My big brother is doing a science project for school and he has a crazy idea about "Plasma Physics" on how to increase the world's economy by up too 50%!!!(He estimates,)It's a very crasy and dangerous idea that no governmant has revealed to the public yet.Do you think it's worth it to do the experiment?
124027
Maybe he is experiencing the beginnings of schizophrenia.
383697
Great idea.  What is your hypothesis?  What experiment will you do?  What data will you collect?  How will you interpret it?
30275
Besides a tasty treat for the physicists...\n\nThe effervescence of the bubbles has been pondered by many a physicists.\n\nhttp://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/relaged/911111Arc1079.html
183915
Yes, modern day inventions are fascinating. Imagine the stuff that companies have developed but have not shown us. Just the other day, I was reading about quantum teleportation and about creating force fields with plasma. It is amazing how far we have come and where our imagination can take us.
428189
OK I'm cheating - I put this answer up a little while ago.\n\nA quick and dirty idea for a physics project would be one based on electromagnetism. Without knowing what grade you're targeting, a simple one that has a fair amount of pizzazz is to build a gauss rifle. Checkout http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/magnets/gauss.html\n\nThe sci-toys site has some other pretty cool stuff that you might find useful as well.\n\nFor a more advanced example, you can make a small rail gun that applies similar principles but can have a much larger kick. Just do a search on "rail gun experiment".\n\nEnjoy!!
628387
Saw the demo on TV the other day - pretty cool! I wouldn't recommend trying it that way -- not that you'd explode (I think, I hope) but you might feel very uncomfortable if the gas gets trapped!  (you kook! LOL!)
202923
That's a perfectly reasonable experiment.  It addresses issues of solubility and phase equilibria.  As long as the project is done in a logical manner (i.e. following the scientific method), it should be a good project.
472048
Some weeks ago on Yahoo news they showed an expiriment that actually turn a copper tube invisible, they are still perfecting it couse its only been tryed on that tube.\nAnd some months ago, in Japan a scientist created a coat with plasma screen type material and hook up a camera and everything around him was display on the coat, kinda invisible, this also from Yahoo news.
139857
Yes, physics is interesting and it is the study of how nature works. Keep trying and thinking about things. Develop your logic and things will be easier to understand.
527389
It sounds like he built an inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC) device. If so then odds are he is achieving fusion. IEC is an area of fusion research that has gained alot of interest lately. It is a simple and cheep way to create fusion. While IEC is no where close to break even, the fusion reaction it creates can be used for plasma experiments, neutron sources, or even a means of producing medical isotopes. So while is doesn't look like it will be able to produce electricity anytime soon, it is still a worth wild venture. \n\nThe claim that he is the 18 person outside of a government lab to achieve fusion is bogus. Many universities around the world have small scale fusion reactors. In fact causing fusion to occur is easy, the hard part is to get more energy out of it, then you put it. \n\nFor more info on IEC go here\nhttp://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/inertial_electrostatic_confineme.htm
511443
The only way to really find out is by experiment. I mean, this is the science section, not the philosophy section. Go out and fight something.
345026
That is a complicated assignment for a child of that age.  It sounds more like what my seventh grader would be doing.  Actually they just got done with an assignment for science where they had to make a model car which ran on balloon power.  It's not even a full credit?  Ridiculous, you should talk to the principal or vice principal about such a complicated assignment.  Plus doing it over a holiday -- where's the holiday fun in that?!  Definately take that up with someone in authority, perhaps being in the industry they will listen.
583470
The idea certainly makes me think...I love questions that make me ponder "now why didn't I think of that? It makes sense!" I'd like to answer a few questions and concerns which other answerers have brought to light.\n\nSemi-trucks can't stop hauling because America lives through the goods the truckers haul. And up here in MN, the river barges bring up alot of goods, but they can only run when the river isn't frozen...we'd be in big trouble without the truckers running in the winter months.\n\nThe current road workers would simply switch materials, instead of laying asphalt and concrete, they'd lay solar panels and electrical wiring. And as for the oil industry employees, they can help maintain the new roadways. With a project like this, there'll be plenty to do and there'll be people who need that work.\n\nIf we can go from home-spun and wooden farm implements to tv and cell phones in 200 years, there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to go from asphalt and oil to solar panels and magnetic cars in another 200. The colonists would never have dreamed of the things we have now, the inventions we've come up with. So it's understandable that we now can't fathom using solar panels for roadways.\n\nHow will erasing our dependancy on oil and building electro-magnetic interstate highways revert us into a 3rd world country? We'd still be thriving and expanding, we'd be moving forward. Some 3rd world countries still have public plumbing in the streets and walk further everyday for dry wood to heat their homes and hearths.\n\nWhat WOULD the durability of these panels be? Would we have to reduce speed limits (which increases travel time, thus making a moot issue of conservancy and prevention) so there'd potentially be fewer accidents?\n\nAs for Star Trek, you should have watched the show titled something like "How William Shatner Changed the World". The guy who invented cell phones got the idea from Kirk's communicator that he was constantly flipping out of his pocket.\n\nI'd be willing to take part in such a venture as this, but I need more research done and stats provided because I can't answer anything about another person's concerns about CO2 or heat or friction. Plus, I have a question of my own. In the regions that get snow, plus those that flood, how will we prevent the electricity from shorting out? If I'm reading the original proposition correctly, electricity keeps traffic moving. Traffic standing still is generally something seen in big cities (or construction on the I-90 bridge here, LOL) So would little burbs of 50K people have traffic jams like LA notoriously does if the electricity shorts out?
26635
I think it sounds very interesting.  Have you thought about how you will test this question and then how you will present your findings?  Good luck to you!
81368
The current shortfalls are lack of long range coherence and huge power consumption.  Work to weaponize this technology has been going on for at least ten years that I know of, and it still is of very limited use.  The bomb clearing application is a fairly clever one, and actually makes use of the poor long range coherence of the beam.  The charged plasma can be projected a short distance, at which point it will try to find the lowest resistance path to ground.  Metal objects, especially ones with sharp edges, will attract this charged plasma strongly, and so hidden metal objects within close range will draw the strike to themselves.  So, for this it seems to work quite well.  It's still a large, cumbersome, and power intensive piece of equipment, however, without much record of successful use in the field.  The goal, ultimately, is to turn this sort of thing into a full scale beam weapon, but I think that's quite a ways off and possibly self-defeating.  Lasers typically convert <10%, and often <5% of the power they consume into laser light, so they're very inefficient.  The idea with LIPC is that a fairly high power laser, one powerful enough to ionize the air but not so powerful that it's particularly dangerous to armored vehicles, can be used to open an ionized channel in the air which will conduct electricity, and can then be followed by a significant current of high voltage electrons.  It's something like artificial directed lighnting.  Instead of generating a high enough voltage difference that the air spontaneously ionizes in a random branching pattern, the laser provides guidance and the plasma, which can be generated more efficiently but is difficult to control, provides the power.  It's potentially more efficient than a laser powerful enough to do serious damage, but it's still a whole lot of power and isn't likely to yield an easily portable weapon any time soon.  The current bomb finder has very limited range, and has to move very slowly in order to scan the area, and is almost as large as a tank.  So, is it practical?   If moving ten miles an hour with a vehicle that sucks down fuel at a tremendous rate is worth the tradeoff of possible hidden bombs, it makes sense, but this only makes sense for limited areas where bomb threats are especially high, and for moving especially high value troops or materials past the point.  Can it be made smaller and more efficient?  Probably, but not by much.  The technology is inherently a high power consumption device.  Lasers are not likely to get much more efficient.  Two-component mixed chemical excimers can be used to at least remove the power generation need for the laser, but then you're limited to the number of shots you can provide, whereas an electrically powered laser can be used with fairly high duty cycle and is much more suitable for the sweeping function of detecting bombs.  But, all the same, the technology does work, and can be made to work in fairly rough environments.  Lasers can be delicate machinery, true, but they've got a good history of use on the battlefield for signal use and can be made sufficiently durable.  Likewise with the electron guns used to produce the plasma.  It's a somewhat complicated device, yes, but not that much different as far as the fudamental technology than that used in plasma cutters which are widely used in industrial metal shops with good uptime.  \n\nThe real question is whether or not the system meets a real military need given the limitations of slow speed and huge power consumption.  Of course, the military has been known to spend huge amounts of money on devices and systems that are complete crap, just because they sounded cool, but if the company is to ever really be successful, they'll have to have something that has a real world usefulness.  It's not clear to me that this device, as clever as it is, really provides that.   This is going to be the real question, and the
609417
sounds interesting. good luck!\n\nnot sure if you are already, but you may want to familiarize yourself with the contraversial works of William Reich  - who "discovered" a mysterious naturally occuring cosmic energy source called "Orgone". he therorized that you could construct a collector using alternaiting layers of reflective metal within organic shields and harness its incredible power to cure cancer among other things. Reich also developed a "cloudbuster" for seeding rain clouds (which was the basis of a Kate Bush video from several years back). \n\nA lot of skeptics have attemted to discredit Reich over the years. But a lot of people fervently believe in his work. With what you are working on his studies could be something you might find interesting.\n\nEDIT:\n\nps - as far as finding a zinc rod, they are used commonly for electroplating (ie chrome finishing) so check your yellow pages.
620173
Sure.  The 'Butterfly Effect'.  Research the chaos theory.  Amazing stuff.