Zero to 76,000 mph in a Second (Livescience.com)

[CoffeeCat]

(I wonder how the evil fools in the West Wing will implement THIS technology?)

http://www.livescience.com/technology/050607_z_machine.html

Scientists at the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico have accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second. The speed of the thrust was a new record for Sandia’s "Z Machine" – not only the fastest gun in the West, but in the world too.

The Z Machine is now able to propel small plates at 34 kilometers a second, faster than the 30 kilometers per second that Earth travels through space in its orbit about the Sun. That’s 50 times faster than a rifle bullet, and three times the velocity needed to escape Earth’s gravitational field.

The ultra-tiny aluminum plates, just 850 microns thick, are accelerated at 1010 g. One g is the force of Earth’s gravity. Doing so without vaporizing the plates was possible because of the finer control now achievable of the magnetic field pulse that drives the flight.

Z’s hurled plates strike a target after traveling only five millimeters, or less than a quarter-inch. The impact generates a shock wave -- in some cases, reaching 15 million times atmospheric pressure -- that passes through the target material. The waves are so powerful that they turn solids into liquids, liquids into gases, and gases into plasmas in the same way that heat melts ice to water or boils water into steam.

(much more at link)

http://www.livescience.com/technology/050607_z_machine.html

[MisterP]

1. or unload them by the millions in the ghettoes and backwaters

[dave29]

2. that's cool

but not quite as fast as we are moving towards the Virgo cluster.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Is there weapons potential in this, or is the accelerator a mile and

a half long or something?

What are the practical applications?

[Internut]

5. Hm let's do some math

Edit: (after reading the article instead of the original post noticed that the acceleration is not 1010g, it is 10^10g. Reworked the math:

v = at and d = at^2/2

v = 34000 m/sec
a = 10^10g = 98000000000 m/sec^2
t = v/a = 34000/98000000000 = 3.47E-7 sec
d = 9898*(3.47E-7 *3.47E-7)/2 = 0.006m

0.006m is 6mm - close enough to what the article said.

So - in order to accelerate something at 10^10g to 34 km/sec velocity you need the linear accelerator that is 6mm long. Of course, I presume, the supporting equipment is quite big :)

[burrowowl]

7. Hughmonous!

To say the least. And wastage of petrol to produce the electricity needed.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. OK, I'll take your word for it.

I pretty much have to -- My math is barely arithmetical, and physics, for me, is Fire = hot.

I'm still convinced that electricity is magic, and cell phones are a dark sorcery.

There are so many smart, educated people here; it's a little intimidating.

:dunce:

[Internut]

13. Argh - just noticed and can't edit -

9898*(3.47E-7 *3.47E-7)/2

should of course be

98000000000*(3.47E-7 *3.47E-7)/2

The result was right, just the number above was wrong.

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Well, of course. I don't know why I didn't catch that. nt

[aion]

27. I believe Rail Guns are what they're called

Rail Guns, as I understand it, use electromagnatism to 'speed up' a projectile -- rather than combustion.

[Straight Shooter]

4. bush and cheney and rumsfeld are drooling over this.

Solids into liquids. It boggles the mind.

[burrowowl]

6. Well that

makes Salt Flats obsolete, doesn't it!

[Jose Diablo]

9. That "Z" machine is way cool

That picture of it operating is beautiful. I wonder if there are wall posters of this available?

[librechik]

10. Interplanetary travel

needs that kind of push.

[Jose Diablo]

12. Even more maybe

Could something like this be used to rend a hole in the fabric of space. Maybe having an envelope containing a vehicle pass through this hole, to someplace the other side of the universe.

Speculation, I know. But reading about this kind of stuff takes me back to when I was a boy dreaming of the impossible.

[rayofreason]

26. even more? not likely

Sorry, but the velocities they are talking about here are really not that large, and there is no new physics to be uncovered.

34 km/s - hmm. By comparison

solar wind - 400 km/s on average
energetic particles from nuclear decay - much faster, some close to C=300,000 km/s
The Hubble constant is 23 km/s/10e6 lt yr so objects only ten million light years away from us will have an average recessional velocity of 230 km/s.

So we observe lots of things moving very fast relative to us. It doesn't change the physics. In fact, all physical laws are exactly the same in all non-accelerating frames of reference, regardless of the relative velocities. That basic principle, plus the fact that the speed of light in a vacume is the same in all non-accelerating frames of reference, is all you need to derive the equations of special relativity, including E=mc^2.

[central scrutinizer]

11. maybe this is how Santa Claus

manages to visit millions of houses in one night- he shoots his reindeer out of a Z machine.

http://guim.org/the_physics_behind_santa_claus.html

[Endangered Specie]

14. Sounds like an assault weapon to me

;) :evilgrin:

[WeRQ4U]

15. I have absolutely no freakin' clue what any of that means, but...

Sounds neat to me. I'm going to ask if the god damned internet company I ordered my camcorder from, can use it to get my fucking camera here... sons of bitches. I could have jogged there and back in less time.

[woosh]

16. fusion reactions

Last year, when physicists placed a capsule of deuterium, or heavy hydrogen, at the focus of the z-pinch, they detected neutrons flying out from the implosion site – a signal that fusion reactions were taking place, as they do in the sun.

If researchers can learn to tame these fusion reactions, the setup can rely on a seemingly endless supply of deuterium fuel in seawater.


http://www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_041104.html

[Terran]

18. Wow

Maybe this is the way we finally get fusion (which, IMO, human civilization desperately needs if it is to survive the current mess we're heading into).

[woosh]

22. In a world where you pay for clean drinking water

I don't have any optimism that any technology will help us out of this mess.

[Terran]

25. Limitless cheap energy

(once the plant is built, anyway) could go a long way. The cost of purifying that water would (or should) go way down if it costs next to nothing to power the process. I don't think our cars will be running off fusion reactors, but our cities should.

[Selatius]

20. You're hinting at a fusion reactor

Still, it isn't anything like Mr. Fusion.

I want my Mr. Fusion!

[Terran]

24. LOL, yeah, me too

Just dump some beer and banana peels in and off you go!

[sakabatou]

17. Z Machine: Possibly the most powerful machine of its kind

[Robb]

21. Opa!!! n/t

:D

[daleo]

23. This seems like it would have pure science applications

Perhaps modelling meteroite or comet strikes. You always suspect weapons development lurks in the background though. The earth's atmosphere would probably make it impractical for an earth based weapon (air resistance would probably heat up the projectile and vaporize it), but it might become part of PNAC's planned space based weaponry.