Nuclear fusion in a beaker? That’s what researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee claim to have seen. The scientists, led by Rusi Taleyarkhan, have recently announced their results in Science magazine.
Nuclear fusion is a process in which atomic nuclei slam into each other hard enough to fuse and release great bursts of energy. Fusion occurs only at extremely high temperatures and pressures. Fusing nuclei produces the inferno that rages inside a hydrogen bomb explosion.
While some may be enraptured by the announcement, others view it with skepticism.
Like the cold fusion experiments in the late 80’s, in which experimental results could not be reproduced, different scientists at Oak Ridge were unable to replicate Taleyarkhan’s results.
“There remains considerable doubt, at the moment, in the minds of all of us that this is, indeed, a correct experiment,” said University of Toronto physics professor Ted Litherland.
Taleyarkhan’s lab bombarded a beaker filled with the organic solvent acetone (the same stuff in nail polish remover) with acoustic waves and high-speed neutrons. The acetone vaporized and caused bubbles up to 1 millimetre in diameter to form in the beaker.
When the bubbles collapsed, they did so violently—causing the temperature of the acetone to rise to a point where the nuclei in the liquid would theoretically fuse. The fused atoms have the potential to make a helium-3 nucleus, and a neutron escapes the acetone bath with considerable energy.
If Taleyarkhan’s experiment is valid, the public view of nuclear energy may be revolutionized.
As for the scientific community, Litherland remarks: “There is a hiatus at the moment. It probably is not really reliable news yet.”
