Z Machine Melts Diamond To A Puddle

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Sandia's Z machine, by creating pressures more than 10 million times that of the atmosphere at sea level, has turned a diamond sheet into a pool of liquid.

The object of the experiment at the National Nuclear Security Administration facility was to better understand the characteristics of diamond under the extreme pressure it would face when used as a capsule for a BB-sized pellet intended to fuel a nuclear fusion reaction.

Why use diamond at all? It was hoped that diamond would help smooth out the applied pressure loads and keep the capsule implosion symmetric.

In the experiments, the applied pressure came from shock waves passing through the diamond. The waves were created by impacting the diamond with tiny plates hurled using Z's huge magnetic fields at about 20 times the speed of a rifle bullet.
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This N-man, This Model!

N-Man © and TM Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved, 1993, 2006]

A few years back I wanted to experiment with a block of ‘Super-Sculpty’ that I had acquired. Inspired by ‘Sturdy’ Steve Bissette’s “N-Man” (a co-creation with Alan Moore) for the lamentably never-finished ‘1963’ series for Image Comics, I sculpted the half man-half lobster hero.

Pete Von Sholly then turned a photo of the 12” model into the cool faux-Aurora box seen above. Steve's recent post of of Pete's faux box has forced my hand in putting up this post.





The above illos are all from the ash can edition of “The Unbelievable N-Man” that Steve sent me all those years ago. Below is the ash can cover (left) and the 1st N-Man cover feature.



Below are two better shots of the finished painted model:




N-Man © and TM Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved, 1993, 2006]

And a big Halloween thanks to Steve and Pete!

Happy HPLoween!

© Pete Von Sholly.

A 13x19 Giclee signed print of Pete Von Sholly's HPL above painting is available from www.mysteryandimagination.com

And here's a plug for one of Pete's latest books:

Science Debunks Halloween, Part 3: No Ghosts

Using Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion, scientists have demonstrated that ghosts would not be able to walk and pass through walls

In movies such as “Ghostbusters”, ghosts often walk like humans, pass through walls and pick up objects. But that portrayal cannot be accurate, Efthimiou says. For ghosts to have the ability to walk like humans, they would need to put a force upon the floor, which would exert an equal and opposite force in return.

But ghosts' ability to pass through walls and have humans walk right through them demonstrates that they cannot apply any force. LINK

Ghosts, Vampires and Zombies: Cinema Fiction vs Physics Reality. 2006. C.J. Efthimiou, and S. Gandhi.

The Classic "Lonesome Ghosts":

Science Debunks Halloween, Part 2: No Zombies

The laws of science can debunk popular myths zombies according to a paper published by Efthimiou and Sohang Gandhi.

"These popular myths make for a lot of Halloween fun and great movies with special effects, but they just don't hold up to the strict tests of science," Efthimiou said.

Illo © Bruce Timm from HERE

Efthimiou provides a practical explanation for "voodoo zombiefication," which suggests that zombies "come about by a voodoo hex being placed by a sorcerer on one of his enemies." He reviewed the case of a Haitian adolescent who was pronounced dead by a local doctor after a week of dramatic convulsions.

After the boy was buried, he returned in an incoherent state, and Haitians pronounced that a sorcerer had raised him from the dead in the state of a zombie.

Science, however, has a less-supernatural explanation. A highly-toxic substance called tetrodotoxin is found in a breed of puffer fish native to Haitian waters. Contact with this substance generally results in a rapid death. However, in some cases, the right dose of the toxin will result in a state that mimics death and slows vital signs to a level that is unable to be measured. Eventually, the victim snaps out of the death-like coma and returns to his or her regular condition.



Scientific analysis has shown that oxygen deprivation is consistent with the boy's brain damage and his incoherent state.

"It would seem that zombiefication is nothing more than a skillful act of poisoning," Efthimiou said. LINK

Ghosts, Vampires and Zombies: Cinema Fiction vs Physics Reality. 2006. C.J. Efthimiou, and S. Gandhi.

See more Halloween treats over at the Digital Dream Machine Blog

Science Debunks Halloween, Part 1: No Vampires

The laws of physics and math debunk popular myths about ghosts and vampires, according to a newly published paper.



Basic math disproves the legend of humans turning into vampires after they are bitten, Efthimiou explains, because the entire human population in 1600 would have been wiped out in less than three years.

Movies such as "Dracula" suggest that vampires feed on human blood and that once a human has been bitten, he or she turns into a vampire and begins feeding on other humans. To disprove the existence of vampires, Efthimiou relied on a basic math principle known as geometric progression.

Efthimiou supposed that the first vampire arrived Jan. 1, 1600, when the human population was 536,870,911. Assuming that the vampire fed once a month and the victim turned into a vampire, there would be two vampires and 536,870,910 humans on Feb. 1. There would be four vampires on March 1 and eight on April 1. If this trend continued, all of the original humans would become vampires within two and a half years and the vampires' food source would disappear.



"In the long run, humans cannot survive under these conditions, even if our population were doubling each month," Efthimiou said. "And doubling is clearly way beyond the human capacity of reproduction." LINK

Ghosts, Vampires and Zombies: Cinema Fiction vs Physics Reality. 2006. C.J. Efthimiou, and S. Gandhi.

Gamma Rays From M87

Astrophysicists report the discovery of fast variability in very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays from the giant elliptical galaxy M 87. The detection of these gamma-ray photons - with energies more than a million million times the energy of visible light - from one of the most famous extragalactic objects on the sky is remarkable, though long-expected given the many potential sites of particle acceleration (and thus gamma-ray production) within M 87.



Much more surprising was the discovery of drastic gamma-ray flux variations on time-scales of days. These results, for the first time, exclude all possible options for sites of gamma-ray production, except for the most exciting and extraordinary one: the immediate vicinity of the super-massive black hole which is located in the centre of M 87

Link: Science Express, October 26, 2006.