Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth: 3.6 Billion Degrees in Lab

[tocqueville]

Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Wed Mar 8, 5:00 PM ET

Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.

This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

They don't know how they did it.

The feat was accomplished in the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060308/sc_space/recordsetforhottesttemperatureonearth36billiondegreesinlab

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. Time to break out the marshmallows. n/t

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. They don't know how they did it?

Oh, that's great.


Ooops, we just burned up all the nitrogen in North America... we don't know how... but... golly!

[phantom power]

11. Actually, it's quite exciting.

Unexpected results are where most big breakthroughs in science and technology come from.

If nitrogen oxidation were self-sustaining, there would be no free nitrogen, it would have all oxidized long, long ago.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

12. I know that, I was amused by

the quote... I hope physicists know where heat like that comes from.

[phantom power]

13. I guess they don't, yet. Consider that temperature...

it's not just "hotter than" the core of our sun. It's over a hundred times hotter than the core of our sun. That's truly terra incognita. They're guaranteed to learn some new physics from the ability to study that kind of temperature in a lab.

[sutz12]

14. It might be more important

to make sure where it is going. ;)

[xchrom]

3. they don't know how they did it? ok -- that's alarming.

and now they've burned up all the evidence.

[bemildred]

4. Obviously a measurement anomaly.

:-)

[WoodrowFan]

5. and STILL

and STILL there were unpopped kernels in their bag of Orvel Reddenbacher microwave butter popcorn.

[Orrex]

6. Next up...

They plan to build a freezer that chills matter to 2 billion degrees below zero.

[htuttle]

8. That's not possible

The concept of 'temperature' pretty much ceases to exist below zero degrees Kelvin (about -459.67 F).

Not to get all pedantic about it, but this IS the science forum. ;)

[Orrex]

9. Doh! Sorry--thought it was the science fiction forum

I cite no less credible a source than the old George Reeves Superman series, wherein a certain mad scientist developed a ray gun that projected a beam 2,000 degrees below zero.

Who am I going to believe? You? Or a mad scientist from the 50's?

I think the choice is clear.

[YankeyMCC]

7. Beat me to it

I was just reading this and I echo the alarm others here express.

"They don't know how they did it?!" Now that's scary, take away these people's toys!

[rman]

16. science always starts with not knowing,

then investigation, from which comes knowledge.

unexpected results are potentially the most exiting - though it may turn out it was a measurement anomaly.

[phantom power]

10. Wherever that extra energy is coming from, I don't think it's the tungsten

Fusion is endothermic for all elements heavier than iron (including iron).

(edit) Oh, they got those results with steel. Not the iron either. Maybe fusing carbon?

[Beetwasher]

15. Yikes! This Is How New Superheroes/Villains Are Made!

"Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines theorizes that some unknown energy source is involved, which is providing the machine with an extra jolt of energy just as the plasma ions are beginning to slow down."

Freaky. Unknown energy source????

I bring you ZMAN!!!

[TechBear_Seattle]

17. Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth: 3.6 Billion Degrees in Lab

Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth: 3.6 Billion Degrees in Lab
By Ker Than

Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.

This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

They don't know how they did it.

The feat was accomplished in the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories.

...

The Z machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world. It’s designed to test materials under extreme temperatures and pressures. It works by releasing 20 million amps of electricity into a vertical array of very fine tungsten wires. The wires dissolve into a cloud of charged particles, a superheated gas called plasma.

A very strong magnetic field compresses the plasma into the thickness of a pencil lead. This causes the plasma to release energy in the form of X-rays, but the X-rays are usually only several million degrees.

The full article can be found at http://www.livescience.com/technology/060308_sandia_z.html

[BlueEyedSon]

18. See...? And they say there's no global warming!

[electropop]

19. Coincidentally, the same temperature as the Oval Office today.

Only no magnetic field can confine the BS zone.

[Old and In the Way]

20. How does the analysis equipment even exist to test this?

Boggles my peabrain.

[BootinUp]

21. Sounds wild

Something useful may come from that little miscalculation.

[TechBear_Seattle]

23. This especially sound intruiging...

One thing that puzzles scientists is that the high temperature was achieved after the plasma’s ions should have been losing energy and cooling. Also, when the high temperature was achieved, the Z machine was releasing more energy than was originally put in, something that usually occurs only in nuclear reactions.

Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines theorizes that some unknown energy source is involved, which is providing the machine with an extra jolt of energy just as the plasma ions are beginning to slow down.

If it turns out that they had accidentally created a chain reaction, one that could be harnessed and used for power while using non-toxic fuels like tungsten or iron....

The possibilities are really interesting.

[drm604]

24. That's the part that struck me also.

It may end up being another "cold fusion", but it is intriquing.

[TechBear_Seattle]

25. Cold fusion at 3.6 billion degrees?!

Yes, I know what you mean. :hi:

It would be interesting to see an analysis of the matter residue, once the plasma had cooled. Was the amount of matter what was expected? Did any elements not in the original wires appear, and were they larger or smaller than the iron? That would tell a great deal about what might have happened.

Given that the heat was so much more than expected, I wonder if it might have been the direct conversion of matter in to energy, probably just a small handful of electrons or a few neutrons. We have done that to some extent, but very inefficiently.

[drm604]

26. Something else just struck me.

Something rather frightening. If it's possible to directly convert matter into energy without having to amass critical masses of rare isotopes... well, the implications of that are frightening.

[northzax]

30. not sure this would apply here

if you apply enough energy to a system, you can turn matter into energy for a short period of time, the rare isotopes are useful in generating self sustained chain reactions that multiply the energy input. If you compress nitrogen enough, and heat it up enough, you can probably turn it into energy, but it takes much more energy going in than you will ever get coming out. But that's just my reading of it, and I'm not a physicist.

[drm604]

31. But read this part again...

One thing that puzzles scientists is that the high temperature was achieved after the plasma’s ions should have been losing energy and cooling. Also, when the high temperature was achieved, the Z machine was releasing more energy than was originally put in, something that usually occurs only in nuclear reactions.

So it sounds like they were getting out more than they were putting in, and that this was happening after they had applied the energy. That sounds like some sort of self-sustaining reaction. Hopefully it's also self-limiting somehow. But it's probably all moot since, like I said previously, this will likely turn out to be another "cold fusion".

[Benhurst]

22. They had to get it that hot so they could

test the air-conditioning for the Bush Crime Family compound in hell.

[freethought]

27. 3.6 BILLION DEGREES!!

Good Lord!! How were they able to contain that sort of reaction!
It boggles the mind!!

[Meldread]

28. I believe they...

...use magnetism in some way. I'm not sure how it is done, or understand it completely, but I believe they are able to contain it by using some type of magnetic field.

[NNadir]

29. Exactly.

Charged particles move in a circular path in a magnetic field, because a force exists that is perpendicular to both the direction of movement and the magnetic field.

In extremely hot matter, all particles are charged. This is the "fourth" state of matter, plasma.

The hotter the matter the faster molecules or atoms (or in this case ions) move. In fact temperature is really a measure of the average speed of the atoms, molecules or ions in question.

The force on each atom is given by a formula that is expressed in vector notation as follows F = qv X B where the X represents an operator called a cross product. (The cross product is an operation that results in changing the direction of two forces to one that is perpendicular to them both.) Here v is a vector of velocity (i.e. having both speed and direction) and B is the magnetic field, which is a vector having strength and direction and q is the amount of charge on the ion. (I apologize if you already know this). The magnitude of this force is dependent on the angle between motion and the magnetic field, but in general, faster particles, which again are hotter particles on average, will experience more force, and therefore be subject to what ends up being essentially eddy or confined motion in ever tighter circles as they get hotter. Indeed, as ions get hotter, they lose even more electrons, becoming even more highly charged, and therefore more prone to circular motion.