Sun in a Bottle - Charles Seife [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 - THE SWORD OF MICHAEL
CHAPTER 2 - THE VALLEY OF IRON
CHAPTER 3 - PROJECT PLOWSHARE AND THE SUNSHINE UNITS
CHAPTER 4 - KINKS, INSTABILITIES, AND BALONEY BOMBS
CHAPTER 5 - HEAT AND LIGHT
CHAPTER 6 - THE COLD SHOULDER
CHAPTER 7 - SECRETS
CHAPTER 8 - BUBBLE TROUBLE
CHAPTER 9 - NOTHING LIKE THE SUN
CHAPTER 10 - THE SCIENCE OF WISHFUL THINKING
APPENDIX: TABLETOP FUSION
Acknowledgements
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ALSO BY CHARLES SEIFE
Decoding the Universe
Alpha & Omega
Zero
VIKING
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First published in 2008 by Viking Penguin,
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Copyright © Charles Seife, 2008
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Insert illustration credits
Page 1 (two images), 4 (top), 6 (top left and bottom): United States Department of Energy ■
2 (left), 3, 6 (top right): Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ■ 2 (right): DigitalGlobe ■
4 (bottom): Federation of American Scientists ■ 5 (top and bottom left): AP/Wide World
Photos ■ 5 (bottom right): Lynn Freeny/United States Department of Energy ■ 7: ITER ■
8: Randy Montoya
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Seife, Charles.
Sun in a bottle : the strange history of fusion and the science of
wishful thinking / Charles Seife.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-0-670-02033-1
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INTRODUCTION
Circe warned me to shun the island of the blessed sun-god, for it was here, she said, that our worst danger would lie.
—THE ODYSSEY, TRANSLATED BY SAMUEL BUTLER
The dream is as ancient as humanity: unlimited power. It has driven generation after generation of scientists to the brink of insanity.
In 1905, after centuries of attempts to build perpetual motion machines, scientists discovered an essentially limitless source of energy. With his famous equation, E = mc2, Albert Einstein discovered that a minuscule chunk of mass could, theoretically, be converted into an enormous amount of energy. Indeed, E = mc 2 is the equation that describes why the sun shines; at its core, the sun is constantly converting matter to energy in a reaction known as fusion. If scientists could do the same thing on Earth—if they could convert matter into energy with a controlled fusion reaction—scientists could satisfy humanity’s energy needs until the end of time.
For the past half