NIF Compresses Diamonds With 50 Million Atmospheres of Pressure 81
sciencehabit (1205606) writes The world's largest laser [the National Ignition Facility], a machine that appeared as the warp core in 'Star Trek into Darkness', has attained a powerful result: It's squeezed diamond, the least compressible substance known, 50 million times harder than Earth's atmosphere presses down on us. ... As the researchers report online today in Nature, the x-ray assault nearly quadrupled the diamond's density. "That's a record," Smith [one of the researchers] says. "No one's compressed diamond to that extent before." The blast pulverized the diamond into dust, but before the mineral's destruction the scientists successfully measured its density ... For a billionth of a second, the diamond, which is normally 3.25 times denser than water, became ... 12.03 times denser than water. ... Scientists have speculated that diamond worlds may exist elsewhere. If a solar system arises with more carbon than oxygen, then carbon should soak up the oxygen by forming carbon monoxide, leaving excess carbon to create carbon planets—which, under pressure, become diamond worlds. Thus, Smith says, the new experiment will probe the nature of such planets.
They are performing similar experiments with iron in an attempt to understand the properties of super-Earth cores.
Car analogy? (Score:2)
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In automotive terms, they dropped a Hummer from the SpaceX reusable rocket at the peak of a test-launch and for an infinitesimaly small period of time during the impact, it was compressed to the size of a Pinto, before shattering into a pile of scrap metal.
Except this was done with diamond and a laser instead of a Hummer and a rocket.
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In automotive terms, they dropped a Hummer from the SpaceX reusable rocket at the peak of a test-launch and for an infinitesimaly[sic] small period of time before the impact, it got almost the same MPG of a Pinto, before shattering into a pile of scrap metal.
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I owned a Pinto. The mileage of that POS was in the same ballpark as the Hummer.
Either it was very old by the time you got it, or something was really wrong with it. Pinto's were advertised to get 34 MPG, and many did better than that. The worst mileage I've ever heard of a stock Pinto getting was 22 MPG, but that was pulling a trailer with the AC on.
The Hummer H1 was 9 MPG city and 12 highway. The H2 was around 14 combined, and the H3 was 14 city, 18 highway. So no, not really in the same ball park at all.
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So you needed a trailer to talke the air conditioning plant along - awesome!
Yes, and even towing an air conditioning plant the Pinto managed to get better mileage than a Hummer.
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Yet only a small fraction as dense as a red state rep.
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Basically they used lasers to stuff 99 people into a VW bug for about a nanosecond. Then the entire thing exploded violently into sand-grain-sized chunks of metal and meat.
Re:Car analogy? (Score:5, Funny)
Can someone explain this with a car analogy?
Star Trek Into Darkness:Star Trek The Wrath of Khan :: Ford Pinto : Ford Mustang (1969 Boss version)
No idea about the laser.
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Think of a monster truck show.
All those junk cars lined up in a row, that's the diamond. Then out comes Gravedigger. The driver revs the engine and hits the ramp, landing on the cars and crushing them. Bam, denser diamonds.
Then Truckasaurus comes stomping out into the arena and starts grabbing the smashed cars and eating them. Flames and sparks are shooting everywhere and the cars (diamonds) explode into little pieces half a second later.
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Homer: Here are your messages: "You have 30 minutes to move your car," "You have 10 minutes," "Your car has been impounded," "Your car has been crushed into a cube," "You have 30 minutes to move your cube."
[phone rings]
Homer: [answering] Hello, Mr. Burns' office.
Mr. Burns: Is it about my cube?
yes (Score:1)
The taxpayers bought a bunch of scientists some incredible equipment to help them develop the most amazing car ever. The new car the scientists promised would be faster than any rocketcar to cross the salt flats, more rugged than an MRAP, have more luxury than a Maybach, and be nearly free to operate because it would run on sea water.
As the decades slipped by and people asked these scientists "where's our shiny new ultimate car?" the scientists always gave the same answer: "We just got the first cough of ig
There is only one "Solar system" (Score:3, Informative)
I see that mistake so often. It should be "star system" because only our star system is called "Solar system" because our star is called Sol.
Re: There is only one "Solar system" (Score:5, Informative)
Re: There is only one "Solar system" (Score:2)
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"Solar System" in this case would be a specific noun, and as such warrants the capitalization. Sol, our Star, is also a specific noun, hence its warrant of capitalization, just as we would capitalize a person's name. If one is referring to "a solar system" in a generic sense rather than an unknown but implied specific Star and it's surrounding Planets, then lower case is appropriate.
Can you please explain to me why this actually matters?
Since somebody spent the time to write out a detailed explanation about capitalisation of the phrase "solar system", this must be of some importance.
Again, why does this matter?
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Capitalization is the difference between...
helping your Uncle Jack off a horse.
and
helping your uncle jack off a horse.
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Again, why does this matter?
Because, technically correct is the best kind of correct!
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I come into the comments looking for someone modded up for actually explaining things, and THIS is the only thing modded +5?!?!?!?!?!?!?
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A very frequent place to find this misused is the pseudo-science programs on Science and History channels. And I'm sure the Duck Dynasty and Honey Boo Boos out their wouldn't understand the difference if you hit them in the head with a Star Encyclopedia, it would however, be enjoyable.
Sigh, I had such great hopes for those types of channels when they first appeared. Now they live off of Ancient Aliens and Blob People From The Depth
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I'm not sure George ever gave his opinion about which side of that particular line he was on.
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I see that mistake so often. It should be "star system" because only our star system is called "Solar system" because our star is called Sol.
Funny thing is, often words have multiple meanings:
Solar system
noun
1.the sun together with all the planets and other bodies that revolve around it.
2.a similar system with celestial bodies revolving around a star other than the sun.
http://dictionary.reference.co... [reference.com]
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Furthermore we also refer to other stars as "suns" when we feel like it or the context makes it useful.
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By the time we're able to harvest diamonds from other planetary bodies we'll have perfected laboratory synthethis. Actually, we'll perfect that LONG before we start mining other planetary bodies.
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"I don't see any flaws or inclusions, but I also don't see and bubbles, so its not glass.... I guess we can send it to a lab in New York and find out what it is if you want?"
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Yep. The main selling point of "natural" gemstones these days is that the lab-made ones are "too perfect!"
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as opposed to bitcoin itself.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
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Strictly speaking, there is only "unique" and "non unique", but there's no "more unique."
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Strictly speaking, there is only "unique" and "non unique", but there's no "more unique."
True, but sadly, due to rampant misuse, there's no more "unique." :-)
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Yep. The main selling point of "natural" gemstones these days is that the lab-made ones are "too perfect!"
Strictly speaking it's because they're "more unique" and therefore "rarer"....
Yet, oddly, the market for natural pearls - by which I mean ones that aren't "cultured", but are formed naturally - collapsed when farmed cultured pearls were introduced, and has never really recovered -- even though they are easily identifiable, far rarer, and "more unique" (I am quoting the misconstruction). Natural pearl production is lower today than it was a century ago. This is a good thing, since it takes pressure off of living communities of organisms, but it is also inconsistent behavior of the mar
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Diamond monopoly.... (Score:2)
So that's how De Beers keeps their monopoly, they dispose of extra diamonds... by crushing them with a really expensive laser...
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It is far easier and cheaper to just burn them, literally, by heating with a torch then dropping into liquid oxygen.
Why bother with the liquid oxygen? You can shovel them into a coal burning furnace. Diamonds usually completely burn up in house fires. It doesn't take any more heat/oxygen to burn a diamond than it does to burn coal.
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De Beers never destroyed diamonds to maintain scarcity - they just stockpiled them, and then worked to create new markets in emerging economies (the United States, later Japan, then Eastern Europe, now China) and eventually sold them. At one point they had a stockpile equal to several years of sales.
Democrat Senators are right wing? (Score:2)
While Democratic Senator Robert Byrd was president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, and the longest serving Democrat in any national office, he wrote scathing commentary about Obama ignoring the Constitution and legislating from the oval office. Nobody is more democrat than Byrd. More recently, the distinguished Senator from Ohio wrote that Obama's handling of Obamacare is clearly unconstitutional.
I understand you're probably infatuated with the guy, but peek around the blinders once in a while.
The missing link (Score:4, Informative)
Disappointing that the Star Trek tie-in was mentioned but the link was omitted...
National Ignition Facility provides backdrop for "Star Trek: Into Darkness" [llnl.gov]
Is this a spin-off from "Will It Blend" ? (Score:4, Funny)
The atmosphere does not press "down" on us (Score:2)
It presses us from all sides with the same force (except for a minuscule difference due to different height of things). This is a real stupid beginner's mistake.
Similar experiments at the LHC (Score:2)