Particle Accelerator That Can Fit On a Tabletop(sciencedaily.com)
sciencedaily.com
Particle Accelerator That Can Fit On a Tabletop
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130620132412.htm
3 comments
My dad worked on the first accelerator lab at UT many years ago.
He tells this story about someone accidentally accelerating a mass on a prototype rail gun in the basement. Someone got a unit conversion wrong -- it went through about 5 walls before it got stopped by a lot of dirt.
So my first reaction to undergrads with high energy accelerators is: what could possibly go wrong? It still sounds mighty cool.
He tells this story about someone accidentally accelerating a mass on a prototype rail gun in the basement. Someone got a unit conversion wrong -- it went through about 5 walls before it got stopped by a lot of dirt.
So my first reaction to undergrads with high energy accelerators is: what could possibly go wrong? It still sounds mighty cool.
"So my first reaction to undergrads with high energy accelerators is: what could possibly go wrong?"
I have some experience in that matter, so I can tell you what might go wrong. Back in the mid nineties, I was an undergrad and working on my first startup. Part of the project was building a 200 keV accelerator (much lower energy than than the ones in the article, but still high enough to get into trouble with).
The first big problem was the high voltage. Getting shocked by the 30,000 volt ion source supply was damn painful: it felt like hitting your finger with a sledgehammer. I only got a shock from the main supply once; for about 15 minutes I kept asking the other guys, "Am I dead? Are you sure I'm not dead?". It wasn't actually as painful as the 30kV supply. It was never hard to be safe with HV when everything was working properly - it was when things broke or two guys were trying to fix something at the same time that accidents happened.
As you might guess, we didn't have a lot of 'adult supervision'. We learned as we went along. Once we had a bit of a fright when we got the accelerator up and running. Spence, the part-timer old-timer engineer who would help us out on many things, showed up with a Geiger counter and showed us how much radiation was coming off the device. We learned a lot about radiation safety and shielding that week. I wonder how much exposure we would have received if Spence had not interceded.
And then you can get into free neutrons, and activation, and all sorts of other things. It's a real education. If you ever talk to one of those kids who make Farnsworth fusors, they end up going through the same learning curve. Luckily they have a bit of a community around that now, so they can share knowledge and not kill themselves too easily.
I have some experience in that matter, so I can tell you what might go wrong. Back in the mid nineties, I was an undergrad and working on my first startup. Part of the project was building a 200 keV accelerator (much lower energy than than the ones in the article, but still high enough to get into trouble with).
The first big problem was the high voltage. Getting shocked by the 30,000 volt ion source supply was damn painful: it felt like hitting your finger with a sledgehammer. I only got a shock from the main supply once; for about 15 minutes I kept asking the other guys, "Am I dead? Are you sure I'm not dead?". It wasn't actually as painful as the 30kV supply. It was never hard to be safe with HV when everything was working properly - it was when things broke or two guys were trying to fix something at the same time that accidents happened.
As you might guess, we didn't have a lot of 'adult supervision'. We learned as we went along. Once we had a bit of a fright when we got the accelerator up and running. Spence, the part-timer old-timer engineer who would help us out on many things, showed up with a Geiger counter and showed us how much radiation was coming off the device. We learned a lot about radiation safety and shielding that week. I wonder how much exposure we would have received if Spence had not interceded.
And then you can get into free neutrons, and activation, and all sorts of other things. It's a real education. If you ever talk to one of those kids who make Farnsworth fusors, they end up going through the same learning curve. Luckily they have a bit of a community around that now, so they can share knowledge and not kill themselves too easily.
Hope nobody was hurt, but that sounds seriously cool! It reminds me of the story of this kid building a nuclear reactor in his garage: http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_yup_i_built_a_nuclear...
You can pick up a much lower energy electron accelerator if you're willing to go dumpster diving for a CRT, right? Obviously there's a huge difference between what you can do with something like this vs. the energies in a CRT vs. CERN or a national lab, but it's interesting that the technology was so widespread.
True, but the energy in the electrons is so low you can barely make phosphor glow. When you get GeV electrons you can make x-rays, and with x-rays you can do many interesting things.
One of the more interesting things you can do with a table top particle accelerator is kick start a Thorium reactor. There is a team in the UK doing this [1] but with a much bigger accelerator.
[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2001548/Elec...
One of the more interesting things you can do with a table top particle accelerator is kick start a Thorium reactor. There is a team in the UK doing this [1] but with a much bigger accelerator.
[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2001548/Elec...
This opens up the possibility for a huge number of measurements and experiments that would be too expensive to do at a national lab.