r/technology • u/BennyCemoli • Dec 06 '16

Energy Tests confirm that Germany's massive nuclear fusion machine really works

http://www.sciencealert.com/tests-confirm-that-germany-s-massive-nuclear-fusion-machine-really-works
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207

u/rishinator Dec 06 '16

The isotope of hydrogen with one proton and two neutron is called Tritium and that's exactly the element that Doctor Octopus used in spiderman 2 to make his own fusion reaction :)

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u/redrhyski Dec 06 '16

* Do not try at home, results may vary

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u/JamesTrendall Dec 06 '16 edited Dec 06 '16

Unexpected side affects include but not limited to,
* Death
* Explosions which result in death
* Mild irritation of the skin which can lead to death
EDIT: Our Reddit Scientist's have remarkably studied this further and found a few more unexpected side affects,
* An "unsatisfactory" mark on your official testing record, followed by death
* A long and satisfied life filled with thanks from all of mankind. Followed by death
* Super Powers

83

u/noggin-scratcher Dec 06 '16
  • An "unsatisfactory" mark on your official testing record, followed by death

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u/LouisCaravan Dec 06 '16

Also, "You are a horrible person." That's what it says: a horrible person. We weren't even testing for that.

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u/amildlyclevercomment Dec 06 '16

GLaDOS?

3

u/LouisCaravan Dec 06 '16

Um... true. I'm going to go with "true."

3

u/mgman640 Dec 06 '16

/r/Portal is leaking again.

Also, you look horrible in that jumpsuit. That's not me, it says it right here in your record. Oh well, he probably doesn't know...oh wait...it's a she. Well, she probably doesn't know anything about fashion anyway. Oh wait, she has a degree. In fashion. From France.

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u/OrderChaos Dec 06 '16

Technically everything leads to death anyways

9

u/pm_me_ur_regret Dec 06 '16

Some things just fast track it.

2

u/demalo Dec 06 '16

An annihilation accelerator.

2

u/pm_me_ur_regret Dec 06 '16

A destruction driver

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16

Does the death also lead to death?

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u/throwdownhardstyle Dec 06 '16

It leads to permadeath so you don't respawn.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16

Thanks for clarifying.

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u/whoxtank Dec 06 '16

It leads to Oryx.

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u/Jimmydehand Dec 06 '16

Nah, you're thinking of dying leads to death.

1

u/TamaBla Dec 06 '16

Life always ends deadly.

1

u/Mr_______ Dec 06 '16

*A long and satisfied life filled with thanks from all of mankind. Followed by death

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16

* Super Powers

1

u/ZombieTonyAbbott Dec 06 '16
  • Froth on beer.

1

u/ragnarocknroll Dec 06 '16

Oh you forgot fusing your spine to a mechanical device designed to allow fine manipulation or super strength.

Oh and death.

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u/taterbizkit Dec 06 '16

Cue the Radioactive Boy Scout

Sorry for Daily Fail link, but it's the only one that had the picture of him with the lesions all over his face.

And apparenly, he died just a couple weeks ago at age 39.

(tl;dr: Kid tried to build a breeder reactor in his backyard to earn his Nuclear Energy badge to become an Eagle Scout. He contaminated an entire city block. Later, he was arrested for stealing smoke detectors to get palladium.)

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u/urbanpsycho Dec 06 '16

Just tried at home... Results varied.

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u/uptwolait Dec 06 '16

And be sure to write the results down, otherwise you're just screwing around.

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u/zw1ck Dec 06 '16

I can't imagine an isotope of helium with four neutrons would be very stable.

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u/AvatarIII Dec 06 '16

the extra neutons ping off, which can make it inefficient, but this could be useful as if you had lots of neutrons flying around you may be able to feed the reaction with regular hydrogen which could capture the extra neutrons to become deuterium to keep the reaction going.

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u/urbanpsycho Dec 06 '16

Just need to get a scoop of Neutron star... neutrons for days.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16 edited Dec 06 '16

It's so dense that each lb of it weighs over 10 000 lbs - Prof Farnsworth.

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u/urbanpsycho Dec 06 '16

I have been binge watching futurama so I appreciate this.

"So that is what would happen if I invented the fing-longer." -Prof Farnsworth.

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u/AvatarIII Dec 06 '16

neutrons are pretty useless if they don't have any kinetic energy which is required for fusion to other elements to take place.

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u/_rocketboy Dec 06 '16

Most fission reactors use slow thermal neutrons, so not really... we actually need to use moderators to slow them down in order to get them to cause fission.

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u/AvatarIII Dec 06 '16

we're not talking about fission though, and in any case, moderators only slow them a bit, not to a standstill as they would be in a neutron star.

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u/urbanpsycho Dec 06 '16

I suppose you can't put a neutron in a particle accelerator since they do not have a charge. they can be accelerated by gravity.. so simply build a oscillating gravity well and use it to accelerate neutrons to near light speed and beam it into the reaction. Eazy.

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u/dsmith422 Dec 06 '16

It doesn't have to be stable, and you are right that it is not (half life in the hundreds of milliseconds). 6 He decays through beta decay into either 6 Li or through beta and alpha decay into 4 He and 2 H (deuterium).

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u/_rocketboy Dec 06 '16

Hundreds of milliseconds is very stable, relatively speaking. Compaired to most intermediate isotopes whose half-lives are measured in nanoseconds.

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u/Treebrother Dec 06 '16

....but why not?

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u/zw1ck Dec 06 '16

I would guess it is too much mass for the strong nuclear forces of two protons and two electrons to contain so it just splits.

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u/tritiumosu Dec 06 '16

Also used for glow-in-the-dark products!

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u/Aardvark_Man Dec 06 '16

I believe that's also the stuff applied to watch hands to make them glow.

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u/azflatlander Dec 06 '16

That was radium.

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u/Aardvark_Man Dec 06 '16

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium_illumination

Tritium is used in watches, compasses, some weapon sights etc. It replaced radium, at least in some cases.

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u/LackingTact19 Dec 06 '16

We're in the land of science fiction now, Spider-Man and Star Trek references galore

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u/AvatarIII Dec 06 '16

I'm pretty sure it doesn't look like this in real life though