Los Alamos Doing What They Do Best

[racing_kitty]

Research of and experiments on explosives. Whether you have a vested professional interest, or you're just a science wonk, this is pretty cool stuff right here, especially when you think about how fast it's moving and how small a sample they were working with.

The heat generated when small voids in high explosives collapse is postulated to be one of the mechanisms for formation of "hot spots," which lead to shock-induced reaction and detonation initiation. In this study, the researchers used the x-ray free electron laser at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the world's most powerful x-ray laser. The team dynamically imaged the collapse of 10-micron diameter voids in single crystals of the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and simultaneously measured x-ray diffraction to investigate high rate crystalline mechanics.

 

[Scotth]

That is cool stuff they are doing. I wish I fully understood what they were doing but it is still fun trying to understand it. I get the same thing at work. Working at a Biotech company I barely understand what they are doing in any detail on the daily basis.

My only satisfaction at work is enjoying the amount of PHD's we have that can't keep their network password straights much less understand computers or even networking at the entry level.