Fusing tables! Er, I mean, fusion on tables. Keanu Reeves not available, so water not a component.

[vengeant]

UCLA makes fusion! Yay UCLA!

...Um, wtf? "Nuclear fusion has been explored as a potential source of power, but we are not looking at this as an energy source right now," ...Are you sure it's fusion, then? Or is this only "technically" fusion?

Comments

[kwakhed]

i remember reading about this in putterman's webpage when i was applying to graduate school 2 years ago. the impression i got was that the needed pressure wasn't applied over a large enough volume to sustain fusion. it gives a quick burst of (a lot of) energy from a few atoms, as opposed to many atoms like the hydrogen bomb or the sun.

[cheruvim]

It's fusion, it's just skipping a bunch of steps in the proton-proton chain that is in the sun. Instead of having an H ion bind with another H ion for an extra neutron, thus making Deuterium, the gas is already there, ionized and then smashed into other Deuterium ions. Instead of having the Deuterium smash into protons, they smash it into other Deuterium ions.

It's fusion, just not the same kind that is in the sun, and thus, not as good a source of energy, but great for generating massive amounts of gamma rays for x-ray and spectrography. I bet we will see "Fusion Spectrographic" machines lauched as part of probes to find out the chemical make-up of atmospheres on alien worlds. (Appropriate Theremin music here)