Non-mobile link: https://phys.org/news/2018-06-periodic-table.html
New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
11–20 of 52 posts
Re: New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
#12"If quark matter is found (or produced in accelerators), it may be stored and then fed with slow neutrons or heavy ions. The absorption of these particles means a lower total mass and thus a release of energy, mostly in the form of gamma radiation. Unlike nuclear fusion, this is a process that should be easy to initiate and control." -- Bob Holdom
Oh really? Does the paper give any idea about how that might be accomplished and where the energy would come from?
EDIT: Ok, I read the paper (it is pretty short) and now I'm tracking down this reference: [34] G. L. Shaw, M. Shin, R. H. Dalitz, and M. Desai, Growing drops of strange matter, Nature (London) 337, 436 (1989).
Re: New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
#13... quark matter has the potential to be used as a new source of energy A new kind of weapon? Renewing the nuclear arms race?
What would be the point ? We can already destroy a medium country with a few nukes. We probably have enough nukes to blow the entire planet.
What would a bigger boom accomplish ?
Re: New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
#14... quark matter has the potential to be used as a new source of energy A new kind of weapon? Renewing the nuclear arms race?
No.
For one, the PRL paper linked here is highly speculative, using a phenomenological model and a lot of assumption and extrapolation. It's full of "may" and "if" and "possibility".
Furthermore, what they suggest appears like it would only work as an (inefficient) energy storage; it's not a primary energy source, since you'd have to spend lots of energy first to create this very hypothetical quark matter,and then regain some of that energy as you feed the quark matter with slow neutrons.
Finally, assuming everything above actually works, this would be a slow energy release, not fast like in a nuke.
Re: New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
#15"If quark matter is found (or produced in accelerators), it may be stored and then fed with slow neutrons or heavy ions. The absorption of these particles means a lower total mass and thus a release of energy, mostly in the form of gamma radiation. Unlike nuclear fusion, this is a process that should be easy to initiate and control." -- Bob Holdom Oh really? Does the paper give any idea about how that might be accomp…
Exactly. At best, an inefficient energy storage technology.
Edit: the difference from fusion (which is a primary energy source) is that in fusion your starting reactants are available. In this case, you'd have to spend lots of energy in a heavy ion collide to create the initial reactants from scratch.
Also, this type of matter is experimentally disfavored in the same way as strange matter: if quark matter was stable, all neutron stars should have converted to quark matter already, but measurements appear to be consistent with them being made from ordinary matter.
Re: New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
#16"If quark matter is found (or produced in accelerators), it may be stored and then fed with slow neutrons or heavy ions. The absorption of these particles means a lower total mass and thus a release of energy, mostly in the form of gamma radiation. Unlike nuclear fusion, this is a process that should be easy to initiate and control." -- Bob Holdom Oh really? Does the paper give any idea about how that might be accomp…
I would assume it's similar to fusion. The energy would come from the binding energy, but in this case the binding energy between the quarks in QCD?
Re: New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
#17"If quark matter is found (or produced in accelerators), it may be stored and then fed with slow neutrons or heavy ions. The absorption of these particles means a lower total mass and thus a release of energy, mostly in the form of gamma radiation. Unlike nuclear fusion, this is a process that should be easy to initiate and control." -- Bob Holdom Oh really? Does the paper give any idea about how that might be accomp…
Uranium isotopes. One of Feynmans safety changes involved changing how uranium was transported (?) in water at the time. Slow neutrons were building up toward criticality in the water. Something like that. I think it’s a standard trick in particle physics to create a particle source by having a radioisotope at the end of a cylinder/magnetic field. Not sure how they’d do it for neutrons but that’s what I think is done.
Re: New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
#18Very interesting. Would it be correct to say that if true this could lead to an earlier end of the periodic table[0] than had been previously predicted?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_periodic_table#End_of...
Re: New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
#19"If quark matter is found (or produced in accelerators), it may be stored and then fed with slow neutrons or heavy ions. The absorption of these particles means a lower total mass and thus a release of energy, mostly in the form of gamma radiation. Unlike nuclear fusion, this is a process that should be easy to initiate and control." -- Bob Holdom Oh really? Does the paper give any idea about how that might be accomp…
When particles come together and form a nucleus, it releases energy. This energy is because the new form is more energetically favorable, that is it requires less energy than the particles had separately. This is what makes it stable - it requires input of energy to undo the release of energy. (It doesn't guarantee that some other state is even more stable, like some kind of fission. But going directly back to the form it was in takes extra energy.) This is called the binding energy and it's the same as any other kind of fusion.
Re: New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table
#20... quark matter has the potential to be used as a new source of energy A new kind of weapon? Renewing the nuclear arms race?
What would be the point ? We can already destroy a medium country with a few nukes. We probably have enough nukes to blow the entire planet. What would a bigger boom accomplish ?
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