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Science

Build Your Own Cyclotron 200

Posted by michael from the DIY dept.
kenthorvath writes "This guy and his friend built their own cyclotron, capable of 1 MeV protons using spare parts and surplus science equipment. Anyone else happen to have a 4600 lb. magnet lying around?"
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Build Your Own Cyclotron More

Build Your Own Cyclotron

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  • This is very interesting indeed. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by packeteer ( 566398 ) <packeteer AT subdimension DOT com> on Sunday October 20, 2002 @06:43PM (#4491648)
    Does anyone have links to where you can find materials to work on this if you dont work in a lab. I am in high school and very interested in physics and it would be an awsome project to work on something like this.

  • Amazing... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by neksys ( 87486 ) <grphillips AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday October 20, 2002 @06:49PM (#4491679)
    It never ceases to amaze me that amateur science enthusiasts are building stuff like that - from the home-made tesla coil of a few weeks ago, to home-built rockets capable of low orbit... it just blows me away. Granted, the devices they build are generally years, if not decades behind the "cutting edge", but the fact that average people can take a sound scientific principle and turn it into something physical for a handful of bills is wonderful. It is people like these that foster innovation and growth in the sciences - not multi-billion dollar research conglomerates. These DIY tinkerers are what science is all about - it is science for the sake of science, and by extension, for the sake of the world! They do it because they are passionate about what they are doing - not for the fame, or the fortune. It was politics and economics that made the decision to put a man on the moon - it is people like this that got us there.

  • Re:Doh! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by John Miles ( 108215 ) on Sunday October 20, 2002 @07:11PM (#4491769) Homepage Journal
    Of course, an "electron cannon" at atmospheric pressure would be about as dangerous as a broken CRT.

  • Re:Things that go boom (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 20, 2002 @07:27PM (#4491833)
    That doesn't mean that they're easy to build, fortunately.

    Actually, gun-type fission devices are very easy to build, it's getting the materials that is difficult.

  • Re:Looks like we'll finally be able to build... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Sunday October 20, 2002 @07:59PM (#4491953) Journal
    It's called a stun gun.

  • Re:Yesterday's technology, tomorrow! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by victim ( 30647 ) on Sunday October 20, 2002 @08:53PM (#4492215)
    Cyclotrons can be used for uranium enrichment. Most of the uranium used in the Hiroshima (40*WTC911) and Nagaski (20*WTC911) bombs was purified in cyclotrons.

    It takes a lot of energy, so you might want to have vast oil reserves that you aren't allowed to export in order to power the cylcotrons.

    note: The Nagasaki bomb was not that much smaller, the weather was bad and we missed the population center and hit an industrial area instead.

  • Re:Amazing... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aelvin ( 265451 ) on Sunday October 20, 2002 @10:32PM (#4492616)

    It never ceases to amaze me that amateur science enthusiasts are building stuff like that ...

    According to Tim's web page [rutgers.edu]: "I am currently a graduate student in the Physics Department at Rutgers University. My primary area of interest is in Particle accelerators. I have worked at Fermilab in the Beams Division." Then it goes on to list accelerator talks he's given, accelerators he's worked at, and publications on accelerators he's written.

    So how exactly does that make him an "amateur science enthusiast?"

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