to 80mm in diameter for the more typical tungsten wire arrays, approximately only 20mm in diameter. The higher velocities achieved over these longer distances were part of the reason for the higher temperatures".

That partial explanation doesn't answer all of Sandia's questions, though. First up, the X-ray output was "as much as four times the expected kinetic energy input" meaning that some extra energy must have been pumped into the equation from somewhere.

Secondly, "high ion temperatures were sustained after the plasma had stagnated $B!=(B that is, after its ions had presumably lost motion and therefore energy and therefore heat $B!=(B as though yet again some unknown agent was providing an additional energy source to the ions".

Sandia project lead Chris Deeney summed it up with: "At first, we were disbelieving. We repeated the experiment many times to make sure we had a true result and not an 'Ooops'!"

A possible explanation for the mystery came from Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines of Imperial College in London, which appeared in the 24 February Physical Review Letters. In summary, Haines theorised that "the rapid conversion of magnetic energy to a very high ion plasma temperature was achieved by unexpected instabilities at the point of ordinary stagnation" (where the plasma's particles "should have been unable to travel further"). Haines postulates "some unknown energy" which continued to push back against the magnetic field for around 10 nanoseconds.

In other words: "Sorry, we don't exactly know what's going on but we'll get back to you soon." Watch this space. ®
Bootnote

Our regular science readers will remember that the Z machine was put forward as a possible candidate to power the theoretical hyperdrive. Looking at the photo above, we reckon we'll easily be nipping off to Mars in three hours by 2010.

[Hardrock69]

http://www.theregister.com/2006/01/06/hyperdrive/


Scientists moot gravity-busting hyperdrive
Mars in three hours - theoretically
By Lester Haines
Published Friday 6th January 2006 15:03 GMT
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The US military is considering testing the principle behind a type of space drive which holds the promise of reaching Mars in just three hours. The problem is, as New Scientist explains, it's entirely theoretical and many physicists admit they don't understand the science behind it.

Nonetheless, the so-called "hyperdrive" concept won last year's American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics award for the best nuclear and future flight paper. Among its defenders is aerospace engineer Pavlos Mikellides, from the Arizona State University in Tempe. Mikellides, who reviewed the winning paper, said: "Even though such features have been explored before, this particular approach is quite unique."

The basic concept is this: according to the paper's authors - Jochem Häuser, a physicist and professor of computer science at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzgitter and Walter Dröscher, a retired Austrian patent officer - if you put a huge rotating ring above a superconducting coil and pump enough current through the coil, the resulting large magnetic field will "reduce the gravitational pull on the ring to the point where it floats free".

The origins of this "repulsive anti-gravity force" and the hyperdrive it might power lie in the work of German scientist Burkhard Heim, who - as part of his attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity - formulated a theoretical six-dimensioned universe by bolting on two new sub-dimensions to Einstein's generally-accepted four (three space, one time).

As New Scientist explains, Heim's two extra dimensions allowed him to couple together gravity and electromagnetism, and permits conversion of electromagnetic energy into gravitational and vice-versa - something not possible according to Einstein's four dimensions, because "you cannot change the strength of gravity simply by cranking up the electromagnetic field".

Heim, then, proposed that "a rotating magnetic field could reduce the influence of gravity on a spacecraft enough for it to take off" - an idea which caught the eye of Wernher von Braun when it was first proposed in 1959 and the rocket scientist was working on the US's Saturn launch vehicle.

After the initial excitement died down, however, Heim moved on to other projects and his hyperdrive theory slowly gathered dust until the arrival of Walter Dröscher in 1980. Dröscher expanded on Heim's work, in the process reactivating two further dimensions the latter had originally discarded. Thus "Heim-Dröscher space" was born - an eight-dimensional concept of which Dröscher says: "If Heim's picture is to make sense, we are forced to postulate two more fundamental forces."

The said extra forces are: "A repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate"; and a second resulting from the "interaction of Heim's fifth and sixth dimensions and the extra dimensions that Dröscher introduced". Crucially, it "produces pairs of 'gravitophotons' - particles that mediate the interconversion of electromagnetic and gravitational energy".

The groundwork done, Dröscher then teamed up with Häuser to produce the award-winning "Guidelines For a Space Propulsion Device Based on Heim's Quantum Theory."

So far so good - in theory. However, as NS notes: "The majority of physicists have never heard of Heim theory, and most of those contacted by New Scientist said they couldn't make sense of Dröscher and Häuser's description of the theory behind their proposed experiment."

Furthermore, Dröscher and Häuser's proposed practical experiment to prove their theory requires "a magnetic coil several metres in diameter capable of sustaining an enormous current density" - something which the majority of engineers say is "not feasible with existing materials and technology".*

So, Mars in three hours? As NS puts it: "Dröscher is hazy about the details", but "suggests that a spacecraft fitted with a coil and ring could be propelled into a multidimensional hyperspace" where "the constants of nature could be different, and even the speed of light could be several times faster than we experience". Then, he says, a quick three-hour jaunt to Mars would indeed be on the cards.