![]() Electrons had been discovered earlier, by J. The nuclear atom, consisting of a heavy nucleus with a positive electric charge, surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. These atoms were thought to be indestructible. Greeks, philosophers and scientists have sought the nature of things in tiny building blocks, called atoms, of which all material objects are composed. The first speculations about how to tap this vast store of energy were made a few years after Albert Einstein's brilliant deduction, in 1905, that mass can produce energy, according to his famous formula E =. Yet, given the vast amount of water available,Įven this trace amount of deuterium represents an almost limitless supply of energy on Earth. This deuterium, itself a form of hydrogen, is a small constituent of all water, about one part in five thousand. It is this trace of deuterium, together with small amounts created in later astronomical events suchĪs supernovas, that is the main motivation for fusion energy research today. Though most of the deuterium was consumed in this early, cataclysmic burst of fusion reactions, a trace survived. Just a few minutes after the Big Bang, when time began, the unbelievably hot universe had expanded and cooled sufficiently to allow hydrogen nuclei to form deuterium, and deuterium Predating even Prometheus and the Sun, fusion is as old as the universe. It is not an accident that, in Greek, the name Prometheus Journey that led up to this exciting achievement, and examines what lies ahead and the impact that fusion could have on the survival and well-being of industrial society in the future. Recently, after forty years of strenuous effort,įusion power was finally demonstrated in the laboratory, first in the Joint European Torus in 1991, and then definitively at Princeton University, in a series of experiments that began in December 1993. Today, irresistibly drawn to the challenge of bringing fusion energy down to Earth from the stars, scientists tempt Zeus still. Where a vulture tore away at his liver for a thousand years. ![]() When the Titan god Prometheus stole the Sun's fire to give helpless humans the power of survival, Zeus was so angered that he chained Prometheus to a mountain, According to Greek mythology, fusion energy, the fire of the Sun, is a gift hard won. ![]()
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