RE: [sl4] giant planets ignition - one more existential risk

From: John K Clark (johnkclark@fastmail.fm)
Date: Sat Dec 13 2008 - 11:41:01 MST


On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:22:03 "Larry"
<entropy@farviolet.com> said:

> I certainly can't claim to rule it out, it certainly
> seems a liquid hydrogen ocean might be able to support a fusion detonation wave.

It was ruled out in the late 1940’s. It won’t even work in a ocean of
pure Deuterium and Tritium, and the composition of the gas giant planets
are about a billion times less fusion friendly than that. The only way
they got it to work in the H bomb is use clever geometry so that one
fission bomb compress the fuel and then at just the right instant
another fission bomb heats it.

Just setting a bomb off in a ocean of fuel will do nothing, that’s why
it took 7 years after the invention of fission bombs to figure out how
to make a H Bomb.

 John K Clark

-- 
  John K Clark
  johnkclark@fastmail.fm
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