3/14/2006: Z Machine

Two of the largest images ever yet on IotD, and two more images that really challenge the JPG format. Suggested by xoB from yesterday's APoD.

This is the Z Machine, which recently created the hottest man-made temperature ever. Unexpectedly.

And it's not operated by some evil overlord, but by Sandia National Laboratories. The machine, according to the APoD...

purposely creates high temperatures by focusing 20 million amps of electricity into a small region further confined by a magnetic field. Vertical wires give the Z Machine its name.

Huh. Well let's try Wikipedia:

The machine operates by releasing an electrical pulse and associated magnetic field. The energy from a 20-million-ampere electrical discharge vaporizes an array of thin tungsten wires and a powerful magnetic field crushes the ensuing plasma. The collapsing plasma produces X-rays which create a shock wave that bears on the material being tested. The powerful fluctuation in the magnetic field (or "electromagnetic pulse") also generates electric current in all of the metallic objects in the room (see picture at right).

So how'd it make that hot temperature?

In 2006, the Z Machine produced plasmas with temperatures in excess of 2 GK (10⁹ K) or 3.6 billion ^oF. Project scientists were doubtful about the results, but after fourteen months of computer modeling and further tests, they have concluded that the results are, indeed, valid. It is believed the high temperature plasmas were achieved by using a slightly larger spool of wires with thicker steel wires substituted for the usual tungsten wires.

So all the sparky bits are just a side-effect of the real thing going on in the center.

But it's purty, ain't it?

This is cool. Doc Ock's fusion machine was cooler, though.

Just for a reference on how hot 2*10^9 K really is,
the core of our sun is estimated to be at 1.36*10^7 K

Its about time Science found a reliable method to dispose of those pesky tungsten and steel wires...

What fascinated me in the original article is that the temps were higher than they calculated possible with the amount of matter within the test chamber. One guy said something to the effect that there must have been more matter than they could account for. If so, where'd it come from? Anyone missing some socks or small animals?

"Technician Dolores Graham uses tweezers to build an array of wires, each 1/10 the diameter of a human hair, that form a target about the size of a spool of thread (between horizontal metal rings) for Sandia's huge Z accelerator."

<a href="http://www.sandia.gov/media/images/jpg/Z01.jpg"><img src="http://www.sandia.gov/media/images/Z01.gif"><br>click to enlarge <i>928K</i></a>

That one little array of wires causes all that fuss.

welcome RaisenOx!!! good to see someone else that can quote the internal temperature of the Sun.
saw this one a couple of days ago, its now the background to my windows.

all i can think is. "everybody in the pool!!"

Thanks for the welcome Kagen. I've been lurking around for a couple of months now, but finally decided to start posting today. I'm still orienting myself here, I guess html works in the forums but doesn't show up on the blog.

Promenea wrote:

What fascinated me in the original article is that the temps were higher than they calculated possible with the amount of matter within the test chamber. One guy said something to the effect that there must have been more matter than they could account for. If so, where'd it come from? Anyone missing some socks or small animals?

Oxygen? Nitrogen? Trace gases?

You'd think that they'd have accounted for that, though. Maybe they're vaporizing more of the supporting structure than they think.

They opened a portal to hell, and an unlucky demon poked his head through.

yeah i dont think even a demon could withstand 10^9 K.

id be a little worried about the people making this thing. i wouldnt want to hear after they turned that thing on "ooo, that was a little hotter than we expected". imagine if they built one bigger and more powerful in the first place to get to one billion K. imagine how hot that would have been!!!

They opened a portal to hell, and an unlucky demon poked his head through

And now I'm the only one who can stop the invasion:shotgun: ... Cept I ain't going near that machine!

Nanowires? No link. hunt the damn thing.

Things like this make me wonder when someone is going to "Unexpectedly" do something extremely dangerous and kill us all...

Relisnhoj wrote:

Things like this make me wonder when someone is going to "Unexpectedly" do something extremely dangerous and kill us all...

like when the US government knew there was a slight chance that the atom bomb could ignite the oxygen in the atmosphere and incinerate the earth in a matter of minutes. it was a very very small chance but a very very very big risk.

Promenea wrote:

What fascinated me in the original article is that the temps were higher than they calculated possible with the amount of matter within the test chamber. One guy said something to the effect that there must have been more matter than they could account for. If so, where'd it come from? Anyone missing some socks or small animals?

Dark matter? Anti-matter? Some parallel dimensions?:unsure:

So all the sparky bits are just a side-effect of the real thing going on in the center.

Is that how all the electronics get knocked out in a nuclear attack?

I just set this image as one of my background images a few days ago, and I noticed after staring at it for a while that part of it was (poorly) photoshopped. If you look at the lower right corner you can see that something got in the way and had to be rubber stamped.

Could I get one of these for LR ceiling?

I can't see the 'shop. I looked hard. Rubber stamped? What does that mean? Pardon my ignorance.

Slight wrote:

I just set this image as one of my background images a few days ago, and I noticed after staring at it for a while that part of it was (poorly) photoshopped. If you look at the lower right corner you can see that something got in the way and had to be rubber stamped.

I don't see it in the 1.66 meg version, but I'm hardly an expert. Actually I'm hardly an amateur.:lol:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0603/zmachine_sandia_big.jpg

Slight wrote:

I just set this image as one of my background images a few days ago, and I noticed after staring at it for a while that part of it was (poorly) photoshopped. If you look at the lower right corner you can see that something got in the way and had to be rubber stamped.

Poorly? I didn't even notice it untill you pointed that out. Hehe.

im guessing it has something to do with people trying to recreate it from the photo maybe?
like how google earth has the american congress building blurred. some kind of safety reasons?

capnhowdy wrote:

I can't see the 'shop. I looked hard. Rubber stamped? What does that mean? Pardon my ignorance.

The rubber stamp or clone tool is when you use data from another part of the photo, or from another photo to cover up something.

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

I don't see it in the 1.66 meg version, but I'm hardly an expert. Actually I'm hardly an amateur.

bluraven wrote:

Poorly? I didn't even notice it untill you pointed that out. Hehe.

Ok, I guess its not that poorly done if I didn't even notice it right away. I say its poorly done because I eventially found it. A good photoshop job leaves you wondering if its real or not, with no hard evidence. You can tell it was rubber stamped because there are repeating patterns. The reason this one popped out at me is because electrostatic discharges appear organic and continuous, but at the very bottom on the right side you can see unconnected discharges. I have to grant that whoever did this, worked hard.

Kagen4o4 wrote:

im guessing it has something to do with people trying to recreate it from the photo maybe?
like how google earth has the american congress building blurred. some kind of safety reasons?

I thought so too. But after looking at it again for you guys, I noticed that the photoshop was probably done to stitch two photos together along the edge of the main photo; probably due to the cutoff you get from a fisheye lens. This is evidenced by the upper right corner being all black which it shouldn't be if compared to the exposure in the upper left. And if you look very closely at the upper right ceiling, the roof trusses don't line up.

enough analysis

by looking at that picture it looks like there may just have been something in the way that made the photo crap and therefore not APoD worthy. like the cord on some cameras or just a pole or sumfin

Okay, maybe I missed this, but is there a practical reason or advantage to be gained from creating a temperature of this magnitude? Or is this just another example of the U.S. telling eveyone, "We have a lot of money and we are putting it to good use."

Is this the same technology that's part of that mind control harp array or whatever Art Bell was talking about last year?

AureliusVin wrote:

Okay, maybe I missed this, but is there a practical reason or advantage to be gained from creating a temperature of this magnitude? Or is this just another example of the U.S. telling eveyone, "We have a lot of money and we are putting it to good use."

I don't know, but my guess is that it's a step toward fusion power.

I think you have to be a member of Physicists Club for Nerds before you know for sure *why* they're doing this, although I, too, suspect that it is related to fusion research. Matter behaves strangely at high energies, and there are probably a lot of efforts going on to encourage that sort of thing for purposes of pure research into high energy physics.

Originally designed to supply 50 terawatts of power in one fast pulse, technological advances allowed this to increase to 290 terawatts, enough to study nuclear fusion.

Ding Ding Ding, give those men cigars.:D

wolf wrote:

Is this the same technology that's part of that mind control harp array or whatever Art Bell was talking about last year?

Submitted for your approval

yeesh. i like to tell myself that everyone is good, our government doesn't do scary things, michael jackson was telling the truth, blah, blah, blah, just to have the world make sense.:D
but then super-secret tundra crossing lines turn up and damn, i gotta soothe myself with some more happy talk...

seriously, though, how come the brightest idea i've ever come up with is adding pepper to my mac & cheese. the distribution of intelligence in this world is just not fair - i wanna be smart too:idea: :headshake

Evil is where the money is.
Do you think Dr. No would pay you millions to build a rose garden?
I think not.:lol: