Dark Matters Surround Dark Energy

[seemslikeadream]

Two big stories from the world of physics may portend the arrival of new weapons of mass destruction far more powerful and compact than atomic bombs.

(PRWEB) August 30, 2004 -- In recent years it has been discovered that our universe is being blown apart by a mysterious anti-gravity effect called "dark energy". Mainstream physicists are scrambling to explain this mysterious acceleration in the expansion of the universe. Some physicists even believe that the expansion will lead to "The Big Rip" when all of the matter in the universe is torn asunder - from clusters of galaxies in deep space down to the tiniest atomic particles. The universe now appears to be made of two unknowns - roughly 23% is "dark matter", an invisible source of gravity, and roughly 73% is "dark energy", an invisible anti-gravity force. Ordinary matter constitutes perhaps 4 percent of the universe.

Recently the British science news journal "New Scientist" revealed that the American military is pursuing new types of exotic bombs - including a new class of isomeric gamma ray weapons. Unlike conventional atomic and hydrogen bombs, the new weapons would trigger the release of energy by absorbing radiation, and respond by re-emitting a far more powerful radiation. In this new category of gamma-ray weapons, a nuclear isomer absorbs x-rays and re-emits higher frequency gamma rays. The emitted gamma radiation has been reported to release 60 times the energy of the x-rays that trigger the effect.

The discovery of this isomer triggering is fairly recent, and was first reported in a 1999 paper by an international group of scientists. Although this controversial development has remained fairly obscure, it has not been hidden from the public.

Beyond the visible part of defense research is an immense underground of secret projects considered so sensitive that their very existence is denied.

more
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/8/prweb153446.php

[Enraged_Ape]

1. I guess "dead" just isn't good enough when "deader" will do.

:eyes:

[bemildred]

2. Indeed. Can't have too many ways to bounce the rubble around. nt

[Spinzonner]

3. Ice-9

[belle]

4. Sounds very science fiction-esque. "Destroy the entire universe??"

If they say so.

[pmbryant]

5. This article sounds like a big practical joke

There is no coherent narrative. The mumbo jumbo it throws around might sound impressive, but as best I can make of it, is entirely meaningless. Some non sequitur stuff about real physics and exotic, completely untestable theories like string/brane theory is scattered around the article randomly to make it sound more plausible.

Since string/brane theories are so disconnected from our everyday Earthly reality that we can't even test whether they are valid, we certainly can't develop new weapons based on them!

:eyes:

Peter

[FlaGranny]

6. Withouit theorizing about the presently

impossible/improbable there would be no chance of discovery and development of future possibilities, I believe.

What we consider mundane and everyday would have been considered ridiculous or magical even 50 years ago (unless you were a scifi reader).

It always pays to be skeptical, but, on the other hand, out-of-the-box thinking and fantasizing got us where we are today (for better or for worse) ;-)

[pmbryant]

9. This isn't fantasizing

There is no coherence to this article whatsoever.

It's like someone wrote something filled with a bunch of impressive sounding phrases, interspersed with a few real, but irrelevant, tidbits, and submitted it and hoped someone would be fool enough to publish something they didn't understand. It's happened before. And it just happened again.

The more disturbing scenario is that the fellow who wrote this thinks he's being serious.

--Peter

[On the Road]

7. This is Pretty Silly

I mean, dark energy has only been detected in the past few years. That shows how weak it is at the scale we usually deal in.

[bemildred]

8. Isomeric gamma ray weapons:

FWIW, the gamma-ray weapon is real, but far from practical as yet
as far as I know. The dark matter stuff in this piece seems to be bullshit for the rubes.

"The effect of a nuclear-isomer explosion would be to release high-energy
gamma rays capable of killing any living thing in the immediate area. This
material could cause long-term health problems for anybody who breathed it
in."

An exotic kind of nuclear explosive being developed by the US Department of
Defense could blur the critical distinction between conventional and nuclear
weapons. The work has also raised fears that weapons based on this technology
could trigger the next arms race.

The explosive works by stimulating the release of energy from the nuclei of
certain elements but does not involve nuclear fission or fusion. The energy,
emitted as gamma radiation, is thousands of times greater than that from
conventional chemical explosives.

The technology has already been included in the Department of Defense's
Militarily Critical Technologies List, which says: "Such extraordinary energy
density has the potential to revolutionise all aspects of warfare."

why-war.com

[JFreitas]

10. Great news, a source of free energy!

Correct me if I am wrong, but "The emitted gamma radiation has been reported to release 60 times the energy of the x-rays that trigger the effect" sounds like free energy to me. The whole thing is... well... uneducated is the kind word that comes to mind.

[bemildred]

11. IIRC, you have to pump the energy in first

by generating the isomeric form.
And it's still highly inefficient energy-wise.
It's basicly a compact energy storage mechanism
that can be induced to release it all at once.

Edit: my own opinion was that it is another defense
research boondoggle, although it does sound like there is
a bit of interesting science in it too.