- Nuclear physics and elementary particles
- Molecular physics and thermodynamics
- Electricity and magnetism
The situation with thermonuclear power today is rather curious and has features in common with the “space race” that once began. The discovery of a way to open access to an unlimited source of energy, it would seem, is already “in the air”. Thermonuclear power stations are already being seriously designed. The finishing tape is almost in sight, and the only question is who will get there first. The leaders of developed states jealously watch the “successes” of their competitors in this field and fear being left “empty-handed”. These fears are skilfully exploited by the large research centres working on the problem, who win generous funding by them. Any moment now the press will announce the discovery of the century...
Our own Kurchatov Institute is no exception in this respect: for it the long-awaited thermonuclear fusion is a supertask and the most important factor determining the funding of research. Let us ask how the further scientific career of a staff member would turn out in such conditions if he publicly doubted the very possibility of achieving controlled “hot” fusion. It is not hard to guess... Few independent scientists, either, would dare to take such a step: everyone understands that such an influential scientific institution would have no difficulty in defaming an overreaching “heretic” and putting a fat cross over his further scientific career.
But are there any grounds for doubting the theory of thermonuclear fusion, tested over decades?
Fact one — the values of temperature and pressure reached in experimental installations already exceed by an order of magnitude the capabilities of our luminary, yet the kind of energy available to it is still unavailable to us. Theory cannot explain this.
Fact two — the presence of a cold “layer” — the photosphere and the chromosphere, with temperatures of only 5000 to 15000 degrees — between the extremely hot central region (supposedly up to 14 million degrees) and the solar corona (up to 1 million degrees). Theory cannot explain this either.
These two facts suggest that some unaccounted factor is at work. Let us suppose that for thermonuclear fusion, even though this contradicts theory, only extremely high pressure is necessary, but not temperature. Within this supposition both of the facts mentioned are explained.
The rise in pressure is inseparably linked with the rise in temperature; however, in an extremely fast process — the detonation of a thermonuclear charge — there is an extremely short interval of delay in the temperature rise, when the substance passes into a condensed state. Let us suppose that it is precisely at this moment, when the pressure has reached its maximum values and the temperature has only just begun to increase, that the reaction of the fusion of nuclei takes place. And only after this does the temperature rise to millions of degrees, which not only does not promote the reaction but, on the contrary, stops it.
If this supposition corresponds to reality, then the solar temperature anomaly is easily explained — the core of the star is cold, and it is only thanks to the presence of such a “refrigerator” that a slow thermonuclear reaction takes place, at the boundary of the cold and hot media. Versions of a cold core of the Sun have been put forward more than once, and the opinion that the thermonuclear reaction takes place at the centre of the luminary is called into question by a number of scientific data.
From this point of view the failures, lasting for decades, to master thermonuclear energy are easily explained. All of today's achievements in this field are in essence the same thing, thermonuclear explosions, only on a considerably smaller scale. Nothing resembling slow thermonuclear fusion at temperatures of millions of degrees has occurred in the experiments.
Yes, this contradicts the theory according to which the forces of electrostatic repulsion can be overcome, to bring nuclei together, only by means of ultra-high temperatures; yet the Italian physicists Sergio Focardi and Andrea Rossi managed perfectly well without the latter, having succeeded in carrying out the transmutation of nickel into copper at a temperature of less than 1000 degrees. Their result likewise does not fit the generally accepted theory.
What could the explanation of this discrepancy between theory and practice be? It is known that unlike charges exchange virtual photons, and that this exchange takes place strictly “tête-à-tête”. It is hard to believe, but there is simply no other explanation — the virtual photon “knows” in advance where in space its “point of arrival” will be. The nature of such "foresight" of its we have yet to understand. The virtual photon has negative momentum and therefore does not repel but attracts unlike charges.
Like charges emit real photons and repel each other, and the latter have no predetermined “point of arrival” and head for the like charge nearest at the moment of emission, “not taking into account” that it too does not stand still. Thanks to such “careless shooting” photons sometimes seek their “target” for billions of years.
Let us imagine a situation in which two like charges exchange real photons exclusively between themselves, that is, in the way characteristic of virtual photons. Will a force of attraction not appear in place of repulsion? The electrons of a Cooper pair have a like charge and should emit real, not virtual, photons in the direction of each other, yet they do not repel each other. It is all a matter of the exclusively pairwise exchange, “tête-à-tête”.
The New Zealand physicist John Lekner of Victoria University of Wellington has shown that like-charged metal spheres, if their sizes greatly exceed the distance between them, do not repel but attract. Lekner also notes that he is not the first to have noticed this phenomenon. Records survive of the scientist who devised the lightning conductor for ships, William Snow Harris, who notes that in his experiments with charged discs “the repulsion sometimes entirely disappeared and was replaced by attraction”.
Another argument in favour of this version is that protons with antiparallel spin orientation do not take part in the strong interaction. Under such conditions the exchange of a photon is impossible, and the approach does not take place.
Now let us return to thermonuclear fusion. To reach conditions in which the probability of such an exchange of real photons would rise sharply, three conditions must be met: the greatest possible reduction of the distances between the nuclei, a minimal temperature as a reflection of the magnitude of the relative velocities, and a low level of entropy: the photon must "hit" exactly where it was "aimed". These conditions correspond precisely to the examples of thermonuclear reactions given above. As the temperature rises, the process of pairwise exchange becomes impossible and the fusion reaction stops.
If the supposition stated above is correct, then for the time being we shall have to say goodbye to the hope of an inexhaustible source of energy (whether people realise this sooner or later), and a more suitable use would be found for the enormous funds that people spend on a hopeless undertaking. We have by no means learned all the laws of nature, but Murphy's laws we have firmly mastered — persistent attempts to achieve controlled “hot” thermonuclear fusion will continue for more than one decade yet.
Yurikov Yu. M.
Our own Kurchatov Institute is no exception in this respect: for it the long-awaited thermonuclear fusion is a supertask and the most important factor determining the funding of research. Let us ask how the further scientific career of a staff member would turn out in such conditions if he publicly doubted the very possibility of achieving controlled “hot” fusion. It is not hard to guess... Few independent scientists, either, would dare to take such a step: everyone understands that such an influential scientific institution would have no difficulty in defaming an overreaching “heretic” and putting a fat cross over his further scientific career.
But are there any grounds for doubting the theory of thermonuclear fusion, tested over decades?
Fact one — the values of temperature and pressure reached in experimental installations already exceed by an order of magnitude the capabilities of our luminary, yet the kind of energy available to it is still unavailable to us. Theory cannot explain this.
Fact two — the presence of a cold “layer” — the photosphere and the chromosphere, with temperatures of only 5000 to 15000 degrees — between the extremely hot central region (supposedly up to 14 million degrees) and the solar corona (up to 1 million degrees). Theory cannot explain this either.
These two facts suggest that some unaccounted factor is at work. Let us suppose that for thermonuclear fusion, even though this contradicts theory, only extremely high pressure is necessary, but not temperature. Within this supposition both of the facts mentioned are explained.
The rise in pressure is inseparably linked with the rise in temperature; however, in an extremely fast process — the detonation of a thermonuclear charge — there is an extremely short interval of delay in the temperature rise, when the substance passes into a condensed state. Let us suppose that it is precisely at this moment, when the pressure has reached its maximum values and the temperature has only just begun to increase, that the reaction of the fusion of nuclei takes place. And only after this does the temperature rise to millions of degrees, which not only does not promote the reaction but, on the contrary, stops it.
If this supposition corresponds to reality, then the solar temperature anomaly is easily explained — the core of the star is cold, and it is only thanks to the presence of such a “refrigerator” that a slow thermonuclear reaction takes place, at the boundary of the cold and hot media. Versions of a cold core of the Sun have been put forward more than once, and the opinion that the thermonuclear reaction takes place at the centre of the luminary is called into question by a number of scientific data.
From this point of view the failures, lasting for decades, to master thermonuclear energy are easily explained. All of today's achievements in this field are in essence the same thing, thermonuclear explosions, only on a considerably smaller scale. Nothing resembling slow thermonuclear fusion at temperatures of millions of degrees has occurred in the experiments.
Yes, this contradicts the theory according to which the forces of electrostatic repulsion can be overcome, to bring nuclei together, only by means of ultra-high temperatures; yet the Italian physicists Sergio Focardi and Andrea Rossi managed perfectly well without the latter, having succeeded in carrying out the transmutation of nickel into copper at a temperature of less than 1000 degrees. Their result likewise does not fit the generally accepted theory.
What could the explanation of this discrepancy between theory and practice be? It is known that unlike charges exchange virtual photons, and that this exchange takes place strictly “tête-à-tête”. It is hard to believe, but there is simply no other explanation — the virtual photon “knows” in advance where in space its “point of arrival” will be. The nature of such "foresight" of its we have yet to understand. The virtual photon has negative momentum and therefore does not repel but attracts unlike charges.
Like charges emit real photons and repel each other, and the latter have no predetermined “point of arrival” and head for the like charge nearest at the moment of emission, “not taking into account” that it too does not stand still. Thanks to such “careless shooting” photons sometimes seek their “target” for billions of years.
Let us imagine a situation in which two like charges exchange real photons exclusively between themselves, that is, in the way characteristic of virtual photons. Will a force of attraction not appear in place of repulsion? The electrons of a Cooper pair have a like charge and should emit real, not virtual, photons in the direction of each other, yet they do not repel each other. It is all a matter of the exclusively pairwise exchange, “tête-à-tête”.
The New Zealand physicist John Lekner of Victoria University of Wellington has shown that like-charged metal spheres, if their sizes greatly exceed the distance between them, do not repel but attract. Lekner also notes that he is not the first to have noticed this phenomenon. Records survive of the scientist who devised the lightning conductor for ships, William Snow Harris, who notes that in his experiments with charged discs “the repulsion sometimes entirely disappeared and was replaced by attraction”.
Another argument in favour of this version is that protons with antiparallel spin orientation do not take part in the strong interaction. Under such conditions the exchange of a photon is impossible, and the approach does not take place.
Now let us return to thermonuclear fusion. To reach conditions in which the probability of such an exchange of real photons would rise sharply, three conditions must be met: the greatest possible reduction of the distances between the nuclei, a minimal temperature as a reflection of the magnitude of the relative velocities, and a low level of entropy: the photon must "hit" exactly where it was "aimed". These conditions correspond precisely to the examples of thermonuclear reactions given above. As the temperature rises, the process of pairwise exchange becomes impossible and the fusion reaction stops.
If the supposition stated above is correct, then for the time being we shall have to say goodbye to the hope of an inexhaustible source of energy (whether people realise this sooner or later), and a more suitable use would be found for the enormous funds that people spend on a hopeless undertaking. We have by no means learned all the laws of nature, but Murphy's laws we have firmly mastered — persistent attempts to achieve controlled “hot” thermonuclear fusion will continue for more than one decade yet.
Yurikov Yu. M.