Scientists creating ‘artificial sun’ break world record in major breakthrough
Mastering the process would mean unlimited clean energy for humanity
Growing tired of our plain old boring sun? Well, a world record development has been made in the making of an ‘artificial sun’.
While you might argue we don’t need another sun when we already have a perfectly good one, the reality of what the team of scientists hailing from the south of France have done is nothing short of incredible.
A new world record has been achieved from inside a nuclear reactor (Getty stock)
On Wednesday last week (February 12), the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission’s WEST (which stands for the Environment in Steady-state Tokamak – with the W being the chemical symbol for tungsten) reactor maintained a plasma for more than 22 minutes.
But what does it mean?
The purpose of its creation is to achieve unlimited clean energy for the mankind until the end of time, and it can be done through hydrogen isotopes – with a single gram yielding the same amount of energy as 11 tonnes of coal does.
The team behind this world record were able to ignite the same chemical reaction that powers the Sun.
Mastering this process won’t only provide humanity with a limitless clean energy source, but it would also do so without leaving behind any hazardous waste like that seen from the fission process in nuclear power plants.
An artificial sun reactor also has the possibility to avoid the pitfalls of other energy sources, as it would not produce the emissions like fossil fuels.
A nuclear fusion reactor would merge atomic nuclei, generating massive amounts of energy in the process that can be turned into electricity.
Director of Fundamental Research Anne-Isabelle Etienvre, of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission said: “WEST has achieved a new key technological milestone by maintaining hydrogen plasma for more than twenty minutes through the injection of 2 MW of heating power.
Plasma is the fourth state a material goes through after solid, liquid and gas (Getty stock)
“Experiments will continue with increased power.”
The idea of replicating the Sun’s nuclear fusion process hasn’t just been relegated to science fiction as scientists around the world have experimented continuously to make it a reality – dedicating 80 years to the process.
It occurs through the creation of plasma – which is the fourth state a material goes through after solid, liquid and gas. Deuterium and tritium are the two fuels used in the chamber that turn into plasma after they’re heated to in excess of 50,000,000°C.
It the must stay in its plasma form without breaking apart, cooling down and turning back into gas.
There are few facts in life: we all die, grass is green and teleportation is something from science-fiction.
Well, apparently that last one is a gray area after a team of scientists from the University of Oxford, UK, used a supercomputer to harness the ability to teleport.
It sounds like something straight out of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – it’s taken me 27 years to realize that’s the real name of the hit kids TV show… although that’s nothing on the 138 years it has taken scientists to make it a reality.
So how have these mega-minds brought the phenomenon into existence?
Could we all soon be teleporting ourselves soon? (Getty stock images)
They used particles of light, known as photons, and they physically teleported them to a separate device – however, it is important to note that in this case, data is what is being transported between locations.
Speaking of the impressive feat, Oxford University said in a media release: “In a milestone that brings quantum computing tangibly closer to large-scale practical use, scientists at Oxford University’s Department of Physics have demonstrated the first instance of distributed quantum computing.
“Using a photonic network interface, they successfully linked two separate quantum processors to form a single, fully connected quantum computer, paving the way to tackling computational challenges previously out of reach. The results have been published in Nature.”
Quantum computing has been around for decades, but with modern advances scientists are only just managing to harness its full potential.
The study, titled ‘Distributed quantum computing across an optical network link’, explained how the experiment demonstrated the distribution of quantum computations between two ‘photonically interconnected trapped-ion modules’.
Quantum computing has made teleportation a reality (Getty stock)
The modules were separated by around two metres, and each contained ‘dedicated network and circuit qubits’.
“By using heralded remote entanglement between the network qubits, we deterministically teleport a controlled-Z (CZ) gate between two circuit qubits in separate modules, achieving 86% fidelity,” the abstract read in part.
The researchers went on to explain how they searched the quantum mechanical algorithm database to see how well the first ‘teleportation’ did in terms of the fidelity of the qubits – with it coming in at 71 per cent, so not as great and that wasn’t using photons.
It adds: “As photons can be interfaced with a variety of systems, the versatile DQC [distributed quantum computing] architecture demonstrated here provides a viable pathway towards large-scale quantum computing for a range of physical platforms.”
Speaking about the results, UK Quantum Computing and Simulation Hub’s Professor David Lucas added: “Our experiment demonstrates that network-distributed quantum information processing is feasible with current technology.
“Scaling up quantum computers remains a formidable technical challenge that will likely require new physics insights as well as intensive engineering effort over the coming years.”
