Understanding the Fusion Reaction through Magnets
Lets be honest — we all find the joy of playing with magnets. Chucking them at objects to see if they stick, how fun! Taking two magnets together and trying to force them together when they simply cant go any closer. Hmm…. ever wonder why that happens?
Now, what if I told you that magnets can work and behave in the exact same way 2 nuclei behave during the Fusion process?? That sounds crazy right?? First, lets understand how fusion occurs, in order to understand the experiment.
Fusion is a thermonuclear process, which powers up stars. It occurs at millions of degrees, when two or more atomic nuclei fuse together to form a single heavier nucleus, releasing energy in the process.
The main technical difficulty for fusion is getting the nuclei close enough to fuse. At large distances, two nuclei repel one another because of the repulsive electrostatic force between their positively charged protons, also known as the coulomb force. Coulomb’s law states that “like charges repel, and unlike charges attract.” For fusion to occur, the repelling coulomb force has to be overcome by the attractive nuclear force, causing nuclei to fuse.
Three conditions have to be met, in order to increase the chances of the attractive nuclear force to be stronger:
- High temperatures up till millions of degrees (to provoke high-energy collisions)
- Sufficient plasma particle density (to increase the likelihood that collisions occur)
- Sufficient confinement time (to hold the plasma, which has a natural tendency to expand, within a defined volume)
Curious to know how these conditions can be met?? Check out another article I wrote here, which explains the components and the machinery of the tokamak — a device which will enable fusion on Earth!
When all three conditions are met, the chances of achieving fusion increases.
Once the perfect conditions are created, the electrons split from the nuclei, creating a plasma. The nuclei, being positively charged, repel each other strongly due to the coulomb force. To overcome this repulsion, the nuclei move in opposite directions, eventually colliding at very high speeds. This causes the nuclei to overcome the coulomb force and get close enough to each other. When the distance between 2 nuclei becomes minimal, the stronger nuclear attractive force is stronger, and causes the nuclei to merge and fuse, releasing energy in the process.
EXPERIMENT
This experiment is a simple demonstration of what nuclei would experience during fusion. Lets set up the experiment and take a look at how it all works together, to get a deeper understanding of fusion!
Materials needed:
- 2 strong magnets, with sides that repel each other. It should be difficult, but not impossible, to get these repelling poles to touch each other.
Procedure:
- Take the two separate magnets and find the sides that repel each other.
- Try to squeeze the magnets close enough to each other for the repelling sides to stick to each other.
That’s it!! You have successfully made an illustration of what nuclei would experience during a fusion reaction! Confused as to how it can be so simple and how it all relates to fusion?
When atoms are heated up to a million degrees, their electrons are stripped off of their nuclei, creating plasma. Since the nuclei are positively charged, they repel each other. In the experiment, this is shown by trying to put the 2 positive ends of the magnets together, which represents the repelling coulomb force. In order to overcome the repulsion, the nuclei go very fast in different directions, and eventually collide due to high pressure. The close distance causes the nuclei to overcome the coulomb force, and fuse together due to the strong nuclear attraction force, releasing energy. This is shown by forcing the magnets together, getting them close enough so that they are “fused” together, representing the strong nuclear attraction force.
I hope this experiment made it easier to understand the behavior of nuclei during the fusion process. Got more questions?? Feel free to reach out!!
In reference to Fusion Simulation, inspired by the American Museum of Natural History
