Lead
After millions of years of walking upright from trees, the way human beings use energy has hardly changed much, and they have always used the chemical energy of various substances to meet their own needs for survival and development.
In the 20th century, mankind finally discovered many new forms of energy with its own ingenuity, among which the most interesting is nuclear fusion energy, which is known as the "energy of the future", which has many advantages that traditional energy sources do not have.
In the eyes of people, nuclear energy is the kind of thing that "destroys the world", will nuclear fusion also be dangerous?
What are the charms of nuclear fusion, and what are the attractive advantages.
So what can fusion technology bring to people?
1. What a high energy density.
Fossil fuels were the first to be exploited and used as fuel.
When fire, the carbon in fossil fuels combines with oxygen in the air to produce carbon dioxide and water, and at the same time produces a lot of heat, which can be used to make exercise metals, heat work materials, etc.
This heat generated by fire was the first form of energy that humans had access to, and in ancient times, it was also the main source of energy.
But the disadvantage of this form of energy is very obvious, that is, its energy density is relatively low, and its energy is mainly obtained through chemical reactions.
When humans discovered the spark, people finally regarded it as a very precious thing, because it burned easily.
Other combustible substances such as methane in derivatives are also easy to burn, so people need to be very careful to prevent fires when using these substances.
It was not until the 2nd century B.C. that ancient Greek scholars thought deeply about the way human beings applied energy, and he found that the combustion of matter would find common characteristics after subdivision, so he collectively referred to this form of energy as "fire" and this energy as "heat".
Militus also made the idea that the heat of various fuels is the same.
In order to test this idea, he chose the classic flame combustion experiment, but in the actual experiment he confused the burning time, so the results of this experiment did not achieve the desired effect.
At present, it does not matter whether the results of Militus's experiment are accurate or not, but in the eyes of the Romans, Militus's qualitative experiment is considered to have no scientific basis.
Second, the concept of the amount of heat and energy.
While thinking that people like Militus were not qualified to do a profound study of such a profound thing, he also ridiculed the chemists who studied combustion, who from the Roman point of view, regarded the study of combustion as a mere perceptual understanding.
People like Militus just take it for granted that his research has no scientific significance, and the conclusions he makes are of no reference value.
So in this case, the conclusions of Militus's experiment are considered very reliable, but everything is changing.
After the emergence of an outstanding scientist in a country, he is Ka Aellen.
It was with the conclusion of this easy-to-understand qualitative experiment that Miletuthys carried out many experiments, and finally proved that Milesotis's view that energy produced by combustion is a "quantity" is a hundred correct.
Therefore, although Militus did not do quantitative experiments, the conclusions of his qualitative experiments are correct, which shows that the experiments done by Militus are very meaningful.
The same reasoning may seem to us today as something of simple perceptual understanding, but there are many such points of view that are also very meaningful, and they are very good as long as they are taken as an opening vernacular.
From the 17th century AD, the British scientist John Shoches began to modify the steam engine to convert combustion energy into mechanical energy, and this typical mechanical energy was used until the end of the 19th century.
At the end of the 19th century, mankind's exploration of new energy sources gradually unfolded, and electricity was more and more used in people's lives, and electric motors gradually replaced combustion machinery.
In the practical application of electricity, we found that electricity and heat also have a certain relationship, so scientists believe that electrothermal energy and chemical energy are very similar, so scientists have a new concept of heat energy and energy.
This new concept of quantity is named joules, and it is defined as raising the temperature of water by 1 degree with electricity from a height of 1 kilogram and 3 meters.
In flame and electricity, we can conclude that the energy production of fuel and electricity is chemically generated.
Chemical energy is undoubtedly excellent, but the energy density is low.
This chemical energy density can almost propel human society into a modern society, but the development of science is always advancing.
In 1911, Ernest Rutherford of England proposed a small positively charged nucleus in the center of an atom through scattering experiments with α particles.
In the nucleus, the nucleus can be divided into two kinds of particles, one is protons and the other is neutrons, and after some research, we found that when using positively charged particles for bomb experiments, the particles can not only scatter, but also collide with nuclei.
3. The energy brought about by nuclear fusion.
The chemical reactions between particles are determined by the outer electrons in the atom, and the nucleus of the atom has a very large influence on the outer electrons.
So in the bomb experiment, the collision between the particles has no effect on the collision due to their outer electrons, but the collision between the nuclei of the particles is also the collision between protons and the collision between neutrons.
In the process of collision, as the intensity of the collision increases, the types of interactions between protons and neutrons will become more diverse, because the range of interaction between protons and neutrons is very small, so the energy brought by collisions is also very large.
When the nucleons between protons and neutrons collide, some new particles are created, which are unstable and therefore decompose in a very short time.
In the process of decomposition, a large amount of energy is released, and this energy density is millions of times that of chemical energy.
This energy density is very large, so in the 50s of the 20th century, American scientists began to study how to use nuclear fusion as an energy application to meet the electricity needs of society.
Nuclear fusion is capable of producing so much energy that in the fusion unit at the Princeton Laboratory in the United States, 0.6 tons of fusion fuel are stored, which is equivalent to the energy of 2 million tons of high-quality coal.
4. Nuclear fusion technology.
Nuclear fusion can produce so much energy that people are more eager to use fusion data.
Nuclear fusion is the fusion of two light elements (Li-6 and D) from the nucleus of an atom into a heavy element, releasing greater energy.
Chemical energy is the movement of electrons inside an atom to form molecules and release energy, which is called chemical energy.
The density of this energy is relatively low, while nuclear energy has the advantage of being released when uranium undergoes fission.
The energy density of chemical energy is tens of kilocalories per gram, while the energy density of nuclear energy is almost a million times that of chemical energy.
Nowadays, most of the combustion around people is produced by chemical energy, and nuclear fusion is a continuous source of energy, so people call nuclear fusion controllable nuclear fusion energy.
Controlled nuclear fusion technology will bring almost unlimited electricity, and people can use controlled nuclear fusion technology to convert energy into electricity, so as to meet the needs of modern society.
However, at present, controlled nuclear fusion technology has not broken through the problem that energy input is greater than output, and people continue to explore, hoping to release controlled nuclear fusion technology as soon as possible.
Moreover, controlled nuclear fusion technology still faces a variety of problems, and people have not yet found a suitable nuclear fusion fuel, hydrogen in seawater and helium-3 in the moon are potential nuclear fusion fuels.
There are many difficulties that scientists need to overcome in the study of controlled nuclear fusion technology.
5. Applications of nuclear fusion.
If controlled fusion technology can be developed, then nuclear fusion can be used for space exploration, and humans can launch fusion fuel into space stations to convert solar energy into electricity to power spacecraft.
Moreover, the application of nuclear fusion technology will also bring huge wealth to mankind and change the energy structure and economic pattern of human society.
When building the Space Shuttle, scientists found that there was a big gap between the energy density of the Space Shuttle and the Jet Plane, so energy is a very important issue when it comes to space exploration.
If nuclear fusion can be used on the space shuttle, the problem of insufficient energy in the aircraft can be avoided and enough power can be provided for the space shuttle.
epilogue
People have been trying to explore the path of science, but the development of science will never stop, just like an endless ocean.
Therefore, in the development process of controllable nuclear fusion technology, we may also see the emergence of more black technology products based on "cold nuclear fusion", which will definitely bring great convenience to our scientific and technological life.
In the same way, the resources of seawater and the moon are called fusion fuels, but what else is there besides these two?
In addition to seawater and the Moon, we can also choose other celestial bodies that may have resources that are more suitable for nuclear fusion fuel.