Peeling Scotch tape creates X-rays

[TK421]

I was shocked, but it seems to be true.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,443470,00.html

 

[ALF]

Awesome! All I need a vacuum in which to do it.
I'll invite my best friend's wife over. She sucks all the life out of the room.

 

[Captain Intrepid]

And in other news, scotch tape banned in all American airports...

 

[Christopher]

I was skeptical, but New Scientist confirms it. This is bizarre. X-rays are very high-energy photons. It's astonishing that something so simple can generate them.

What's really fascinating is what the Fox "News" article didn't cover:

Putterman has even loftier ambitions. "The energy in the X-rays is enough to generate nuclear fusion, if it is given to the molecules rather than the electrons," he says. "It's a matter of engineering design, not physics."

Tom Todd, chief engineer of UKAEA Culham Division says, "It is true that the emitted X-ray energies are broadly representative of the electron energies – and that, if you could produce copious quantities of deuterium and tritium [the heavy hydrogen atoms needed for fusion] ions at around 15 keV, in sufficiently high density, they would produce fusion reactions."

However, it is unlikely that all these conditions will be met at the same time, so any power produced from the fused nuclei would be tiny, compared to the power required to unwind the sticky tape.

"It's not unphysical, just uneconomical by a great many orders of magnitude," concludes Todd.

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn15016-humble-sticky-tape-emits-powerful-xrays.html

Still, I wonder if it could point the way to developing similar mechanisms of generating x-rays or other radiation, something that could be used to provide an easier source of fusion power. It's worth looking into, I think.

 

[TK421]

Scotch tape fusion power?

Okay that just blew my mind.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Great, now Scotch Tape can give you cancer.







Just kidding.









Or am I?

 

[Christopher]

Great, now Scotch Tape can give you cancer.




Just kidding.




Or am I?

That depends. Do you live in a vacuum? (If so, you probably have other, more immediate problems....)

 

[Jadzia]

what about in an atmosphere that doesn't dissipate the voltage? Maybe we could build sellotape tape x-ray guns that don't need a vacuum. Are there gases which could do that? Like in geiger tubes, they use argon because it allows an electron cascade, while a tiny amount of a halogen quenches the avalanche so that it doesn't keep recycling.


You could easily build these out of two reels and a tape loop around them, which could rotate forever. But what happens to the adhesive over time? Does it loose its tack? Is that tack loss quicker or slower in a vacuum? Do the x-rays cause the tape plastic to deteriorate over time?

Is there a way of focussing x-rays for better control of hydrogen fusion?

What x-ray wavelength is necessary for effective fusion?

 

[LaxScrutiny]

what about in an atmosphere that doesn't dissipate the voltage? Maybe we could build sellotape tape x-ray guns that don't need a vacuum. Are there gases which could do that? Like in geiger tubes, they use argon because it allows an electron cascade, while a tiny amount of a halogen quenches the avalanche so that it doesn't keep recycling.


You could easily build these out of two reels and a tape loop around them, which could rotate forever. But what happens to the adhesive over time? Does it loose its tack? Is that tack loss quicker or slower in a vacuum? Do the x-rays cause the tape plastic to deteriorate over time?

Is there a way of focussing x-rays for better control of hydrogen fusion?

What x-ray wavelength is necessary for effective fusion?

I don't know the answers to your questions, but the next time some Star Trek characters get sent back in time, they can score some sticky tape to refire the warp engines.

 

[JustAFriend]

Just wait till they find out what you can do with Duct Tape....

 

[Jadzia]

^If your duct tape is sitting in a bath of heavy water when you rip it, then who knows?

 

[Christopher]

Just wait till they find out what you can do with Duct Tape....

As if there were anything you couldn't do with duct tape. It is the handyman's secret weapon, after all.

 

[Ronald Held]

Any mention of duct tape on screen? I recall an Enterprise novel had it in it.

 

[Christopher]

Any mention of duct tape on screen? I recall an Enterprise novel had it in it.

Onscreen where? Remember, this is the general Science and Technology forum, not Trek-specific. Duct tape was used constantly in MacGyver, as well as more comically on The Red Green Show. And I'm sure it's shown up plenty of other places as well. (Surprisingly, Wikipedia's section on "Duct tape in popular culture" is extremely spare.)

 

[tharpdevenport]

I wonder if this report will cause airport regulators to now ban scrotch tape from flights...

 

[Christopher]

I wonder if this report will cause airport regulators to now ban scrotch tape from flights...

Only if they're suborbital flights. Again, it only works in vacuum.

 

[Plecostomus]

Yes but these are the same people who banned all liquids over a certain size based on the rumor that you could smuggle chemicals onboard in seperate containers and build a bomb during the flight.

Possible? Yes. Probable? No.

So I could see them making a knee-jerk reaction based on the whole "no radioactive materials onboard" thing.

Possible? Yes. Probable? Hey it's the GOVERNMENT.

 

[Tyberius]

Still, I wonder if it could point the way to developing similar mechanisms of generating x-rays or other radiation, something that could be used to provide an easier source of fusion power. It's worth looking into, I think.

So the warp core is a giant roll of scotch tape?

 

[Plecostomus]

Photon torpedoes work by sticking a gob of tape to the hull and then peeling it off really fast? So all shields have to do is prevent that ball of tape from sticking then.

HA! ANOTHER TREK-NOLOGY MYSTERY SOLVED!

 

[tharpdevenport]

I wonder if this report will cause airport regulators to now ban scrotch tape from flights...

Only if they're suborbital flights. Again, it only works in vacuum.

Againyou're missing the humor in all this...


It's a joke. So was the other one.