Two Billion Degrees
At the beginning of 2006, the Z machine produced plasmas with announced temperatures in excess of 2 billion kelvins (2 GK, 2×109 K) or 3.6 billion °F, even reaching a peak at 3.7 GK or 6.6 billion °F. It was achieved in part by replacing the tungsten wires with thicker steel wires. This temperature, which enables a 10% to 15% efficiency in converting electrical energy to soft x-rays, was much higher than anticipated (3 to 4 times the kinetic energy of the incoming wires on axis). The Guinness Book Of Records listed it as the highest human-achieved temperature (the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory has produced higher temperatures, but only within nuclear matter; also the Large Hadron Collider has produced higher temperatures). The origin of this extra energy still remains unexplained, but it has been theorized that small-scale MHD turbulence and viscous damping would convert magnetic energy into thermal energy of the ions, which then would transfer their energy to the electrons through collisions.
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Famous quotes containing the words billion and/or degrees:
“Imagine spending four billion years stocking the oceans with seafood, filling the ground with fossil fuels, and drilling the bees in honey production—only to produce a race of bed-wetters!”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“Pure Spirit, one hundred degrees proof—that’s a drink that only the most hardened contemplation-guzzlers indulge in. Bodhisattvas dilute their Nirvana with equal parts of love and work.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)