“Cold” H-bomb

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Eagle9, Feb 22, 2011.

  1. Eagle9 Registered Senior Member

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    You know that some scientists claim that they executed so called “Cold Fusion”-as if controlled thermonuclear reaction is possible under ordinary conditions without requiring high temperatures and complex equipments. Of course, I do not believe in this, but imagine that this is true and cold fusion is really possible. Would this automatically mean that uncontrolled thermonuclear reaction would be also possible? If so, any scientist (and skillful terrorists also!) could make the “Cold” H-bomb at their laboratories and explode it without needing the fission bomb to detonate the fusion fuel

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  3. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    You need to note that the misguided people who claim to have achieved cold fusion were ONLY able to do so under laboratory conditions and did indeed use some fairly uncommon techniques and materials.

    No Unibomber or terrorist is going to able to replicate what other solid, highly experienced scientists could NOT.

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  5. kurros Registered Senior Member

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    Also, as far as I know, no-one has ever proposed a theoretical mechanism for how cold fusion is supposed to happen, in which case we can't really say much about what might be possible. Except that it is probably nothing.
     
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  7. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly. And I'd say it's considerably more than "probably" nothing.

    Have you noticed that every one of these "researchers" are mere chemists - with no credentials in nuclear science/physics? That's a STRONG indication that even the most dedicated of the bunch have little idea of what they're up against. :shrug:
     
  8. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Mere chemists? Mere???
    Ooh I'm gonna tell Trippy you wrote that.

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  9. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Distaste for cold fusion quackery aside, the entire point of their claims is that fusion doesn't need to be a "thermonuclear" process, thereby requiring high temperatures. That's what "cold fusion" means: fusion by some means other than thermonuclear reactions.

    Absent some at-least-plausible mechanism for doing cold fusion, we really can't say much to that. But one would guess that any mechanism designed for "cold" reactions would not fare well under an uncontrolled fusion reaction (which would end up being a thermonuclear reaction quickly enough) and so probably not fuse much of the material. Design of nuclear warheads is as much about figuring out how to keep your fissile/fusile materials where you want them while the reaction is going (so that they'll all actually react) as anything else, so the availability of some new mode of fusion does not imply any greater ease in weapons design, as such.

    The thing is that obtaining the materials and designing such a device is at least as difficult as obtaining regular fission materials and designing a conventional atomic bomb. So there's no real advantage, there.
     
  10. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Heh-heh! I was also trained as a chemist. I used the word "mere" in the sense that these are people working TOTALLY outside their area of expertise.

    Would I go to a nuclear physicist to help develop a new pharmacological formula? Not likely, unless it just *happened* to involve a radioactive substance as a tracer or something related to radiotherapy, And neither would I go to a rocket engineer or chemist to work on a fusion project - unless it involved some sort of atomic drive and/or involved specific chemical reactions.

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  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    So far it looks like that's all it is, chemical reactions from stored hydrogen within the Palladium.
     
  12. Mircea Registered Member

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    No one has been able to duplicate the results of the initial experiment which claimed cold fusion took place either.

    It's just another episode of bad science, or bad data or skewed data.
     

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